https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-cenotaph-dedication-again-1.5250149
We most certainly should remember those who died in Afghanistan. But we should not use such an event to glorify war - though that's a bad habit we have.
The war in Afghanistan is an American war - and it is a war that has no justification. Canadians went and Canadians died. But we had no business to send them. Nor did the U.S. That lesson should have been rubbed home in recent months as the U.S. is making noises about peace after 19 years of killing people it had no reason to kill in the first place.
Why did the U.S. start that war? (It had earlier trained and equipped those same people to kill Russians.) The U.S. fought that war because it looked easy, because there were resources to be plundered.... Those are not legal reasons to start a war.
Why did Canada join that war? Was Afghanistan a threat to Canada? Nobody has ever said so.
Why did the U.S. want Canada to join that war? 1. Because the U.S. wanted to give the impression that the west in general supported this war. 2. Because Canada is an American colony. 3. Why didn't the Canadian Legion raise hell about us sending Canadians to die in an illegal American war? Because The Legion leadership has always seen its role as being to glorify war....and to do it in a simple- minded way.
Should we remember those Canadians who died in a war that was none of our business? We certainly should. They put their lives on the line.
But let's not glorify this. Those Canadians who served and died certainly did so to serve their country. But they weren't serving their country. They weren't even serving the U.S. They were serving wealthy Americans who wanted to plunder the resources of Afghanistan. And let's not pretend it was anything else.
We owe those who served and died in Afghanistan. And we can only pay that debt by telling the truth. But by lying about it, we simply guarantee that more Canadians die fighting wars for billionaires.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-trade-war-impacts-1.5247996
________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/tropical-fish-nova-scotia-1.5248688
We're changing nature. And there's a heavy price for that.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-teachers-march-to-protect-our-students-in-1-of-several-demonstrations-1.5250973
Why are the Hong Kongers so determined to maintain their freedom? It's because they and other Chinese had the horror of living under British and other European rule through many lifetimes. The British, in particular, were murderous, arrogant, savage. I was in Hong Kong in its late years of British rule. The British didn't kill Hong Kongers any more but, oh, they were unspeakably arrogant. I got to meet senior British officials - and they were as racist and hateful as - well - as racist and hateful as they had always been.
Hong Kongers were delighted that the British were leaving - but they had no taste for the Chinese masters who would follow the British. The got used to freedom after the British left - and they wanted to keep their freedom. This is not just a rising again Chinese rule. It is shaped by those long years of the horror of British rule. Thus the intensity of their resistance to China.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/not-for-sale-danish-politicians-ridicule-idea-of-trump-buying-greenland-1.5249336
Did Trump actually mean this? I think he did. But he has since been trying to laugh it off.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/iran-oil-tanker-us-uk-gibraltar-warrant
Don't be lulled to sleep by the Iran confrontation. This one has the potential to spark World War Three.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/15/uk-caught-in-middle-of-us-power-play-with-iran
When I was very young, Britain ruled the waves. It was the greatest empire in history. In grade 1, we saluted the Union Jack, pointed to it, and said, "I pledge allegiance to THIS flag and to the empire for which it stands."
Now, it is in the final stages of its ruin, clinging to a U.S. which abuses it.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/16/warning-signs-for-global-economy-the-countries-spooking-investors
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/17/nuclear-arms-race-is-back-and-more-dangerous-than-before
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/17/trump-netanyahu-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib
________________________________________________________________
https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
Check your calendar. This is 75 years after the war to end all wars.
________________________________________________________________
__https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
______________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-corporate-media/
________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-recession-bill-maher/
Of course. In a time of recession, the Trumps and the Fords and the rest of that crowd will reduce taxes on the rich - and say it's good for us. That's what happened in the 1930s.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/militarization-national-religion/
It's not just the U.S. Many, many countries glorify war. They seem not to have noticed that Naziis glorified the military as people who fought for their country.
So did the Japanese.
Leaders of The Canadian Legion should be pioneers in helping us to understand war. Instead, they teach us to glorify it.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/new-york-times-donald-trump-election-2016/
The world of journalism is largely a gutter of lies and propaganda. And that includes even the New York Times. And Conrad Black really filled the gutter when he founded Canada's National Post.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/central-america-migrant-crisis-foreign-policy-trump/
We have very limited information about the U.S. murder, starvation, slavery of Latin Americans. (And none about Canadian behaviour in that region.) This is the old, British Empire with a vengeance.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/17/bolton-desperate-start-war-us-issues-warrant-seize-iranian-oil-tanker
_________________________________________________________________
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/08/for-cliff-may-war-pays/
_________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/india-may-use-nuclear-option-first-to-pre-empt-attack-of-pakistan
There are now several nuclear wars in the making. Not bad for a world that said it would never use them.
________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/july-2019-was-hottest-month-since-records-began-in-1880
Hey, trust your billionaire oil barons. They're only doing what's good for you. And trust Canada's Conservatives with their long history of going only what is good for...
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/uncle-sam-was-born-lethal/
In fairness, the Americans learned about greed and brutality from the British Empire. But, oh, they built on it. And their schools lay the groundwork for more greed and murder with a heavy groundwork of historical lies.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/is-white-supremacism-a-mental-illness/
______________________________________________________________
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/08/16/Ready-Or-Not-And-Mediocre-Rich/
________________________________________________________________
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/08/15/Liberal-Partisan-Response-Trudeau-Scandal-Sad-Reality/
______________________________________________________________
Pay attention to ALL of this one. Alberta can do well without the oil industry.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/14/Calgary-Oil-Gas-Execs-Backing-Scheer/
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.globalresearch.ca/19-million-acres-farmland-were-not-planted-crops-this-year/5686601
________________________________________________________________
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the most vicious and criminal act in the whole history of warfare. And the excuse that it saved American lives is pure bunk.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/were-atomic-bombings-hiroshima-nagasaki-war-crime-crime-against-humanity/5683441
________________________________________________________________
I haven't been able to use this site for some months - but the problems seem to have cleared up - and it's an excellent site.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/
______________________________________________________________
I don't doubt that the following story is true. The U.S. is interfering in the Hong Kong/China dispute. But it's also true that the Hong Kongers are desperately anxious to live in a democracy - and that China is NOT a democracy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52103.htm
_________________________________________________________________
Forget the phony bluster in Trump's speeches. Ordinary Americans and Canadians are getting systematically robbed by the very, very wealthy of these countries.
https://popularresistance.org/a-litany-of-economic-woes/
________________________________________________________________
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/plants-struggle-grow-atmosphere/
_________________________________________________________________
This next item on education is true so far as it goes. But it is kind to the western world. The reality is that our western societies have their own barriers to education. An important barrier, one I grew up with, is that children of low income families are not motivated to learn. They have no sense that this is any part of their world. (And it doesn't help when we reduce teaching staff in our schools. and it doesn't help when we ignore the problem.)
One might add - though large numbers now go to university, their university professors have no training in teaching. None. Nada. Many regard it as beneath them. More are just lost in their own egos.
How should learning proceed at university level? Most have no idea. I still have a strong memory of all those courses I took - and memorized for exams. I remember nothing of them, any of them. Well, I remember a course on pilgrimage in the middle ages. And I remember that 'if yow leste' means 'if it is pleasing to you.' But I've yet to see any opportunity to use that knowledge.
It takes study and training to know how to provide useful stages in learning. Most university teachers don't have that. (And it's an unforgivable sin for a university teacher to say that.)
My first course in university was a great, big blog of information about Canada from then to now. It had little to do with the reality of Canadian history. It was just masses of time to spit out on exam day.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/
________________________________________________________________
https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/16/inside-the-submissive-void/
_________________________________________________________________
There seems to be quite a rash of these reports lately. There is some truth in them. But it's also true they ignore the needs and values of the people of Hong Kong. Those people were always treated brutally and even murderously by their western invaders - notably the British.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/17/china-and-the-zombies-of-the-past/
________________________________________________________________
https://theintercept.com/2019/08/16/portland-far-right-rally/
The world tomorrow.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-cenotaph-dedication-again-1.5250149
They were noble. Okay. And what about those Afghans who died fighting for their country. Were they noble, too? The British who conquered much of the world - China, India, Canada, the U.S., much of Africa - were they noble? And the people who defended themselves against them - were they all noble? In the Americas, our ancestors stole land and murdered native peoples. Was that noble? And the native peoples who tried to fight back - where they noble?
Isn't it time for us to stop romanticizing war, and to look at what it really is? Canadian veterans of Afghanistan were sent to a country which in no way threatened Canada. No. The Canadians were not evil. They were victims of our use of them. We were evil for sending them to kill and die in an American invasion of them. We were evil for not questioning why we did this. We were guilty of sacrificing Canadians to fight for billionaires who wanted to make big money out of this - for themselves.
Let's grow up. Let's stop glorifying war. Let's recognize the truth. We sent those Canadians to kill people they knew nothing about, people who in no way threatened Canada. We put Canadian lives at risk for no good reason.
When, a century and more ago, wealthy Brits wanted to plunder countries, they sent British troops to to the dirty work for them. The troops got nothing but words of praise ('splendid chaps) for young men who were dumped on the streets as soon as they were no longer needed.
War is not glorious. It is a product of greed and murder to serve the rich. Almost all wars have been like that. Praise for the troops is an abuse of them. Let's grow up.
We most certainly should remember those who died in Afghanistan. But we should not use such an event to glorify war - though that's a bad habit we have.
The war in Afghanistan is an American war - and it is a war that has no justification. Canadians went and Canadians died. But we had no business to send them. Nor did the U.S. That lesson should have been rubbed home in recent months as the U.S. is making noises about peace after 19 years of killing people it had no reason to kill in the first place.
Why did the U.S. start that war? (It had earlier trained and equipped those same people to kill Russians.) The U.S. fought that war because it looked easy, because there were resources to be plundered.... Those are not legal reasons to start a war.
Why did Canada join that war? Was Afghanistan a threat to Canada? Nobody has ever said so.
Why did the U.S. want Canada to join that war? 1. Because the U.S. wanted to give the impression that the west in general supported this war. 2. Because Canada is an American colony. 3. Why didn't the Canadian Legion raise hell about us sending Canadians to die in an illegal American war? Because The Legion leadership has always seen its role as being to glorify war....and to do it in a simple- minded way.
Should we remember those Canadians who died in a war that was none of our business? We certainly should. They put their lives on the line.
But let's not glorify this. Those Canadians who served and died certainly did so to serve their country. But they weren't serving their country. They weren't even serving the U.S. They were serving wealthy Americans who wanted to plunder the resources of Afghanistan. And let's not pretend it was anything else.
We owe those who served and died in Afghanistan. And we can only pay that debt by telling the truth. But by lying about it, we simply guarantee that more Canadians die fighting wars for billionaires.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-trade-war-impacts-1.5247996
________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/tropical-fish-nova-scotia-1.5248688
We're changing nature. And there's a heavy price for that.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-teachers-march-to-protect-our-students-in-1-of-several-demonstrations-1.5250973
Why are the Hong Kongers so determined to maintain their freedom? It's because they and other Chinese had the horror of living under British and other European rule through many lifetimes. The British, in particular, were murderous, arrogant, savage. I was in Hong Kong in its late years of British rule. The British didn't kill Hong Kongers any more but, oh, they were unspeakably arrogant. I got to meet senior British officials - and they were as racist and hateful as - well - as racist and hateful as they had always been.
Hong Kongers were delighted that the British were leaving - but they had no taste for the Chinese masters who would follow the British. The got used to freedom after the British left - and they wanted to keep their freedom. This is not just a rising again Chinese rule. It is shaped by those long years of the horror of British rule. Thus the intensity of their resistance to China.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/not-for-sale-danish-politicians-ridicule-idea-of-trump-buying-greenland-1.5249336
Did Trump actually mean this? I think he did. But he has since been trying to laugh it off.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/iran-oil-tanker-us-uk-gibraltar-warrant
Don't be lulled to sleep by the Iran confrontation. This one has the potential to spark World War Three.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/15/uk-caught-in-middle-of-us-power-play-with-iran
When I was very young, Britain ruled the waves. It was the greatest empire in history. In grade 1, we saluted the Union Jack, pointed to it, and said, "I pledge allegiance to THIS flag and to the empire for which it stands."
Now, it is in the final stages of its ruin, clinging to a U.S. which abuses it.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/16/warning-signs-for-global-economy-the-countries-spooking-investors
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/17/nuclear-arms-race-is-back-and-more-dangerous-than-before
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/17/trump-netanyahu-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib
________________________________________________________________
https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
Check your calendar. This is 75 years after the war to end all wars.
________________________________________________________________
__https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
______________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-corporate-media/
________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-recession-bill-maher/
Of course. In a time of recession, the Trumps and the Fords and the rest of that crowd will reduce taxes on the rich - and say it's good for us. That's what happened in the 1930s.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/militarization-national-religion/
It's not just the U.S. Many, many countries glorify war. They seem not to have noticed that Naziis glorified the military as people who fought for their country.
So did the Japanese.
Leaders of The Canadian Legion should be pioneers in helping us to understand war. Instead, they teach us to glorify it.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/new-york-times-donald-trump-election-2016/
The world of journalism is largely a gutter of lies and propaganda. And that includes even the New York Times. And Conrad Black really filled the gutter when he founded Canada's National Post.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/central-america-migrant-crisis-foreign-policy-trump/
We have very limited information about the U.S. murder, starvation, slavery of Latin Americans. (And none about Canadian behaviour in that region.) This is the old, British Empire with a vengeance.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/17/bolton-desperate-start-war-us-issues-warrant-seize-iranian-oil-tanker
_________________________________________________________________
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/08/for-cliff-may-war-pays/
_________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/india-may-use-nuclear-option-first-to-pre-empt-attack-of-pakistan
There are now several nuclear wars in the making. Not bad for a world that said it would never use them.
________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/july-2019-was-hottest-month-since-records-began-in-1880
Hey, trust your billionaire oil barons. They're only doing what's good for you. And trust Canada's Conservatives with their long history of going only what is good for...
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/uncle-sam-was-born-lethal/
In fairness, the Americans learned about greed and brutality from the British Empire. But, oh, they built on it. And their schools lay the groundwork for more greed and murder with a heavy groundwork of historical lies.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/is-white-supremacism-a-mental-illness/
______________________________________________________________
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/08/16/Ready-Or-Not-And-Mediocre-Rich/
________________________________________________________________
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/08/15/Liberal-Partisan-Response-Trudeau-Scandal-Sad-Reality/
______________________________________________________________
Pay attention to ALL of this one. Alberta can do well without the oil industry.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/14/Calgary-Oil-Gas-Execs-Backing-Scheer/
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.globalresearch.ca/19-million-acres-farmland-were-not-planted-crops-this-year/5686601
________________________________________________________________
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the most vicious and criminal act in the whole history of warfare. And the excuse that it saved American lives is pure bunk.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/were-atomic-bombings-hiroshima-nagasaki-war-crime-crime-against-humanity/5683441
________________________________________________________________
I haven't been able to use this site for some months - but the problems seem to have cleared up - and it's an excellent site.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/
______________________________________________________________
I don't doubt that the following story is true. The U.S. is interfering in the Hong Kong/China dispute. But it's also true that the Hong Kongers are desperately anxious to live in a democracy - and that China is NOT a democracy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52103.htm
_________________________________________________________________
Forget the phony bluster in Trump's speeches. Ordinary Americans and Canadians are getting systematically robbed by the very, very wealthy of these countries.
https://popularresistance.org/a-litany-of-economic-woes/
________________________________________________________________
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/plants-struggle-grow-atmosphere/
_________________________________________________________________
This next item on education is true so far as it goes. But it is kind to the western world. The reality is that our western societies have their own barriers to education. An important barrier, one I grew up with, is that children of low income families are not motivated to learn. They have no sense that this is any part of their world. (And it doesn't help when we reduce teaching staff in our schools. and it doesn't help when we ignore the problem.)
One might add - though large numbers now go to university, their university professors have no training in teaching. None. Nada. Many regard it as beneath them. More are just lost in their own egos.
How should learning proceed at university level? Most have no idea. I still have a strong memory of all those courses I took - and memorized for exams. I remember nothing of them, any of them. Well, I remember a course on pilgrimage in the middle ages. And I remember that 'if yow leste' means 'if it is pleasing to you.' But I've yet to see any opportunity to use that knowledge.
It takes study and training to know how to provide useful stages in learning. Most university teachers don't have that. (And it's an unforgivable sin for a university teacher to say that.)
My first course in university was a great, big blog of information about Canada from then to now. It had little to do with the reality of Canadian history. It was just masses of time to spit out on exam day.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/
________________________________________________________________
https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/16/inside-the-submissive-void/
_________________________________________________________________
There seems to be quite a rash of these reports lately. There is some truth in them. But it's also true they ignore the needs and values of the people of Hong Kong. Those people were always treated brutally and even murderously by their western invaders - notably the British.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/17/china-and-the-zombies-of-the-past/
________________________________________________________________
https://theintercept.com/2019/08/16/portland-far-right-rally/
The world tomorrow.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-cenotaph-dedication-again-1.5250149
They were noble. Okay. And what about those Afghans who died fighting for their country. Were they noble, too? The British who conquered much of the world - China, India, Canada, the U.S., much of Africa - were they noble? And the people who defended themselves against them - were they all noble? In the Americas, our ancestors stole land and murdered native peoples. Was that noble? And the native peoples who tried to fight back - where they noble?
Isn't it time for us to stop romanticizing war, and to look at what it really is? Canadian veterans of Afghanistan were sent to a country which in no way threatened Canada. No. The Canadians were not evil. They were victims of our use of them. We were evil for sending them to kill and die in an American invasion of them. We were evil for not questioning why we did this. We were guilty of sacrificing Canadians to fight for billionaires who wanted to make big money out of this - for themselves.
Let's grow up. Let's stop glorifying war. Let's recognize the truth. We sent those Canadians to kill people they knew nothing about, people who in no way threatened Canada. We put Canadian lives at risk for no good reason.
When, a century and more ago, wealthy Brits wanted to plunder countries, they sent British troops to to the dirty work for them. The troops got nothing but words of praise ('splendid chaps) for young men who were dumped on the streets as soon as they were no longer needed.
War is not glorious. It is a product of greed and murder to serve the rich. Almost all wars have been like that. Praise for the troops is an abuse of them. Let's grow up.
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