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The site above refers to the massive trade agreements that Harper is involved in. The news media are not getting or giving much information on them. And there's a reason for it. These agreements give capitalists from all over the world control over our economy, our environment, our lives. With these agreements, democracy is meaningless, and the law becomes a device for enforced robbery of most us us by an aristocracy of the very wealthy and very greedy. No wonder the Irving press isn't talking about them.
It will certainly produce violence all over the world. (Except in New Brunswick.)
_______________________________________________________________________________
"RCMP carbine rollout, training on track, commander says". Translation? One year AFTER three police were murdered, the brass is putting carbine racks in police cars; SOME of the racks have carbines in them; the RCMP has, over a year too late, just begun training to use them. There is no information about why police without body armour and armed only with pistols were sent to deal with a man armed with rifles. Nor is there a word about why a Justin Bourque was able to purchase such weapons or why police don't have a record of who owns such guns.
The story also says that public demand led to the very recent reforms. Like hell it did. There was no public demand. And there was certainly no demand in the pages of the Irving press. The demand came from the police union.
In short, the action that has been taken is minimal, and it's very, very late. I could wish this city did have public demands for things other that FIFA matches and an events centre to make money for hotels and restaurants and to give a low-cost arena to a hockey team owner.
The next headline is "Literacy key to success, says district education council."Gee! Who would have guessed? But, in fairness, that's not the gist of the story or of what council said. What it said is that cuts to staff are going to make it very, very difficult to make necessary improvements to the teaching of literacy. But you have to read half way through the story to find that out - and, as the editors should know, very few people read that much of any news story. That's why a headline has to make the point of the story clear, and the opening paragraphs have to deal with the essential points. Didn't they teach you that at Journalism school, Jamie Irving?
One of the biggest stories in the section is on A6. Now - follow this headline. "Florida FIFA viewer catches FOX Sports' Moncton fail". Well! Does that give you a clear idea of what this story is about? No? Try this instead. "FOX shows views of wrong city in Moncton FIFA coverage."
And, once you've gone to all that trouble - who cares?
_______________________________________________________________________
The editorial is another brainless piece of ga-ga small town boosterism for the FIFA games.
Norbert has yet another excellent and intelligent comment on the Truth and Reconciliation report. The key to it is in the final paragraph. "Ultimately, the question is whether Canada has the courage and decency to embark on a new, better, inclusive and respectful relationship with our First Nations. We could. But will we?"
Norbert is bang on.
Rod Allen treats us, once again, to his lead-footed humour, and calling it a commentary.
The commentary below it is not a commentary. It's another freebie public statement from a group, this time the Association of Atlantic Universities. It's all about how the universities are cooperating to save money. I'm glad to hear it. However, they could save a lot more by a) making their professors learn something about education b)rethinking their waste-of-time curriculum structure, and c) cutting back on their oversized and absurdly overpaid administrators.
Over the last 40 years or so, the universities have gone wild in following a business model of operations. And, as in business, all that does is increase the hordes of overpaid management people, and destroy any concept of what education is.
Alec Bruce, takes a long time to say nothing until the last sentence. And then what he gives us is a cutesy propaganda line.
On the way, he says that the economic process is outside the wheelhouse of elected representatives.
Wanna think that over, Alec? The economic process is a key to the survival of a society. Are you telling us that in a democracy, we are not allowed to be involved in that process? Are you telling us that such decisions should be left to a largely hereditary aristocracy whose basic philosophy is self-interest and greed?
Are you telling us that very rich people are the only ones who know how to run an economy? - those same very rich ones whose actions caused the great depression of the 1930s, and the severe recession we are still living in?
And aren't you aware that those same rich people ARE the ones who have been running our economy - through their puppets in the Liberal and Conservative parties - for generations?
For all of section A, the only thing worth reading is Norbert Cunningham's column.
________________________________________________________________________________
Section B Canada&World opens with a headline that's not just misleading; it's a lie. "Fracking waste water treatment options offered in new report." The report continues on B2 with the reassuring sub-headline "fracturing fluid is made up of 90% water.( Watch Alec Bruce to write a column about how it's 90% water. No problemo).
To find the real story, you have to read to paragraph 16 to find out that even after it's been treated, there is NO safe way to dispose of the waste water. None. Nada. You have to read 16 paragraphs of drivel to learn that. And very, very few people read that much of any story. Newspapers know that. And they know that the best way to lie without actually lying is to hide the main point of the story.
This is what is called unethical journalism. These people must have studied at the Mike Duffy School of Journalism.
There's a teeny, weeny story on B3 "Canadian, U.S. scientists call for oilsands moratorium. It's only four sentences; so it doesn't say much. The hundred scientists include a Nobel prize winner. (But it doesn't say whether he's a respected ora noted Nobel prize winner. So we don't know if he's in a class with Professor Saillant.
The big story on the page is that Harper went walking on the deck of HMCS Fredericton. And sure enough, there's a colour photo, suitable for framing, of him walking on the deck.
On B6, Jeb Bush tells us that Putin is a bully who understands only brute force. Oh. How different, how very different from Jeb Bush's homeland (and his family) who have been invading, bombing, starving people all over the world without even declaring war - and killing millions of civilians ever since 1945. And that pattern of bullying goes back to the earliest days of the US.
Big business wants war with Russia and China. It wants war to satisfy its greed for economic domination of the whole world. The Bush family has made its millions through at least three generations of pimping for big business. He'll do what big business tells him to do. So will Clinton.
The reality is that force has become the only deterrent to US big business. But most Americans have bought the propaganda. Recently, a pollster asked Americans at to sign a petition telling Obama to launch a pre-emptive, nuclear attack on Russia. (The petition was given only to Obama supporters.) And they signed it.)
All countries raise their children in lies about their country's history. But the US does it better than any other country. That was shown when Ronald Reagan famously said, "The US has never waged a war of aggression in its history." It has fought only to defend freedom and democracy. Huh?
The whole conquest of what is now the United States was wars of aggression against native peoples. In the early 1800s, neither Canada not Mexico threatened the US. But they both got invaded. The Civil War was not fought to free slaves. Even Lincoln admitted that. At the turn of the century, Spain did not threaten the US. Cuba and Haiti did not threaten the US. But both got taken by force, and put under dictatorships.
The Phillipines did not threaten the US. They got invaded, anyway, and put under American rule in 1900. Nobody in Central American could possibly threaten the US. They all got invaded, anyway, usually to install dictators. Germany did not attack the US in 1917. Nor was there any possibility it could. Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Yemen and Guatemala did not attack the US.
In fact, the last time anybody attacked the US was in the war of 1812 when British troops set fire to the White House.
But American children, like many children around the world, are raised in a mythical history of their purity, and even racial superiority.
And that, with the right propaganda and injections of fear and hatred creates a society that supports an insane foreign policy which could kill everyone - including the billionaires who spread the hatred and fear and ignorance.
There's a good book related to this subject by a Canadian historian. It's Margaret MacMullin, "The Uses and Abuses of History". It's available in soft cover by Penquin.
___________________________________________________________________________
Oh, there's an important story on B7. "Quebec introduces plan to combat violent radicalization". The Quebec human rights commission will investigate people suspected of committing hate speech and inciting violence.
Well, I was born and lived most of my life in Quebec. And if they are going to investigate hate speech and inciting violence, I would suggest they start with the Parti Quebecois, the Bloc Populaire, and most of the francophone news media in that province.
I was many years on the provincial board of the major anglophone rights group. I can well remember the incitement to hatred. I can remember the speakers at the riots. I have been to separatist rallies. I have heard the hatred and anger from people like Levesque and Parizeau. I can remember the death threats that made me very careful when going home and the end of a day. I can remember sittiing beside a PQ premier at a gathering we were both to speak at. At first, he wouldn't talk to me at all because I was un cochon anglais. Then he told me about how poor his family had been because they only owned a farm with a big house on it and he inherited only that and $150,000, while the maudit anglais were all rich. (In fact, I had grown up in a rented, two room flat. His parents had the money to send him to a private school. Mine could barely afford the bus fare to send me to a public one.)
Then there was the day our offices were torched. Within hours, the francophone press announced we had done it and blamed out president - with no evidence whatever. Police had been warned, and they were supposed to be watching the offices. But they seem to have been on a coffee break at the time. For weeks we had to meet in secret at an English-Catholic convent - and I've always been grateful to them for taking the risk.
(all of this is why I have no respect for anglo supremacy groups in this province.)
But I don't think the commission will investigate the PQ or the Bloc. No. This is for Muslims only.
And they're going to stop young people from leaving to join extremist groups? Oh? Quite a few leave to join the US army. That's pretty extremist. Will they be stopped? And will they be stopped from joining those Canadian extremists who are bombing Syria?
The same sort of thing is happening in Ottawa with Bill C 51 which, unnoticed by the Irving press, has passed the Senate. That forbids hate speech and extremism and radicalism. But what do those words mean? If I criticize Israel (as many Israelis and Canadian Jews do), then, according to Harper, I am spreading hate. But I bet if I encouraged hatred against ISIS, it wouldn't be a hate speech. What is extremism? Would that include George Washington? Tom Mulcair?
Speech is either free or it isn't. When a government tells us what we are allowed to say, then we have no free speech. We have thought control. It begins, in this case, as something racist, then it quickly becomes much broader control of even what we are allowed to think. Harper preaches hatred every day. Will he be investigated? Today's story about Jeb Bush and his views on Putin is hate speech.
These investigations won't stop hate speech at all. What they will do is to strengthen a system of permissable hate speech.
Stephen Harper, I hate you. I think you're the slimiest prime minister this country has ever had Anyone who is a New Brunswick Conservative or Liberal, I hate you because you have all sold out the people of the province for generations. Mr. Irving, I hate you because your newspapers have lied and misinformed the people of New Brunswick for decades.
Send on the investigators.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Then, dear reader, take a break with the site below.
The site above refers to the massive trade agreements that Harper is involved in. The news media are not getting or giving much information on them. And there's a reason for it. These agreements give capitalists from all over the world control over our economy, our environment, our lives. With these agreements, democracy is meaningless, and the law becomes a device for enforced robbery of most us us by an aristocracy of the very wealthy and very greedy. No wonder the Irving press isn't talking about them.
It will certainly produce violence all over the world. (Except in New Brunswick.)
_______________________________________________________________________________
"RCMP carbine rollout, training on track, commander says". Translation? One year AFTER three police were murdered, the brass is putting carbine racks in police cars; SOME of the racks have carbines in them; the RCMP has, over a year too late, just begun training to use them. There is no information about why police without body armour and armed only with pistols were sent to deal with a man armed with rifles. Nor is there a word about why a Justin Bourque was able to purchase such weapons or why police don't have a record of who owns such guns.
The story also says that public demand led to the very recent reforms. Like hell it did. There was no public demand. And there was certainly no demand in the pages of the Irving press. The demand came from the police union.
In short, the action that has been taken is minimal, and it's very, very late. I could wish this city did have public demands for things other that FIFA matches and an events centre to make money for hotels and restaurants and to give a low-cost arena to a hockey team owner.
The next headline is "Literacy key to success, says district education council."Gee! Who would have guessed? But, in fairness, that's not the gist of the story or of what council said. What it said is that cuts to staff are going to make it very, very difficult to make necessary improvements to the teaching of literacy. But you have to read half way through the story to find that out - and, as the editors should know, very few people read that much of any news story. That's why a headline has to make the point of the story clear, and the opening paragraphs have to deal with the essential points. Didn't they teach you that at Journalism school, Jamie Irving?
One of the biggest stories in the section is on A6. Now - follow this headline. "Florida FIFA viewer catches FOX Sports' Moncton fail". Well! Does that give you a clear idea of what this story is about? No? Try this instead. "FOX shows views of wrong city in Moncton FIFA coverage."
And, once you've gone to all that trouble - who cares?
_______________________________________________________________________
The editorial is another brainless piece of ga-ga small town boosterism for the FIFA games.
Norbert has yet another excellent and intelligent comment on the Truth and Reconciliation report. The key to it is in the final paragraph. "Ultimately, the question is whether Canada has the courage and decency to embark on a new, better, inclusive and respectful relationship with our First Nations. We could. But will we?"
Norbert is bang on.
Rod Allen treats us, once again, to his lead-footed humour, and calling it a commentary.
The commentary below it is not a commentary. It's another freebie public statement from a group, this time the Association of Atlantic Universities. It's all about how the universities are cooperating to save money. I'm glad to hear it. However, they could save a lot more by a) making their professors learn something about education b)rethinking their waste-of-time curriculum structure, and c) cutting back on their oversized and absurdly overpaid administrators.
Over the last 40 years or so, the universities have gone wild in following a business model of operations. And, as in business, all that does is increase the hordes of overpaid management people, and destroy any concept of what education is.
Alec Bruce, takes a long time to say nothing until the last sentence. And then what he gives us is a cutesy propaganda line.
On the way, he says that the economic process is outside the wheelhouse of elected representatives.
Wanna think that over, Alec? The economic process is a key to the survival of a society. Are you telling us that in a democracy, we are not allowed to be involved in that process? Are you telling us that such decisions should be left to a largely hereditary aristocracy whose basic philosophy is self-interest and greed?
Are you telling us that very rich people are the only ones who know how to run an economy? - those same very rich ones whose actions caused the great depression of the 1930s, and the severe recession we are still living in?
And aren't you aware that those same rich people ARE the ones who have been running our economy - through their puppets in the Liberal and Conservative parties - for generations?
For all of section A, the only thing worth reading is Norbert Cunningham's column.
________________________________________________________________________________
Section B Canada&World opens with a headline that's not just misleading; it's a lie. "Fracking waste water treatment options offered in new report." The report continues on B2 with the reassuring sub-headline "fracturing fluid is made up of 90% water.( Watch Alec Bruce to write a column about how it's 90% water. No problemo).
To find the real story, you have to read to paragraph 16 to find out that even after it's been treated, there is NO safe way to dispose of the waste water. None. Nada. You have to read 16 paragraphs of drivel to learn that. And very, very few people read that much of any story. Newspapers know that. And they know that the best way to lie without actually lying is to hide the main point of the story.
This is what is called unethical journalism. These people must have studied at the Mike Duffy School of Journalism.
There's a teeny, weeny story on B3 "Canadian, U.S. scientists call for oilsands moratorium. It's only four sentences; so it doesn't say much. The hundred scientists include a Nobel prize winner. (But it doesn't say whether he's a respected ora noted Nobel prize winner. So we don't know if he's in a class with Professor Saillant.
The big story on the page is that Harper went walking on the deck of HMCS Fredericton. And sure enough, there's a colour photo, suitable for framing, of him walking on the deck.
On B6, Jeb Bush tells us that Putin is a bully who understands only brute force. Oh. How different, how very different from Jeb Bush's homeland (and his family) who have been invading, bombing, starving people all over the world without even declaring war - and killing millions of civilians ever since 1945. And that pattern of bullying goes back to the earliest days of the US.
Big business wants war with Russia and China. It wants war to satisfy its greed for economic domination of the whole world. The Bush family has made its millions through at least three generations of pimping for big business. He'll do what big business tells him to do. So will Clinton.
The reality is that force has become the only deterrent to US big business. But most Americans have bought the propaganda. Recently, a pollster asked Americans at to sign a petition telling Obama to launch a pre-emptive, nuclear attack on Russia. (The petition was given only to Obama supporters.) And they signed it.)
All countries raise their children in lies about their country's history. But the US does it better than any other country. That was shown when Ronald Reagan famously said, "The US has never waged a war of aggression in its history." It has fought only to defend freedom and democracy. Huh?
The whole conquest of what is now the United States was wars of aggression against native peoples. In the early 1800s, neither Canada not Mexico threatened the US. But they both got invaded. The Civil War was not fought to free slaves. Even Lincoln admitted that. At the turn of the century, Spain did not threaten the US. Cuba and Haiti did not threaten the US. But both got taken by force, and put under dictatorships.
The Phillipines did not threaten the US. They got invaded, anyway, and put under American rule in 1900. Nobody in Central American could possibly threaten the US. They all got invaded, anyway, usually to install dictators. Germany did not attack the US in 1917. Nor was there any possibility it could. Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Yemen and Guatemala did not attack the US.
In fact, the last time anybody attacked the US was in the war of 1812 when British troops set fire to the White House.
But American children, like many children around the world, are raised in a mythical history of their purity, and even racial superiority.
And that, with the right propaganda and injections of fear and hatred creates a society that supports an insane foreign policy which could kill everyone - including the billionaires who spread the hatred and fear and ignorance.
There's a good book related to this subject by a Canadian historian. It's Margaret MacMullin, "The Uses and Abuses of History". It's available in soft cover by Penquin.
___________________________________________________________________________
Oh, there's an important story on B7. "Quebec introduces plan to combat violent radicalization". The Quebec human rights commission will investigate people suspected of committing hate speech and inciting violence.
Well, I was born and lived most of my life in Quebec. And if they are going to investigate hate speech and inciting violence, I would suggest they start with the Parti Quebecois, the Bloc Populaire, and most of the francophone news media in that province.
I was many years on the provincial board of the major anglophone rights group. I can well remember the incitement to hatred. I can remember the speakers at the riots. I have been to separatist rallies. I have heard the hatred and anger from people like Levesque and Parizeau. I can remember the death threats that made me very careful when going home and the end of a day. I can remember sittiing beside a PQ premier at a gathering we were both to speak at. At first, he wouldn't talk to me at all because I was un cochon anglais. Then he told me about how poor his family had been because they only owned a farm with a big house on it and he inherited only that and $150,000, while the maudit anglais were all rich. (In fact, I had grown up in a rented, two room flat. His parents had the money to send him to a private school. Mine could barely afford the bus fare to send me to a public one.)
Then there was the day our offices were torched. Within hours, the francophone press announced we had done it and blamed out president - with no evidence whatever. Police had been warned, and they were supposed to be watching the offices. But they seem to have been on a coffee break at the time. For weeks we had to meet in secret at an English-Catholic convent - and I've always been grateful to them for taking the risk.
(all of this is why I have no respect for anglo supremacy groups in this province.)
But I don't think the commission will investigate the PQ or the Bloc. No. This is for Muslims only.
And they're going to stop young people from leaving to join extremist groups? Oh? Quite a few leave to join the US army. That's pretty extremist. Will they be stopped? And will they be stopped from joining those Canadian extremists who are bombing Syria?
The same sort of thing is happening in Ottawa with Bill C 51 which, unnoticed by the Irving press, has passed the Senate. That forbids hate speech and extremism and radicalism. But what do those words mean? If I criticize Israel (as many Israelis and Canadian Jews do), then, according to Harper, I am spreading hate. But I bet if I encouraged hatred against ISIS, it wouldn't be a hate speech. What is extremism? Would that include George Washington? Tom Mulcair?
Speech is either free or it isn't. When a government tells us what we are allowed to say, then we have no free speech. We have thought control. It begins, in this case, as something racist, then it quickly becomes much broader control of even what we are allowed to think. Harper preaches hatred every day. Will he be investigated? Today's story about Jeb Bush and his views on Putin is hate speech.
These investigations won't stop hate speech at all. What they will do is to strengthen a system of permissable hate speech.
Stephen Harper, I hate you. I think you're the slimiest prime minister this country has ever had Anyone who is a New Brunswick Conservative or Liberal, I hate you because you have all sold out the people of the province for generations. Mr. Irving, I hate you because your newspapers have lied and misinformed the people of New Brunswick for decades.
Send on the investigators.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Then, dear reader, take a break with the site below.
From: Les Prusha <lmprusha@sympatico.ca>
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