Richard Saillant,
Norbert Cunningham and most of the Irving press staff have
consistently warned us that we cannot afford the government spending
we are doing. Our public service is way too big. We spend too much on
education. Our public debt is on the edge of a cliff, says professor
Saillant – and Norbert daily climbs on his desk, screams “over
the cliff” and leaps, head-first, to the floor.
A reader sent me a
brochure by David Coon, leader of the Parti Vert NB Green Party.
Here's what David Coon says.
1. Our public
service is the 4th smallest in Canada. At 85 people per
thousand of population, it is at the national average.
2. In education, NB
is in the middle of funding per student across Canada.
3.In health service,
NB is fifth of 10 provinces in its cost per person.
4. The proportion of
out provincial revenue that goes to pay the provincial debt is less
than that of six other provinces.
This sort of
information is not difficult to find. How come it never occurred to
any person on the staff of Irving press to look for it? Professor
Saillant must surely have known all this. Mr. Gallant must have known
all this.
Did Mr. Coon say
this in the legislature? Has he said so in public? If he has, why
want's it reported?
And even if the
figures above are arguable, shouldn't we have known of their
existence?
Do you smell a rat?
This province has
been whipped into a frenzy, and private business has been allowed to
intrude on health care (for its own profit at our cost.) And this
has been done by a newspaper with the journalistic standards of a
scandal mag or – more accurately – a propaganda machine that
endlessly pumps out what the boss wants people to believe.
The public service
is too big, and its salaries too large and overpaid? Well, in a
democracy, a public service is what makes it possible for a nation to
operate. Any modern country needs a well-educated public service. We
pay them too much? Well, it's peanuts to what we pay for senior
executives and board members in the private sector. And the salaries,
bonuses, and perks for them come from OUR pockets, but like the
salaries of public servants.
A newspaper should
give us ALL sides of a story. It should give us all the news we need
to know, so that we can decide what should be done. That's not what
we have. And that means we cannot be a democracy.
The newspapers and the governments of New Brunswick have long been
propagandists and liars, the spit-lickers for the wealthy, and
indifferent to the needs of the people of New Brunswick.
Today's paper is not
different from its usual self.
Gas prices could
fall, we learn, but they will later go up. They quote an expert on
that. I can't wait for their next 'expert says' story. “Sun will go
down today, but will rise tomorrow.”
The real story is
WHY it has gone down – WHY it will go up. It's going down because
the market has been deliberately flooded with cheap oil This is a
war. That's why Saudi is pumping huge surpluses. The king of Saudi
Arabia is is not Santa Claus. It is being done to destroy the
economies of competitors – like Russia, like Venezuela. For the
big oil players in the U.S., this is part of the process of world
conquest by the U.S., the one that is outlined in Project for the New
American Century (which has never been mentioned in the Irving
press), and exemplified by the concept of American exceptionalism
(which has never been mentioned in the Irving press.
Once that conquest
is achieved, the super-wealthy can get back to shafting all of us.
There's a story on
Oland making an appeal and bail request. Of course. The family is
behind him. Of course. After all, killing one's father looks so –
you know – lower class. So there's lots of money to string this on
forever. This has been going on for years. That's because in our
system of equality before the law, you have to have a pile of money
to be equal.
The editorial says
nothing in particular. Norbert has a column on selling alcohol in
grocery stores. Reading it, brought me back to the several years I
spent researching letters, diaries, etc. about drinking in Canada a
hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. Norbert's columns remind me
of the rants of those – on both sides.
Norbert, the issue
here has nothing to do with encouraging or restricting alcohol. This
is not a return to prohibition. It's about whether we should get the
profits of alcohol sales or whether they should be privatized.
Letters to the
editor has a good one on Prime Minister Bennett that beats both the
editorialist and Norbert. R.B.Bennett, the very image of the arrogant
and self-serving billionaire, was actually a man who learned to care
about people. It was quite a remarkable transformation. That's why he
introduced the legislation mentioned in this letter. There's also an
excellent book called “The Wretched of Canada: Letters to
R.B.Bennett – 1930-35” edited by Lynda Grayson and Michael Bliss.
He was very much in touch with ordinary Canadians.
The depression years
changed Bennett. Whatever else he might have been, he was a man with
a soul and compassion. He came to office as a man who loved power. He
left it as a man who loved people. Too bad that doesn't seem to be
catching among billionaires.
There's a decent
column pointing out the nonsense of Frank McKenna's idea of making
immigrants promise to stay three years or more in the place they're
billeted to.
Justin's Ryan's
column is – well, you have to read it. This is one, powerful
column. And it raises a subject I think I'll deal with on Sunday.
And Alec Bruce seems to be staying on safe ground.
There's really
nothing in Canada and World.
There's a big story,
deservedly so, about a Taliban attack on a university in Pakistan.
But, like most news stories, there isn't much in this one to explain
why it happened or what it means. Nor does it mention a kind of
important bit of information. Pakistan has been a major supporter of
the Taliban for many years. (Everybody's playing a game.)
There's also a big story that the U.S. and its favourite buddies in
NATO have agreed to continue fighting the Islamic state. Was anybody
expecting them to do anything else?
The Guardian has excellent opinion column on the corruption and rot
of American democracy, and how it has been twisted to suit elite
groups ranging from big business to big crime to gather all wealth
into their hands, and impoverish everyone else. The U.S. is not the
only place it happens. It has, over the years, been true in just
about all western countries. And it's very evident in New Brunswick.
Also from The
Guardian is this story about the world destruction of the fisheries.
Another thing I have to think about for Sunday is the idiocy of
international political debate (as in the U.S. leadership race) in
it's concentration on hatreds, fears all designed to make us want to
kill people who are in the way of our billionaires while we ignore
far, far greater problems.
And this one just
for the sheer truth of it.
For some reason,
editors at the Irving press didn't mention that Canada's largest
newspaper conglomerate is merging operations and firing staff. That's
no loss to the world of journalism. It isn't, like the Irving press,
the ragged sewer of journalism. It's more a well-dressed sewer.
Newspapers just
about everywhere are in trouble – perhaps due to TV and computers
because they're easier to use. The trouble with TV is that us humans
don't connect all that well with it – we just watch. We're not
involved. And the trouble with computers is you get unreliable
sources, like me.
Anyway, here is an
important Canadian story that a Canadian newspaper missed. But a
British one got it. (An editor really should have noticed a story
like that.)
The following column
is long, but worth reading to see the hatred of Muslims from a Muslim
point of view. As I read, it occurred to me that if I were a Muslim
writing this blog, I would almost certainly be labelled an extremist,
be denied airline travel, and be subject to constant surveillance by
Canada's gestapo. Odd. I can't remember any attacks on Christianity
in World War Two, even though Hitler declared himself a devout
Christian (RC).
Then there's this
rather complex analysis of Iran and Saudi Arabia in what their strife
is all about. Like almost all strife, it's about money and markets.
But that's not a socially acceptable reason to kill people. So our
news media keep it simple for us by talking about things like
democracy, extremists and moderates and other fictions.
Now, I must give
some thought to Sunday, when I try to suggest how we should respond
to all this.
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