Readers of this column who do not have access to the Brunswick News chain are missing a daily diet of pure idiocy. The latest star of this phenomenon is an oil CEO named Bill Whitelaw.
His first column, about a week ago, showed promise of his powers of inanity. And today's established him as a master. He says that he would like to see the oil/environment issue settled by family discussions. Yes. We all get together across this great land for family reunions at Christmas. Why not use this to have family discussions over the turkey about oil and the environment? Then we could all agree on a common ground.
Uh, Bill baby... Has it occurred to you there is no common ground. Sometimes - often - one side is right and the other is wrong. You've heard of World War 2, Billy? You think maybe we should have reached a compromise on how many people Hitler would have been allowed to kill?
And how are all those people going to have a compromise discussion when all the news media are owned by the same people who own the oil industry and keep them in ignorance of what the issues are?
In summary, he says, "Take ten family reunions across Canada next year and ask people, over beer and barbecue, to formulate an energy strategy to serve the country's economic and environmental aspirations for the next 20 years."
This guy must be a gem at board meetings.
P.S. Most families don't have reunions across this great land. They can't afford the travel costs. Unlike oil executives, they don't get free travel grants.
______________________________________________________________
Quebec has passed a law requiring Muslim women wearing the nigab to remove it when dealing with the public service. That's interesting.
In the whole world, I believe Quebec is the only jurisdiction to have such a law. (For a very orthodox Islamic woman, to remove her veil is rather like asking a Christian woman to take off her dress and underwear for identification.)
But the most interesting part of this law is that no other province in Canada, no state in the U.S., and no country in the world that I know of has such a law. So why Quebec?
I lived most of my life in Quebec. I have never heard of any law in the Province that placed any restrictions on the Catholic church. I can remember that some (very few, but some) nuns wore veils. There was never a law against that. I can remember that Jewish students were forced to attend Protestant public schools and were not permitted in Catholic ones. I can remember that African students, with very few exceptions, were not permitted in most public schools, and could not teach in the public schools until 1960.
So what's the real cause of the fuss about Islamic women and the nigab? The real fuss is that Quebeckers, both French and English, have a strong tendency to racism. And, indeed, the strain runs right through Canada. Almost every immigration into Canada has given rise to bigotry because we don't like people who are - different.
Canadian bigotry toward Jews dates back to the early 1900s. Canadians refused to accept Jewish refugees until well AFTER World War Two. We even refused to accept those who escaped the death camps.
Canadian universities, until well after World War Two, had a quota - a very low one - in accepting African Canadians. Nor were they allowed to play in the NHL until quite recently. And so we have treated many waves of immigrants - Italians, Hindus, Chinese,...Muslims. But, though it was unofficial, even us kids knew that priests travelled for free on public transit. We saw it. Even the separatist movement was strongly characterized by racism.
All that is what the new Quebec law is about - bigotry and racism.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-62-examples-ministry-release-1.4369347
_____________________________________________________________
George H.W. Bush didn't just prod women in the rear and tell them dirty jokes. He also was a major figure in the massacre of 200,000 Maya in Guatemala. But George Jr. beat him with his massacre of over a million Iraqis.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/25/george-hw-bush-apologizes-after-actor-accuses-him-of-sexual-assault#img-1
_____________________________________________________________
Here's a problem of capitalism in Britain. But it applies equally to Canada, the U.S., most of the world and, probably, to both China and Russia. We have permitted the growth of a capitalist class that is greedy, murderous - and not very bright.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/23/greedy-bosses-broken-capitalism-who-fix
But don't expect any action from the Liberals or the Conservatives.
_____________________________________________________________
The Syrian war was created NOT by Assad. It was created by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. They financed, armed and trained the 'rebel' forces. Soon, those forces included jihadist terrorists. IS was largely a creation of the U.S.
Your oil companies at work.
http://theantimedia.org/nsa-memo-syrian-rebels-saudis/
_______________________________________________________________
Whatever our feelings about it might be, China is quite likely to be THE major world power within twenty years, especially as the U.S. falls into disarray. And this poses more than a few questions for us.
The first one is based on the fact that the U.S. has wanted control of China for a century. British control of China had been the major profit maker of the British empire. And US capitalists wanted that. That's why the Japanese invasion of China sparked nervousness in US business circles. They wanted it for the U.S. That's why the U.S. supported Chiang Kai shek in the Chinese civil war. That's why it fought the Korean War - to use North Korea as the stepping stone to China. That's why Trump is even now making noises about attacking North Korea.
There is no guarantee that China will become the major world power. Lots of things could interfere - like climate change. But it is also likely that U.S. capitalists will demand war with China within, at most, a decade.
But the U.S. is probably not capable of a conventional war against China. (After all, it can't handle Afghanistan....) So that would mean a nuclear war.
http://theantimedia.org/new-era-asia/
_______________________________________________________________
Much of Canada's energy has been spent in fighting other people's wars. Beginning in 1900, we fought Britain's wars. (Yes, I know there was a need to fight World War Two. But the U.S. didn't fight that war until 1942. Why the delay? Because the U.S. had no intention of fighting wars for Britain.) It joined the war only when there was a U.S. stake in it. Canada entered from the start because it's wealthy were heavily dependent on the British Empire.
But, after the war, Canada's wealthy depended on the U.S. market. So, starting with Korea, we fought wars for the U.S. That's what Afghanistan was all about. And Libya. That's why we have troops in Latvia. That's why we have 'trainers' in Syria. And that's why we're now encouraging revolution in Venezuela.
God bless Donald Trump says Trudeau.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/common-frontiers/2017/10/toeing-trumps-line-canada-backs-baseless-fraud-allegations
_____________________________________________________________
The European parliament has voted to ban glyphosate. Nobody in the New Brunswick news media or the Liberal or the Conservative party has demonstrated either the intelligence or the integrity to question its use in the province. No. New Brunswickers accepted the firing of their Chief Medical Officer, and decided to accept the judgement of a greedy, university dropout.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/10/24/european-parliament-votes-ban-glyphosate
_________________________________________________________________
Climate change is already having drastic effects on where and how people can live in the U.S. And it's going to get much, much worse. So where will millions of refugees from Texas and California and Oregon and the midwest move to?
They will go north to a land where climate change is not so marked. And so we will see a joyful union of North America as the U.S. insists that Canada become part of the U.S.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/10/25/we-dont-think-californians-climate-refugees-yet-we-should
________________________________________________________________
We might remember this next item about Canada's involvement in the attack on Libya. We might remember it on Nov. 11. Our soldiers, we often say, fight for Canada. But what did Libya (or Afghanistan or Latvia) have to do with Canada?
The reality is we murdered people to kiss up to the U.S. government and its oil barons.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1513658-on-target-canada-may-have-to-answer-for-its-role-in-libya
(And the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is by no means a radical paper.)
________________________________________________________________
South Africa, until the 1980s, was an apartheid state. That is - whites had all democratic rights, occupied all positions of power, and had complete freedom of movement. Blacks had no rights, political or social, at all.
Israel today is an apartheid state. Palestinian-Israelis, who are citizens of Israel - have almost no rights. Only Jewish Israelis have rights. As well, Israel routinely steals lands that belong to Palestines, kicking Palestinians out of their homes, and giving their land to Jewish Israelis.
But you can't say that in our news media. The Israeli government maintains a spy outfit throughout the western world to bully Jews and others into never, ever criticizing anything Israel does. It's called the Israeli lobby. (It got me fired after some 20 years as a radio commentator for mentioning this.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48071.htm
Mind you, Israeli behaviour becomes understandable when one realizes that European, Canadian and American Christians all treated them with contempt, and were very, very slow in helping them even when they knew about the death camps, and even after the war was over.
____________________________________________________________
Worried about getting attacked by a terrorist which visiting the U.S.? Relax. There are very, very few terrorist attacks. You are far, far more likely to be killed by police.
And they are most unlikely to get charged with anything.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48073.htm
____________________________________________________________
Do you think what the U.S. has done to the middle east is terrible. Well, just remember the Americans learned from expert teachers - the British who were inflicting terror, murder and starvation decades before the U.S. took over.
We have little sense of how evil us Christians have been - and are still being.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/10/25/100th-anniversary-of-australian-beersheba-charge-uk-balfour-declaration-palestinian-genocide-commencement/
____________________________________________________________
Hey! If you can't trust your big capitalists, who can you trust? Right?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/they-profit-we-die-toxic-agriculture-and-the-poisoning-of-soils-human-health-and-the-environment/5483932
_____________________________________________________________
We are being robbed blind by our wealthy. The majority of our very wealthy all over the western world, at least, pay no taxes. None. Nada. And they collect billions in gifts and concessions from us tax payers.
That's why most people just can't afford a university education. And that's why the wealthy happily donate money especially for business training to turn out puppets for them.
That's why we can't balance government budgets. That's why medicare has become expensive. That's why we tolerate minimum wages that leave millions in poverty and insecurity.
I thought of all this recently in Ottawa as I watched a young man going through little boxes to pick out cups from a local eatery, and to drink any drops that were left in them.
Think about that, Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-billionaires-become-billionaires/5612125
Every society that has ever operated like ours as a feeding trough for economic gluttons has collapsed.
________________________________________________________________
And here's a story on the climate change that 'isn't happening'. Hey! Who am I to disagree with the great minds of the oil industry?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/southern-california-hottest-world-series-record-171025103335606.html
_____________________________________________________________
Stories like the one below can also be found in the excellent, Israeli newpaper Haaretz. However, it is not longer possible to get Harretz without a subscription - and that still cannot be sent to an audience. However, an Haaretz subscription is quite reasonble. And it really is a superb newspaper.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/palestinian-minors-arrested-israel-suffer-abuse-171024215105404.html
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/unesco-264-million-children-access-school-171025044844609.html
Why include this?
In a few weeks, we shall pay homage to those who served in, among other wars, World War Two. We will, without doubt, praise their sacrifice - as we should.
But we will, again, forget all the promises we made them about what they were risking their lives for. They did not serve so that we could murder and rob for oil profits. They did not serve so that New Brunswick's home care for the elderly could be privatized for private profit. They did not serve so the the wealthy could avoid income taxes. They did not serve so we could have dangerous chemicals sprayed on our lands and foods. They did not serve so we could have a minimum wage that is degrading to human life. They did not serve so that we could fight wars to please American billionaires. They did not serve so that refugees could live in misery in tent prisons in France, or so the U.S. could starve civilians to death by the millions. And they certainly did not serve so that billionaires could buy governments - and so destroy democracy.
There was a grander purpose to World War Two. It was not just about beating Hitler. It was about creating a better world for everyone.
And we have not honoured that promise.
On Nov. 11, we will hear the usual speeches glorifying war. But our soldiers, sailors and airmen didn't fight for glory. They fought for a better world.
That should be a major theme on November 11, our pledge to achieve what they died for.
Instead, we'll hear a lot of crap about glory. What a pack of hypocrites we are!
His first column, about a week ago, showed promise of his powers of inanity. And today's established him as a master. He says that he would like to see the oil/environment issue settled by family discussions. Yes. We all get together across this great land for family reunions at Christmas. Why not use this to have family discussions over the turkey about oil and the environment? Then we could all agree on a common ground.
Uh, Bill baby... Has it occurred to you there is no common ground. Sometimes - often - one side is right and the other is wrong. You've heard of World War 2, Billy? You think maybe we should have reached a compromise on how many people Hitler would have been allowed to kill?
And how are all those people going to have a compromise discussion when all the news media are owned by the same people who own the oil industry and keep them in ignorance of what the issues are?
In summary, he says, "Take ten family reunions across Canada next year and ask people, over beer and barbecue, to formulate an energy strategy to serve the country's economic and environmental aspirations for the next 20 years."
This guy must be a gem at board meetings.
P.S. Most families don't have reunions across this great land. They can't afford the travel costs. Unlike oil executives, they don't get free travel grants.
______________________________________________________________
Quebec has passed a law requiring Muslim women wearing the nigab to remove it when dealing with the public service. That's interesting.
In the whole world, I believe Quebec is the only jurisdiction to have such a law. (For a very orthodox Islamic woman, to remove her veil is rather like asking a Christian woman to take off her dress and underwear for identification.)
But the most interesting part of this law is that no other province in Canada, no state in the U.S., and no country in the world that I know of has such a law. So why Quebec?
I lived most of my life in Quebec. I have never heard of any law in the Province that placed any restrictions on the Catholic church. I can remember that some (very few, but some) nuns wore veils. There was never a law against that. I can remember that Jewish students were forced to attend Protestant public schools and were not permitted in Catholic ones. I can remember that African students, with very few exceptions, were not permitted in most public schools, and could not teach in the public schools until 1960.
So what's the real cause of the fuss about Islamic women and the nigab? The real fuss is that Quebeckers, both French and English, have a strong tendency to racism. And, indeed, the strain runs right through Canada. Almost every immigration into Canada has given rise to bigotry because we don't like people who are - different.
Canadian bigotry toward Jews dates back to the early 1900s. Canadians refused to accept Jewish refugees until well AFTER World War Two. We even refused to accept those who escaped the death camps.
Canadian universities, until well after World War Two, had a quota - a very low one - in accepting African Canadians. Nor were they allowed to play in the NHL until quite recently. And so we have treated many waves of immigrants - Italians, Hindus, Chinese,...Muslims. But, though it was unofficial, even us kids knew that priests travelled for free on public transit. We saw it. Even the separatist movement was strongly characterized by racism.
All that is what the new Quebec law is about - bigotry and racism.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-62-examples-ministry-release-1.4369347
_____________________________________________________________
George H.W. Bush didn't just prod women in the rear and tell them dirty jokes. He also was a major figure in the massacre of 200,000 Maya in Guatemala. But George Jr. beat him with his massacre of over a million Iraqis.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/25/george-hw-bush-apologizes-after-actor-accuses-him-of-sexual-assault#img-1
_____________________________________________________________
Here's a problem of capitalism in Britain. But it applies equally to Canada, the U.S., most of the world and, probably, to both China and Russia. We have permitted the growth of a capitalist class that is greedy, murderous - and not very bright.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/23/greedy-bosses-broken-capitalism-who-fix
But don't expect any action from the Liberals or the Conservatives.
_____________________________________________________________
The Syrian war was created NOT by Assad. It was created by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. They financed, armed and trained the 'rebel' forces. Soon, those forces included jihadist terrorists. IS was largely a creation of the U.S.
Your oil companies at work.
http://theantimedia.org/nsa-memo-syrian-rebels-saudis/
_______________________________________________________________
Whatever our feelings about it might be, China is quite likely to be THE major world power within twenty years, especially as the U.S. falls into disarray. And this poses more than a few questions for us.
The first one is based on the fact that the U.S. has wanted control of China for a century. British control of China had been the major profit maker of the British empire. And US capitalists wanted that. That's why the Japanese invasion of China sparked nervousness in US business circles. They wanted it for the U.S. That's why the U.S. supported Chiang Kai shek in the Chinese civil war. That's why it fought the Korean War - to use North Korea as the stepping stone to China. That's why Trump is even now making noises about attacking North Korea.
There is no guarantee that China will become the major world power. Lots of things could interfere - like climate change. But it is also likely that U.S. capitalists will demand war with China within, at most, a decade.
But the U.S. is probably not capable of a conventional war against China. (After all, it can't handle Afghanistan....) So that would mean a nuclear war.
http://theantimedia.org/new-era-asia/
_______________________________________________________________
Much of Canada's energy has been spent in fighting other people's wars. Beginning in 1900, we fought Britain's wars. (Yes, I know there was a need to fight World War Two. But the U.S. didn't fight that war until 1942. Why the delay? Because the U.S. had no intention of fighting wars for Britain.) It joined the war only when there was a U.S. stake in it. Canada entered from the start because it's wealthy were heavily dependent on the British Empire.
But, after the war, Canada's wealthy depended on the U.S. market. So, starting with Korea, we fought wars for the U.S. That's what Afghanistan was all about. And Libya. That's why we have troops in Latvia. That's why we have 'trainers' in Syria. And that's why we're now encouraging revolution in Venezuela.
God bless Donald Trump says Trudeau.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/common-frontiers/2017/10/toeing-trumps-line-canada-backs-baseless-fraud-allegations
_____________________________________________________________
The European parliament has voted to ban glyphosate. Nobody in the New Brunswick news media or the Liberal or the Conservative party has demonstrated either the intelligence or the integrity to question its use in the province. No. New Brunswickers accepted the firing of their Chief Medical Officer, and decided to accept the judgement of a greedy, university dropout.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/10/24/european-parliament-votes-ban-glyphosate
_________________________________________________________________
Climate change is already having drastic effects on where and how people can live in the U.S. And it's going to get much, much worse. So where will millions of refugees from Texas and California and Oregon and the midwest move to?
They will go north to a land where climate change is not so marked. And so we will see a joyful union of North America as the U.S. insists that Canada become part of the U.S.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/10/25/we-dont-think-californians-climate-refugees-yet-we-should
________________________________________________________________
We might remember this next item about Canada's involvement in the attack on Libya. We might remember it on Nov. 11. Our soldiers, we often say, fight for Canada. But what did Libya (or Afghanistan or Latvia) have to do with Canada?
The reality is we murdered people to kiss up to the U.S. government and its oil barons.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1513658-on-target-canada-may-have-to-answer-for-its-role-in-libya
(And the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is by no means a radical paper.)
________________________________________________________________
South Africa, until the 1980s, was an apartheid state. That is - whites had all democratic rights, occupied all positions of power, and had complete freedom of movement. Blacks had no rights, political or social, at all.
Israel today is an apartheid state. Palestinian-Israelis, who are citizens of Israel - have almost no rights. Only Jewish Israelis have rights. As well, Israel routinely steals lands that belong to Palestines, kicking Palestinians out of their homes, and giving their land to Jewish Israelis.
But you can't say that in our news media. The Israeli government maintains a spy outfit throughout the western world to bully Jews and others into never, ever criticizing anything Israel does. It's called the Israeli lobby. (It got me fired after some 20 years as a radio commentator for mentioning this.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48071.htm
Mind you, Israeli behaviour becomes understandable when one realizes that European, Canadian and American Christians all treated them with contempt, and were very, very slow in helping them even when they knew about the death camps, and even after the war was over.
____________________________________________________________
Worried about getting attacked by a terrorist which visiting the U.S.? Relax. There are very, very few terrorist attacks. You are far, far more likely to be killed by police.
And they are most unlikely to get charged with anything.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48073.htm
____________________________________________________________
Do you think what the U.S. has done to the middle east is terrible. Well, just remember the Americans learned from expert teachers - the British who were inflicting terror, murder and starvation decades before the U.S. took over.
We have little sense of how evil us Christians have been - and are still being.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/10/25/100th-anniversary-of-australian-beersheba-charge-uk-balfour-declaration-palestinian-genocide-commencement/
____________________________________________________________
Hey! If you can't trust your big capitalists, who can you trust? Right?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/they-profit-we-die-toxic-agriculture-and-the-poisoning-of-soils-human-health-and-the-environment/5483932
_____________________________________________________________
We are being robbed blind by our wealthy. The majority of our very wealthy all over the western world, at least, pay no taxes. None. Nada. And they collect billions in gifts and concessions from us tax payers.
That's why most people just can't afford a university education. And that's why the wealthy happily donate money especially for business training to turn out puppets for them.
That's why we can't balance government budgets. That's why medicare has become expensive. That's why we tolerate minimum wages that leave millions in poverty and insecurity.
I thought of all this recently in Ottawa as I watched a young man going through little boxes to pick out cups from a local eatery, and to drink any drops that were left in them.
Think about that, Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-billionaires-become-billionaires/5612125
Every society that has ever operated like ours as a feeding trough for economic gluttons has collapsed.
________________________________________________________________
And here's a story on the climate change that 'isn't happening'. Hey! Who am I to disagree with the great minds of the oil industry?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/southern-california-hottest-world-series-record-171025103335606.html
_____________________________________________________________
Stories like the one below can also be found in the excellent, Israeli newpaper Haaretz. However, it is not longer possible to get Harretz without a subscription - and that still cannot be sent to an audience. However, an Haaretz subscription is quite reasonble. And it really is a superb newspaper.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/palestinian-minors-arrested-israel-suffer-abuse-171024215105404.html
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/unesco-264-million-children-access-school-171025044844609.html
Why include this?
In a few weeks, we shall pay homage to those who served in, among other wars, World War Two. We will, without doubt, praise their sacrifice - as we should.
But we will, again, forget all the promises we made them about what they were risking their lives for. They did not serve so that we could murder and rob for oil profits. They did not serve so that New Brunswick's home care for the elderly could be privatized for private profit. They did not serve so the the wealthy could avoid income taxes. They did not serve so we could have dangerous chemicals sprayed on our lands and foods. They did not serve so we could have a minimum wage that is degrading to human life. They did not serve so that we could fight wars to please American billionaires. They did not serve so that refugees could live in misery in tent prisons in France, or so the U.S. could starve civilians to death by the millions. And they certainly did not serve so that billionaires could buy governments - and so destroy democracy.
There was a grander purpose to World War Two. It was not just about beating Hitler. It was about creating a better world for everyone.
And we have not honoured that promise.
On Nov. 11, we will hear the usual speeches glorifying war. But our soldiers, sailors and airmen didn't fight for glory. They fought for a better world.
That should be a major theme on November 11, our pledge to achieve what they died for.
Instead, we'll hear a lot of crap about glory. What a pack of hypocrites we are!
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