For three hours I have been writing this blog. Then, sudenly, everything has been erased. It happened twice. I have no idea why. Damn! It's now been six hours and I'm now proofreading. I can only hope nothing happens before I finish.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/04/libya-war-zone-eu-
refugees-tripoli-fighting
For a century, British, American and European capitalists have been making countries like Libya into hells. That has created millions of refugees, broken families, enormous misery. Tough luck, say our billionaires.
_________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/trump-administration-planet-boil-refugee-camps
Meanwhile, in New Brunswick our Conservative deep thinkers are concentrating on important things - like developing shale gas. And the People's Alliance thinks our big problem is that we have too many French-speaking people.
Duh - we'll worry about climate change when it happens, duh...
_____________________________________________________________
We are doing nothing significant about climate change. The Conservatives haven't even noticed it's happening. And the other parties, even the Greens, are more silent on it than they should be. This is the greatest issue of our time, perhaps of any time. And we have very limited time to deal with it. You would never know that from our news media - or our corporate bosses who simply refuse to notice it is happening. The Conservative aim to develop fracking is both evil and stupid. That no party shows any willingness to recognize how serious this is is insane.
https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-is-a-major-midterm-issue-corporate-media-are-ignoring-it/
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/more-doubling-day-now-1200-law-professors-and-counting-have-signed-letter-declaring
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/accuser-silenced-and-witnesses-ignored-fbis-kavanaugh-probe-denounced-sham-and
https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/bret-kavanaugh-is-a-liar-a-perjurer-and-belongs-in-jail-instead-of-on-the-supreme-court/
The important thing to remember here is that this is not a legal trial. Indeed, the Senators are not judges in the legal sense. Nor is the real issue whether Kavanaugh is a rapist. The question is whether he is impartial enough to sit as a supreme court justice. And he is not. He has spent his career as the servant of the very, very rich and, politically, of the GOP. He also has a long history as a fervent republican and as a notorious liar for their hearings going back over many years.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/03/drums-war-are-beating-icj-ruled-us-sanctions-violate-treaty-iran-so-pompeo-just
On Nov. 11, Canadians will remember and honour those who served in our wars - though most Canadians don't even know what all those wars were. (Most stop at the two world wars.)
Worse, they have long since forgotten what we promised we were fighting for - a world of peace and cooperation and of respect for international bodies like the UN. Britain and the U.S. threw those rules into the dumpster very soon after 1945. Trump's dumping of the International Court is just the latest example
And Canada has uncritically followed that line from the start. The Canadian interventions in Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti and Syria are examples - as is our ignoring of U.S. criminal behaviour in countries like Iran and Venezuela.
We have broken all the promises we made. We have destroyed all we said we were fighting for. I wonder whether any of the distinguished speakers and clergy of Nov. 11 will have the integrity to mention that.
Nah....
________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/international-court-of-justice-strikes-down-us-sanctions-against-iran/
As in the case above.... The U.S. wants a war with Iran. It has never forgiven Iran for kicking out British and American capitalist buzzards in 1948 to take control of their own oil. Then, they imposed a brutal, murderous and plundering Shah. And those terrible Iranians had the nerve to kick him out and elect their own government.
God bless America. (It needs all the blessing it can get.)
_______________________________________________________________
Here's the true story about Venezuela - the one you'll never find in most western news media - including, i'm sorry to say, the CBC.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/03/creating-a-coup-climate-the-historical-roots-of-u-s-foreign-policy-towards-venezuela/
________________________________________________________________
Though Canadian historians tend to ignore this, the U.S. has, many times, made plans to invade Canada - some of them more recent than you might think. And the events of climate change (such as the submergence of American coastal cities like New York or the drying up of US freshwater) could well revive such plans.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-invasion-of-canada/1691
________________________________________________________________
Remember - human behaviour commonly does not change much. Guess who just loved Hitler in the 1930s.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/hitler-s-carmaker-the-inside-story-of-how-general-motors-helped-mobilize-the-third-reich/5571
________________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50374.htm
_______________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50370.htm
______________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50372.htm
________________________________________________________________
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2018/10/get-outside-and-save-world
But what does Suzuki know? He's only one of our leading scientists. Mr. irving studied at Acadia University for two, whole years. And we know he's concerned about us ordinary people because his newspaper tells us so.
____________________________________________________________
In Canada, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Funny how the parties in New Brunswick's recent election didn't notice that. And it's going to get much, much worse. Greed is on a big roll in our world.
http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/10/canadas-incredible-expanding-wealth-gap
Hey! New Brunswick's just gotta cut taxes for those rich people.
___________________________________________________________
http://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/cameco-ruling-shows-need-outlaw-tax-haven-use
I'm sure Mr. irving would never do this. And if he did, his fearless journalists would report him for it.
______________________________________________________________
Under international law, the U.S. has no right whatever to be in Syria. But when has the U.S. ever given a damn about international law?
https://theantimedia.com/us-marines-syria-join-battle/
________________________________________________________
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/04/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation-corporate-regulations/
______________________________________________________________
http://www.voltairenet.org/article202998.html
______________________________________________________________
Now, the news from New Brunswick which I'm sure will excite our readers in Russia, France, Ukraine.....
The irving press is bloody awful. Commonly, it can be read without any loss, within two minutes. And it takes as long as two minutes only because I find the print on the comics page hard to read.
However, it had a fascinating column on page 1 for Oct. 3 by David Gauvin. The city has just completed building a hundred million dollar events centre. We were told it was going to flood us with money. Now, we are learning that it costs money. Before it even opened, the city had to bail out its basketball team for $330,000 dollars - and it's still not going to draw fans. We are also learning that it will cost many, many thousands of our money for every show that comes - even if nobody attends.
Now, let's see -- who wanted us to spend a 100 million on an events centre? Oh, yeah. It was a member of New Brunswick's wealthiest family who happens to own the hockey team. And the local newspaper, also owned by New Brunswick's wealthiest family, was a big booster for the centre.
Then there's a big commentary by Herb Emery who has a biting column on how the province must control it's deficit spending. Maybe so. But, as usual, he doesn't mention how much of that deficit is caused by wealthy families that pay no income tax at all - and, often, very little municipal taxes. Nor does he mention that our bought governments routinely hand out very large sums from OUR money to these same families. But, of course, the irving press would never mention that..
There are 2 and 1/2 pages that are supposed to tell us all about Canada and the whole world. They never get past Canada. Nor do they say much even about Canada. And they have a column on a favourite theme of the irving press - the government spends too much money. The writer is Chris Morris who, like all irving writers, has never noticed that the wealthy pay no taxes at all.
Thursday's paper has a good headline story. "Former top judge slams NB for 'voting to abolish bilingualism.'" Funny it never had a story on that during the election.
Then there's another column to please the rich by what is really a propaganda house called The Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Oh, and an editorial criticizing our government spending. This one, too, has no mention of the fact that the wealthy don't pay taxes. The irving press might be lying. But it's consistent in its lies.
Canada and world is covered in a section that has just three stories. The biggest one, hold on to your hats, is that Calgary had a snowstorm.
New Brunswickers have no idea what is happening in their own province. (It certainly has no mention, for example, of scientific projections that rising water levels will make our downtown unlivable within the lifetimes of most of us.)
Outside New Brunswick? There's no mention of Americans starving the children of Yemen to death. There's no sense that the U.S. seems determined to invade Iran for no good reason, and that such an invasion would almost certainly force China and Russia to take a stance - and that would mean nuclear war. There's no mention we could find ourselves in a war with Venezuela for no good reason. Oh! And there's no mention we could find ourselves forced to supply our Great Lakes to the U.S. because of American squandering and abuse of their own clean water supply.
That's why it was easy for the Conservatives to run on a platform that was almost invisible. That's why it may be easy for the Conservatives to open up fracking in this province. That's why the Canadian People's Alliance could run a campaign with only one plank worth mentioning - forbidding glyphosate spraying. (Which it will certainly drop if it can form an alliance with one of the old parties.)
The Greens and the NDP had to run in campaigns in which the voters had no idea what was happening in the world, in Canada, or even on their own doorsteps. So both, though on the right track, perhaps, ran campaigns that were pretty wimpy.
New Brunswick is a province that is comatose, and made so by most of its news media. Any political party that hopes to make any useful change in this province has to develop a full programme - certainly more extensive than those of the Greens and the NDP. And it's going to have to get out and sell that programme every day until the next election. Otherwise, this province will NEVER change.
It's not just a matter of a campaign once every four years. We have a population that is deliberately kept in ignorance and daily fed on lies. Changing that is not just a matter of winning a battle. It's a matter of winning a war.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/04/libya-war-zone-eu-
refugees-tripoli-fighting
For a century, British, American and European capitalists have been making countries like Libya into hells. That has created millions of refugees, broken families, enormous misery. Tough luck, say our billionaires.
_________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/trump-administration-planet-boil-refugee-camps
Meanwhile, in New Brunswick our Conservative deep thinkers are concentrating on important things - like developing shale gas. And the People's Alliance thinks our big problem is that we have too many French-speaking people.
Duh - we'll worry about climate change when it happens, duh...
_____________________________________________________________
We are doing nothing significant about climate change. The Conservatives haven't even noticed it's happening. And the other parties, even the Greens, are more silent on it than they should be. This is the greatest issue of our time, perhaps of any time. And we have very limited time to deal with it. You would never know that from our news media - or our corporate bosses who simply refuse to notice it is happening. The Conservative aim to develop fracking is both evil and stupid. That no party shows any willingness to recognize how serious this is is insane.
https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-is-a-major-midterm-issue-corporate-media-are-ignoring-it/
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/more-doubling-day-now-1200-law-professors-and-counting-have-signed-letter-declaring
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/accuser-silenced-and-witnesses-ignored-fbis-kavanaugh-probe-denounced-sham-and
https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/bret-kavanaugh-is-a-liar-a-perjurer-and-belongs-in-jail-instead-of-on-the-supreme-court/
The important thing to remember here is that this is not a legal trial. Indeed, the Senators are not judges in the legal sense. Nor is the real issue whether Kavanaugh is a rapist. The question is whether he is impartial enough to sit as a supreme court justice. And he is not. He has spent his career as the servant of the very, very rich and, politically, of the GOP. He also has a long history as a fervent republican and as a notorious liar for their hearings going back over many years.
_______________________________________________________________
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/03/drums-war-are-beating-icj-ruled-us-sanctions-violate-treaty-iran-so-pompeo-just
On Nov. 11, Canadians will remember and honour those who served in our wars - though most Canadians don't even know what all those wars were. (Most stop at the two world wars.)
Worse, they have long since forgotten what we promised we were fighting for - a world of peace and cooperation and of respect for international bodies like the UN. Britain and the U.S. threw those rules into the dumpster very soon after 1945. Trump's dumping of the International Court is just the latest example
And Canada has uncritically followed that line from the start. The Canadian interventions in Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti and Syria are examples - as is our ignoring of U.S. criminal behaviour in countries like Iran and Venezuela.
We have broken all the promises we made. We have destroyed all we said we were fighting for. I wonder whether any of the distinguished speakers and clergy of Nov. 11 will have the integrity to mention that.
Nah....
________________________________________________________________
https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/international-court-of-justice-strikes-down-us-sanctions-against-iran/
As in the case above.... The U.S. wants a war with Iran. It has never forgiven Iran for kicking out British and American capitalist buzzards in 1948 to take control of their own oil. Then, they imposed a brutal, murderous and plundering Shah. And those terrible Iranians had the nerve to kick him out and elect their own government.
God bless America. (It needs all the blessing it can get.)
_______________________________________________________________
Here's the true story about Venezuela - the one you'll never find in most western news media - including, i'm sorry to say, the CBC.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/03/creating-a-coup-climate-the-historical-roots-of-u-s-foreign-policy-towards-venezuela/
________________________________________________________________
Though Canadian historians tend to ignore this, the U.S. has, many times, made plans to invade Canada - some of them more recent than you might think. And the events of climate change (such as the submergence of American coastal cities like New York or the drying up of US freshwater) could well revive such plans.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-invasion-of-canada/1691
________________________________________________________________
Remember - human behaviour commonly does not change much. Guess who just loved Hitler in the 1930s.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/hitler-s-carmaker-the-inside-story-of-how-general-motors-helped-mobilize-the-third-reich/5571
________________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50374.htm
_______________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50370.htm
______________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50372.htm
________________________________________________________________
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2018/10/get-outside-and-save-world
But what does Suzuki know? He's only one of our leading scientists. Mr. irving studied at Acadia University for two, whole years. And we know he's concerned about us ordinary people because his newspaper tells us so.
____________________________________________________________
In Canada, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Funny how the parties in New Brunswick's recent election didn't notice that. And it's going to get much, much worse. Greed is on a big roll in our world.
http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/10/canadas-incredible-expanding-wealth-gap
Hey! New Brunswick's just gotta cut taxes for those rich people.
___________________________________________________________
http://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/cameco-ruling-shows-need-outlaw-tax-haven-use
I'm sure Mr. irving would never do this. And if he did, his fearless journalists would report him for it.
______________________________________________________________
Under international law, the U.S. has no right whatever to be in Syria. But when has the U.S. ever given a damn about international law?
https://theantimedia.com/us-marines-syria-join-battle/
________________________________________________________
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/04/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation-corporate-regulations/
______________________________________________________________
http://www.voltairenet.org/article202998.html
______________________________________________________________
Now, the news from New Brunswick which I'm sure will excite our readers in Russia, France, Ukraine.....
The irving press is bloody awful. Commonly, it can be read without any loss, within two minutes. And it takes as long as two minutes only because I find the print on the comics page hard to read.
However, it had a fascinating column on page 1 for Oct. 3 by David Gauvin. The city has just completed building a hundred million dollar events centre. We were told it was going to flood us with money. Now, we are learning that it costs money. Before it even opened, the city had to bail out its basketball team for $330,000 dollars - and it's still not going to draw fans. We are also learning that it will cost many, many thousands of our money for every show that comes - even if nobody attends.
Now, let's see -- who wanted us to spend a 100 million on an events centre? Oh, yeah. It was a member of New Brunswick's wealthiest family who happens to own the hockey team. And the local newspaper, also owned by New Brunswick's wealthiest family, was a big booster for the centre.
Then there's a big commentary by Herb Emery who has a biting column on how the province must control it's deficit spending. Maybe so. But, as usual, he doesn't mention how much of that deficit is caused by wealthy families that pay no income tax at all - and, often, very little municipal taxes. Nor does he mention that our bought governments routinely hand out very large sums from OUR money to these same families. But, of course, the irving press would never mention that..
There are 2 and 1/2 pages that are supposed to tell us all about Canada and the whole world. They never get past Canada. Nor do they say much even about Canada. And they have a column on a favourite theme of the irving press - the government spends too much money. The writer is Chris Morris who, like all irving writers, has never noticed that the wealthy pay no taxes at all.
Thursday's paper has a good headline story. "Former top judge slams NB for 'voting to abolish bilingualism.'" Funny it never had a story on that during the election.
Then there's another column to please the rich by what is really a propaganda house called The Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Oh, and an editorial criticizing our government spending. This one, too, has no mention of the fact that the wealthy don't pay taxes. The irving press might be lying. But it's consistent in its lies.
Canada and world is covered in a section that has just three stories. The biggest one, hold on to your hats, is that Calgary had a snowstorm.
New Brunswickers have no idea what is happening in their own province. (It certainly has no mention, for example, of scientific projections that rising water levels will make our downtown unlivable within the lifetimes of most of us.)
Outside New Brunswick? There's no mention of Americans starving the children of Yemen to death. There's no sense that the U.S. seems determined to invade Iran for no good reason, and that such an invasion would almost certainly force China and Russia to take a stance - and that would mean nuclear war. There's no mention we could find ourselves in a war with Venezuela for no good reason. Oh! And there's no mention we could find ourselves forced to supply our Great Lakes to the U.S. because of American squandering and abuse of their own clean water supply.
That's why it was easy for the Conservatives to run on a platform that was almost invisible. That's why it may be easy for the Conservatives to open up fracking in this province. That's why the Canadian People's Alliance could run a campaign with only one plank worth mentioning - forbidding glyphosate spraying. (Which it will certainly drop if it can form an alliance with one of the old parties.)
The Greens and the NDP had to run in campaigns in which the voters had no idea what was happening in the world, in Canada, or even on their own doorsteps. So both, though on the right track, perhaps, ran campaigns that were pretty wimpy.
New Brunswick is a province that is comatose, and made so by most of its news media. Any political party that hopes to make any useful change in this province has to develop a full programme - certainly more extensive than those of the Greens and the NDP. And it's going to have to get out and sell that programme every day until the next election. Otherwise, this province will NEVER change.
It's not just a matter of a campaign once every four years. We have a population that is deliberately kept in ignorance and daily fed on lies. Changing that is not just a matter of winning a battle. It's a matter of winning a war.
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