February 28::We're at a tipping point.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michael-cohen-testimony-trump-prosecution-statute-of-limitations-1.5036442

Wouldn't that give the prison a bad name?
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilson-raybould-freeland-trudeau-snc-lavalin-1.5036795

I don't  understand the surprise. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have a long, long history of accepting bribes from business leaders. That's why those two parties always have big bundles of money to fight elections with. There's surely nothing new about this.

That's why the wealthy also send 'bagmen' to provincial premiers to collect the money and to learn what the wealthy want in return.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/28/global-confidence-us-russia-gallup-poll-report-tie
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/28/benjamin-netanyahu-corruption-charges-decision-expected-today

This should come as no surprise.
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/editorials/gwynne-dyer-kim-trump-summit-2019-287946/

Is Korea being unreasonable? Not at all.  Would the U.S. disarm all of its nuclear weapons?
________________________________________________________________
You think Korea is being  unreasonable? Actually, a nuclear attack on North Korea by the U.S. is a thousand times more likely than any attack by North Korea on the U.S.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/28/major-failure-north-korea-summit-cut-short-trump-refuses-lift-sanctions
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/28/bolsonaro-trudeau-et-al-exterminators-in-chief/
________________________________________________________________

Here's a balanced look at Venezuela's situation.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/22/why-is-the-venezuelan-government-rejecting-u-s-food-supplies/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51167.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51172.htm
_________________________________________________________________
Make America Great Again says Trump. In fact, that hour of greatness ended at least fifty years ago. The rest can only be downhill. But there is, alas, still room for acts of great stupidity...including nuclear acts.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51174.htm
_________________________________________________________________

And now for something completely different.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51168.htm
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/cuba-approves-new-socialist-constitution

The Guardian view of this is that it is a disaster. ONLY 88% of the Cubans voted for it. Gee. How can you get ONLY 88% of the vote and be taken seriously?

Now, George Washington got 100% of the votes in the first election. But there were only 69 voters in that one. Then, and for years after, only the rich were permitted to vote in U.S. presidential elections. There were no votes permitted for most of the population in the land of the free. None for women, of course. None for the poor. None for those of the wrong religion. 69 voters. And it stayed close to that for the first three elections.

The Guardian also refers to the Cuba vote as a vote for socialism and even, gasp, communism. And those, of course, are evil.

In fact, I doubt very much whether one American (or Canadian) in many hundreds has the faintest idea what communism means. In the western press, it's always just evil. I admit I don't clearly understand what it means. But I have read some of Karl Marx. And he was certainly not a purveyor of cruelty. Indeed, his teaching seems to have a close resemblance to that of Jesus.

Stalin? He was never a communist.All that interested him was power and control - though, in fairness - it was Stalin's Soviet Union that was the biggest single factor in defeating Germany.

Hitler, of course, was a supporter of capitalism, and was long admired by leading western capitalists like Henry Ford.

We live in a very dangerous world. We have murdered at least twenty million people, mostly civilians, since 1945. We have helped the capitalist U.S. in its invasion of  some 80 countries. We are on the edge of a world nuclear war.

In the U.S. that paragon of wealth and capitalism, there is no medical care for many, many millions who need it. In that context, I think it reasonable to learn a little bit about socialism, at least.

(capitalist lover of the month category - I recently saw, but lost, a news report. An American woman - in Congress, I think, - is crusading to reduce taxes for billionaires. After all, she says, they work hard for their money.

What the hell does she think the rest of us do?)
____________________________________________________________

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/896-we-don-t-do-propaganda.html
________________________________________________________________

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/27/news/pro-trump-billionaires-continue-bankroll-climate-denial
_______________________________________________________________

Another chapter in the Netanyahu story.

https://theantimedia.com/israel-netanyahu-bribery-fraud/
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Now, let's see. Which economic system has fought the most wars and killed the most people since 1950 - in fact the most wars and the most killed in the last several hundred years.

Ok - push the buzzer - yes - it's capitalism. And  nothing else is even close.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-right-may-finally-get-its-war-on-iran/
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https://theantimedia.com/thousands-detained-children-sexually-abused/

It's okay. All those migrants are evil.
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Feb. 26: How we lost the greatest opportunity in history.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-trafficking-persons-one-in-200
_______________________________________________________
https://www.rt.com/news/452431-venezuela-us-oust-maduro/

Russia Times is not a good source of news about Russia or China.Of course not. It isn't going to say anything critical of those. But it's reporting  on the western world is pretty solid.

So, yes it has a bias. But no, that doesn't affect the honesty of its reporting on the West.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/26/dutch-customs-seize-90000-bottles-of-vodka-believed-to-be-for-kim-jong-un

90,000 bottles? Where does he find the time?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/spain-would-roundly-condemn-use-of-force-in-venezuela-nicolas-maduro

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/venezuela-mike-pence-maduro-guaido

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/us-hypocrisy-on-venezuela-sanctions

Well. the U.S. is bringing freedom and joy to Venezuela. Don't you know?

This is a repeat of the British Empire which murdered hundreds of millions of people, robbed the survivors blind, and sent its own children into factories for pennies a day and 15 hour work days.

British workers who suffered as much as any from the greed and brutality of their capitalists were taught  (and believed) that this was all God's will and symbolic of the greatness of Britain and or BG - British Greatness. Yes. Trump's MAGA  motto is a sucker's game which has worked for centuries.

The U.S. is bringing democracy to Venezuela. How can people be so stupid as to believe that. Far from bringing democracy to Latin America, the U.S. has spent over a century killing at least hundreds of thousands of Latin American who wanted democracy.In that process, it murdered at least 200,000 in Guatemala alone. But our news media have never bothered to mention that. It set up dictatorships (and supports them)  all over the continent - something like its good friends in Brazil and Chile and Guatemala and Haiti  (where it destroyed democracy. Didn't you notice? Didn't your newspaper have a mention of it - perhaps in the sports section?)

No. Americans, the British before them, believe in a history that tells them they were doing God''s work. (And Canadians should be embarrassed at the role being  played by their wimpy prime minster.)

Led by some of the greediest and most brutal people this earth has known, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the U.S; have unleashed horrors that make Hitler look like a Salvation Army drummer. And, oh, we've blamed God for it all.

And you're prepared to support that greed? Good luck - because they also and increasingly are taking out that greed on us.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/02/jagmeet-singh-wins-big-burnaby-south-puts-fears-rest

I have a feeling this story is not as good as it looks. But, what the hell, it is good news. So enjoy it while you can.
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I believe I ran this one once before. I'm repeating it because i have a little to add.

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-trump-may-satisfy-base-with-partial-border-wall

On any night, over half a million Americans are homeless. They are sleeping outside in the winter. They have only the food they can  beg for. Large numbers of these homeless are children.

The proportion is similar to Canada. There are also more - many more - living in vile, dangerous, unhealthy conditions.

And Canada and the U.S. aren't doing a damn thing about it.

So why is the U.S; getting all excited about spending billions for its border/ The number of migrants is actually down steeply from previous years. Nor is there the slightest reason to believe that significant numbers of them are criminals and drug dealers. Why the panic for one but not for the other/

Naziism 101 - Many, many people are racist. Appeal to their racism and you win elections.  Sieg Heil.

And very, very few give a damn about the poor. So there are no votes to be gained by helping them.

Recently, Canadian TV carried pictures of native Canadians living in a northern wilderness. There "houses" are really one-room boxes made of plywood with no windows or insulation.

(What's that, Mr. Irving? you need two billions dollars from the government to 'create jobs' in one of your factories/  Right away, Mr. Irving.

(Mr. Irving is a Canadian billionaire. He lives in a nice house.)
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/26/sanders-tackles-democratic-socialism-racial-inequality-fraud-trump-existential
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/25/we-are-crushing-next-generation-young-millennials-saddled-1005000000000-student-debt

It took me 20 years to pay my (relatively small) college debts. And I never made up that loss.  It's now far, far worse.
________________________________________________________________

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/25/evidence-human-caused-climate-crisis-has-now-reached-gold-standard-level-certainty

Don't believe those scientists. I mean, what do they know? We have the word of real smart oil billionaires like Mr Irving,who sent to college for two years, and  politicians like Donald Trump and Doug Ford. And some real smart truckers who drive real BIG trucks in their caravan from the Canadian oil fields to Ottawa. I mean, they know things.

Let the good times roll!
________________________________________________________________


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/25/us-dropping-more-and-more-bombs-afghan-civilian-deaths-hit-record-high-2018

God bless America.
_______________________________________________________________

And here's a story that the Canadian press has covered but without saying a whole lot.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/02/22/SNC-Lavalin-Criminal-Record-Corruption/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/26/imperialist-intervention-in-venezuela-update-18/

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/26/pence-threatens-war-in-venezuela-at-colombia-summit-there-is-no-turning-back/

For a country that loves God, the U.S; fights a lot of wars and kills a lot of people.
______________________________________________________________

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/26/venezuela-beyond-regime-change-and-oil/
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This next item I found to be a very disagreeable read. Maybe this is not the answer. But the reality is happening, and we are nowhere close to dealing with it.
And that is a world insanity. Spare a thought here for what must be the insanity of your favourite oil billionaire.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/26/extinction-rebellion/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51158.htm
_______________________________________________________________

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51161.htm

Hey! If you can't trust Saudi Arabia, who can you trust?
_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------_______

This next item came as a surprise to me. Perhaps it shouldn't  have. Canadian soldiers have been sent to kiss American rear ends before. We sent Canadians to Haiti when the U.S. overthrew its elected government. And, of course, we are close to a similar role in Venezuela.

Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

Like hell we do.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51159.htm
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.mintpressnews.com/america-rescues-its-arrested-weapons-runners-after-arrest-haiti/255472/

This is the American part of the story above it.

let's see, now.

1. Haiti had an elected government

2. The U.S; that lover of democracy, overthrew it and installed a dictator..

 3. Canada sent "peacekeepers" - American flunkies.

4. The U.S. now has to save its dictator. So it sent troops.

5. And Canada sent troops to help the Americans.

6. And Canada never told the Canadian people what it had done.

7. And Canada's news media thought it wasn't important to tell us.

An attachment to the U.S. has long since ceased to make any sense for Canada. But it makes sense for Canadian billionaires. And Justin Trudeau knows who keeps him in power.

Too bad Canadian voters can spell only Liberal and Conservative.
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https://news.gallup.com/poll/247064/americans-perceptions-world-image-best-2003.aspx
______________________________________________________________
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/25/news/jagmeet-singh-claims-house-commons-seat-byelection-win

Well, that's nice. But that's just one in the mass of mps who are corrupt or simple-minded. And, in fairness, who are sometimes both corrupt and simple-minded.
_______________________________________________________________

The U.S. has been a Happy supplier of weapons and active participation for a Saudi Arabia which is arguably the most brutal regime in the world. The American press reacted in horror when the Saudis murdered a journalist. But it soon forgot  its pique, and the U.S. is now offering its useful help starve children to death - as a sort of favour to its good friends among the Saudis.

This is added to the millions, a high proportion of them children,  it has killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and any other place that has children to kill.

God bless America.

https://theantimedia.com/their-news/201792/

it needs all  the blessing it can get.
_______________________________________________________________

https://theantimedia.com/trump-democratic-opposition-endorses-coup-attempt-venezuela/

So much for the Christian principles of the Democrats, of most Americans and, indeed, for almost all the churches in the world.

"Jesus wept"

That's from the King James version of The Bible. But in today's America, Jesus would be an oil baron.
_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://themindunleashed.com/2019/02/monsanto-roundup-weed-killer-beer-wine-organic.html

When the Irvings started to saturate the province of New Brunswick, the provincial medical officer issued a strong warning. So she was disiposed of.

Bottoms up!, New Brunswick.
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https://thesaker.is/russia-slides-towards-internal-political-crisis-must-see-southfront-video-report/

I can still see myself that day in 1945. I had been sent home for being late for school. And hour later, I was downtown with my mother on streets swarming with joy. The war was over! My father was coming home!

But even more....

We have been prepared for a new world one without wars. We would  have a sort of world government - as in the UN - and the nations would work together. There would be no more wars - and that was reinforced by a big sign that said "We've won the war".  That was great. "We've won the war. Now we've got to win the piece." The sign sent a thrill through me.

But we never did it. Many of us never even tried. From the day that the war ended we were all separate and in competition for money and power. We were back at war immediately as Britain tried to force itself back on its withered empire. By 1950, the US was at war with China in the Korean War. And that one was pure greed. The U.S. wanted to recapture the shattered empire of China that had largely been British. By the time I was 14, some of my older friends had already fallen in Korea.

Britain, the U.S., France were probably world leaders in war at the start of the post-war wars. The U.S., in particular, has been at war almost every year since that day World War Two ended.

The UN would never become the centre of a world order that we would all share. instead, it became the old world of struggle, greed, conquest.....

We won the war. Maybe. But we lost the peace.

We never did establish a world of mutual help and cooperation. (And capitalism has been a major factor in our failure to establish such a world.)

Now? We are probably looking at our last chance. And i see no sign we are even thinking about it.

_______________________________________________________________















































friends in 

Damn! Damn! Damn!

I admit it. I was a day late in doing my blog for Friday.. But I was almost done when - I don't know  - I must have hit a bad button - and the whole thttp://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/where-to-find-our-films/nfb-film-club/ext disappeared.

So I kept writing the finish, intending to go back to start afterward. And it happened again.

I may well be that I am unfitted for the 21st century. (I can already hear the taunts of computer-wise street urchins when I appear.

So -  I shall write a proper blog on Tuesday. For tonight (it's late for us old folks at 8;15) I shall write a short piece that provides a background for all of them.
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There's nothing new about imperialism, slavery, abuse and greed. These were all  creatures of ancient worlds. Ancient Rome happily used slaves by the millions. And when the wealthy no longer needed the poor, they happily let them die, and be buried in great pits.Greed has always been a feature of human existence.

The modern age of greed and empire empire began, I suppose, with Columbus as he turned his savagery loose in South America. He enslaved. he forced the native peoples to  hand over the wealth, notably gold, of their lands. And when a local  failed to deliver is quota of gold on time, Columbus imported trained dogs to hunt him down and tear him to death.

Technically, it wasn't capitalism, I suppose. But the results were remarkably similar.

Slavery, always present, became common in Latin America and, later, as Africans were enslaved in their millions.

Countries like Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, The Netherlands soon got into the slavery business in a rush of  that enslaved millions. (The conditions of their capture killed unknown millions just in the sea voyage that took them into slavery.) As late as the twentieth century, the Belgian Empire was enslaving millions in Congo, and conducting mass murder of any who objected. Today, those Belgian conquerors have been succeeded by European and North American capitalists who maintain poverty, enhanced by murder. In effect, people of the Congo are still slaves.

Britain, of course, was the leading world trader in slaves until well into the 19th century. Britain also enslaved millions into the twentieth century in places like China and India. (The death toll by British imperialists came to a total of 350 million - which probably still stands as a world record.)

The U.S. was very much a child of its imperial  mother. The American revolution really had little to with freedom. The poor remained poor (and, contrary to the ideal of equality of all men) those so poor as not to own any property were commonly denied the right to vote.

In fact, the U.S. was so much a child of its imperial mother  that it immediately used the revolution to build an empire of its own. The U.S. of 1776 had only 13 states. And George Washington, along with other member of the revolutionary leadership wanted more land for the wealth it would produce. And that's really what the revolution was about.

From the start of 1776, the purpose of America was to murder native people so speculators   (like Washington) could steal their land. (For the same reason, they attacked Canada - and failed. They were more successful in setting up a war with Mexico that stole  the huge areas of Mexico, Arizona, California and other areas.)

Yes. America proved that it could be just as brutal, exploitive and murderous as Britain was. (Yes. Canada too.)

But much earlier on, capitalism had entered the scene. It was overlapped with slavery and imperialism from the start. But, alas, there was no chance of getting slaves any more. So capitalism had to make do with low,low wages and, for itself, no taxes whatever.

With that, the U.S. began the work of getting control of Latin America about 1900. It was easy. The couldn't get slaves. But it was quite easy to buy off local leaders - and then to open employment by U.S. companies with starvation labour. (Canada was quite happy to buy into that game.) Commonly  the companies have bare survival minimum wage - though they did pretty young. As well, the American and Canada companies commonly don't pay any taxes. So the encaptured state cannot afford to help it's starving people or to provide anything adequate in education.

And if people object?

A good example of what happens happened in Guatemala in the 1950 and later

The CIA was created as a massive goon squad to stamp on the poor. It's leader in the 1950s was George Bush Sr. - a highly respected American and church-goer - as our news media said when he died.

He murdered 200,000 Guatemalan civilians. When the Catholic Church objected to this butchery, he ordered the widespread murder of priests, lay missionaries and nuns.

Praise the Lord!

Leger was killed late in the slaughter - in 1981. You want more information on that? Good luck. NO news medium in all of North America mentioned it. The only North American medium of any sort I know of that carried the story is

https://www.mcintyre.ca/titles/NFB520584

http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/where-to-find-our-films/nfb-film-club/

His body was brought to his native New Brunswick for burial. Alas! Even  the newspapers of his own province didn't carry the story. Of course not. The owner of the New Brunswick papers is a billionaire who had a stake in Venezuela oil.

You can get similar stories from all over Latin America. It is the  cheap labour base for American and Canadian corporations who carry out their control through torture and murder. This is not just one company. Is is all of them.
The U.S. added an extra  touch in the pre-Castro days when it handed over all the gambling rights in Cuba to the Mafia.

We lavish power on major corporations, power that they should never be permitted to hold. We allow them to destroy. And surely, one of the worst episodes in Canadian history was that recent day when Justin Trudeau pulled down Trump's pants and laid a kiss, naming the Venezuela government as evil.

I have no idea when Maduro is capable of leading an efficient government. nor is that any of my business.

The reality is that modern capitalism has become the greediest and most evil force we have seen.

(If you read history, you soon learn that capitalists have controlled our major governments for centuries. And they use that control to make us send troops to kill anybody who is in the way of the capitalists. Hitler murdered Jews. Hitler was evil. Hitler was an empire builder. But read some history and learn that is not whey we went to war in 1939.

In fact, looking at mass murder in the hundreds of millions, in looking at brutality, in looking at horrible exploitation, Hitler was a sweetheart compared to the capitalists of Britain. (no. that's not an exaggeration).

And we are living through another period of capitalist murder, exploitation....
There are two, possible results.

1. The dishonesty, confusion, and partiality of our news media will destroy whatever rational powers we have left. That confusion is already widespread - and that is what has produced a Trump.

2. We shall, in any case, become a society that will allow the major capitalists to destroy the planet.

This is the most dangerous time the world has ever seen. And we have allowed it to happen.

Feb. 21: Decline and Fall - of all of us.

Long, long ago, when I was a darling child (You'll have to accept my word on that) my favourite comic book story was one based on truth. It was called Murder, Inc.

At the time, thee was such an organization based largely  in the U.S. The mobs of the time frequently needed to kill people who were interfering with business. (This was just after American prohibition.) The problem was that the police were well aware of what was going on in the various mobs - so the risk of getting caught in such an awkward was unpleasantly high.

Enter a low profile mob calling itself Murder Inc. which specialized in assassinations.. amid relatively unknown to the police. It was, in my comics at least, a profitable operation.

I thought of that as i read up on the Venezuela crisis.

It's the same process.

American oil billionaires want to own the Venezuela oilfields. But all those billionaires tumbling into Venezuela and shooting the place  up would be a little too obvious.  So, they turn to their Murder Inc. And this Murder Inc is even better than the old one because nobody can arrest it.

The Murder Incs  of our time are governments. In just about every war the U.S. has fought since 1950 was fought to satisfy American billionaires And that has meant over 80 wars.

And what's really great about this is that our smart billionaires are a step up on Murder Inc. They don't have to pay a cent for all that killing, No. Our government pays for it with our tax money. How's that for a double whammy?

This is nothing new. The governments of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands have, for some hundreds of years been the Murder  Incs for their wealthy. And it works - usually. It didn't work for Hitler. But the world rose in righteous indignation about Hitler because he cheated. He openly crashed in on the activities of all the other Murder Incs.

No. No. There must be honour among thieves.

Oh - a  problem with Venezuela. Russia is sending food to Venezuela. Does that mean we risk having two Murder Incs operating in the same country?

And note that Canada is playing a prominent role in the U.S. Murder Inc. We may now find it difficult to get out of this.

And both the U.S. and Russia are re-activating their nuclear threats.

It worked better in the comics.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-polls-snclavalin-1.5026798

Sometimes I have to give up on Canada.

Canadians are turning against Trudeau for his dealings with a private corporation. And they're going to vote Conservative?

How the hell does he think the Conservatives get big money to win elections?
The cuddle up to big corporations, that's how. Vote Liberal or Conservative. It doesn't matter. Whichever one we elect, big money will be the real winner of the election.

Liberals? Conservatives? It doesn't matter. That's the way it is. And that's the way it's always been.

Wake up, Canada!
___________________________________________________________

Just what we need! A war with Russia.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-us-russia-aid-wars-humanitarian-1.5026963

And this was foreseeable. However, U.S. oil billionaires and their president decided not to see it. And this raises an interesting question for Canada. If this continues, it's quite possible that Canada will be asked (told) to send troops. (Thank you, Justin, for tying us to a very foolish and greedy American venture.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2019/02/capitalism-worst-possible-economic-system-planet-ravaged

Multi- billionaires are not nice people. Get used to it.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/02/curtailing-corporate-impunity-would-defend-human-rights
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2019/02/you-may-not-insects-you-need-them

Our future is not about climate change. It's also about many, many crises attached to that.
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http://rabble.ca/babble/national-news/trudeau-betrays-trudeau-canada%E2%80%99s-big-mistake-venezuela
_______________________________________________________________

I had a piece to include here, but I've lost it. However, it's simple enough. A poll asked Canadians how they felt about Muslim immigrants. A disturbingly large number expressed anger at the 'hordes' of Muslim terrorists on our streets.

What hordes? This is like the American horror at swarms of Latin migrants at the U.S. border. (In fact, the number of  migrants seeking to cross the border has been down dramatically in recent years. And most of them are there because U.S. capitalists have destroyed the economies of their home countries.)

And swarms of Muslim terrorists in Canada? Gee! I missed that.

Oh, and our news media commonly call  them terrorists. Funny thing, though.
American soldiers who kill people by the millions, who make it a practice to bomb civilians and children   (Yes. More of those than all the killing  by Muslims.) And, of course, the U.S. has made a practice of starving children to death.

So why don't our news media call American soldiers terrorists?

The fact is that the streets of Canada are not flooded with Muslim terrorists. The U.S. may be - a very, very little bit - but , at worst, their kill score is far less than that of bad drivers in the U.S.

But our news media use loaded language - terrorists, evil..... In fact, the Muslim world is a great deal less terrorist than our side is. And in the Muslim world, the worst killers are the Saudis - to who we sell  weapons.

But a Trump has the knack for seeing evil that isn't there   (except on his part). That's what got him elected. That's why so many Americans are inflicting horror on thousands of desperate people at their border. And Canadians, too, are victims of this.
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This story is stunning. And, best of all, it does not appear to be coming from big time capitalists. I never though he'd be able to do this. And, oh, I'm glad i was wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/20/bernie-sanders-2020-presidential-campaign-fundraising
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-trump-may-satisfy-base-with-partial-border-wall
____________________________________________________________


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/21/who-refusing-back-green-new-deal-follow-fossil-fuel-money

Quelle surprise!
_______________________________________________________________

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/21/the-international-rogue-nation-america/

Sieg Heil!
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The U.S., land of the free, has long been a close buddy of the world's most ruthless of all the anti-democratic nations. And it (Saudi Arabia) wants a nuclear bomb.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/20/when-saudi-arabia-gets-the-bomb/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/21/the-bill-and-melinda-gates-fair-taxation-scaremongering-tour/

Gates and his wife remind me of Richard Hatfield, the New Brunswick politician who is, at least, honest - remarkably selfish and greedy. He's the one who advocates that the wealthy should take over all government. And, as an attack on democracy, this one really stands out.
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We are very, very close, closer than even before, to a nuclear war. And for no good reason.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51130.htm

This would probably mean the launching of over 15,000 bombs. But I'm sure that we - or some of us - would win.
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Reality.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51135.htm

Oh. All t hose countries are so evil.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-us-russia-aid-wars-humanitarian-1.5026963
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/19/news/canadian-regulator-wont-consider-climate-impacts-trans-mountain
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/food-crises-climate-change-care-international/
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/20/the-year-of-the-pig-is-here-literally/
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And no, the following is not an exaggeration.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/21/goebbels-is-alive-and-well-in-amerika/
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https://theantimedia.com/saudis-khashoggi-body/

Oh, well, if Saudi Arabia doesn't know who killed the reporter, we can safely give them their very own nuclear bombs.
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https://truthout.org/articles/oakland-teachers-strike-joining-redfored-movement-on-picket-lines/

I grew up in a district that was, to say the least, poor. It was a district of people who had been poor for generations - perhaps forever. Most of the guys I played with couldn't read. All of them dropped out of school in grade 9. I was kicked out in grade 11. But it didn't cause any stir. Nobody, including my parents, expected kids to finish school in that district.

There have been millions of us in Canadian history. We were permanently poor. And we were raised to be permanently poor. But in the end, I had one thing that would save me. My father read books. And every Saturday he would buy me a book from a used book store. And, oh, I read constantly. My friends called me the walking dictionary. In the end, after lots of delays, after four years in a dead end job, I got the chance for the worthwhile life of teaching.

Education is the key to getting out of poverty - and dreadful jobs. But often it doesn't. I started my teaching in hopelessly oversized classes. (Two of the boys I taught there died in shootouts with police just a few years after they dropped out.)

Education requires small classes. It requires programmes that bring out the potential in children. (And, yes, even the poor ones have potential.) It requires a staff with a wide range of skills, with lots of support.. And it usually doesn't  have that. It doesn't have it because the wealthy people who sit on school boards don't give much of a damn about the students. They send their own children to private (and expensive) schools. The hell with the rest.

This has taken a vicious form in the U.S. which now offers a large number of private ('Charter") schools. And they're expensive, too expensive for most kids.
So these private schools suck up the resources that should go to the public schools. Public school resources are cut every year. And that means more generations every year of the poor being tramped down.

Charter schools are not just schools for the greedy rich. They are also destructive for millions of children who have to stay poor for generation after generation. U.S. capitalism, running on pure greed, is destroying children.
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https://theintercept.com/2019/02/21/why-wont-the-media-discuss-trumps-mental-instability/
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Feb. 19: Out Bastards

I don't know what's going on with t his idiot machine. This Feb. 19 blog WAS published and sent on Feb. 19. I was shocked here on late February 20 to find  listed as unsent.
I did send it on the 19th. I did. I did.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/19/bernie-sanders-announces-2020-run-presidency

Sounds nice. But where's the big money going to come from? For the last several hundred years in the western world, the superwealthy have controlled elections. That's been true in a Britain which induced young men to kill hundreds of millions all over the world for pennies a day. it was praised as 'patriotism'. But it was pure greed and murder.

Though most Canadian history books don't know it, it was true throughout the history of Canada. Ever wonder why Canadians fought and died in South Africa 120 years ago? Was South Africa about to attack Canada?

No. Canadian capialists wanted them there because of their ties to a British Empire for trade. And British capitalists wanted them there to set the stage for Canadian participation in a coming war with Germany. It was to set a precedent for Canada fighting Britisn wars.

And we called it patriotism - though what was patriotic about getting killed while killing Dutch farmers in South Africa isn't clear to me.

Now, of course, Canadian 'patriotism' means killing people to please U.S. capitalists because of the U.S. market ties for Canadian capitalists. That's why Canadians died in Korea and Afghanistan. That's why they trained Syrian rebels. That's why Canadians bombed helpless people in Libya. That's why Canadian troops are very dangerously staged in far eastern Europe.

Most recently, Canada has leaped to support American aggression against Venezuela. And it is quite possible Canada will be ssked (told) to play a military role.

Greed drives capitalism. And capitalism expects Canada to be 'patriotic'. (What the hell did killing Koreans have to do with the patriotism of defending Canada against a Korea that had no intention of attacking us? Or against Afghanistan?)

Now, the U.S., which has destroyed democracy in much of Latin America - which murdered 200,000 civilians in Guatemala, sustained a brutal dictatorship in Chile, has destroyed what was democracy in Haiti. which is still punishing Cuba for overthrowing one of the world's most brutal dictatorships - created by the U.S. - is now looking all virtuous and accusing Venezuela of being undemocratic.

Venezuela is, of course, weak on democracy. But the reccord of the U.S. scarcely qualifies it as a lover of democracy.

Not even in the U.S. itself. There, the very wealthy have established themselves as owners of the political parties. (Indeed, that goes back to the very origins of American 'democracy').  And in Canada, control by the wealthy has been accepted by the very wealthy from 1867 at least. And the wealthy have happily financed both the Liberals and Conservatives from the start. And we are now arriving at a very dangerous point in Canada.

A few months ago, a former New Brunswick premier, Richard Hatfield, addressed New Brunswick business leaders in Ottawa. His message was that politicians (and by implication voters) are incompetent to run governments. He urged the business leaders -seriously - to overthrow governments and to take over. His message was wildly applauded.

(His message neatly overlooked the fact that governments in both the U.S. and Canada have been controlled by big business from the start.)

The reality is that we never have controlled our governments. That's why they're such a mess.

Could a Bernie Sanders win? I don't know. It would be quite a chore with all the money and the news media on the other side.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/19/justin-trudeaus-top-adviser-resigns-as-political-meddling-scandal-widens

Right. And now indignant Canadians will vote -----for the Conservative party. How dumb can we get?

Donne-moi un break.
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http://rabble.ca/babble/national-news/trudeau-betrays-trudeau-canada%E2%80%99s-big-mistake-venezuela
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/02/18/they-took-my-house-they-took-my-life-they-took-everything

I have known a few of the right wing Iaraeli 'settler's. Believe me- You don't want them next door.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/18/highly-disturbing-facebook-blocks-viral-video-outlets-critical-us-foreign-policy-and
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/19/proving-small-dollar-army-fired-2020-sanders-raises-over-1-million-just-three-hours

Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/sweden-welfare-state-benefits-popular/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh4TDQM-SyQ

God bless America
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/18/news/making-study-says-oilsands-assessments-marred-weak-science
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https://truthout.org/articles/trump-supports-bible-literacy-classes-in-public-schools/

Few people talk about Christianity more - and prractice it less - than Christians.
it really is quite remarkable.

When Americans get killed, I'm sure many churches offer a commentary on it..
And when Americans kill children in Yemen? When they murdered 200,000 in Guatemala? When they killed over a million in Iraq? When American billlionaires plunder their own country? When the (Christian) rich refused to make health care available to the rest?

i guess the Christian churches have always been more patriotic than religious. Christian Germans attended church throughout Hitler's rule. And, certainly, not a word of criticism was ever aimed at Hitler. George Bush became an ardent  church church-goer after a presidency in which he killed a million or so innocent people.

Or perhaps they know a passage in The Bible which ssys how neat it is to have nuclear weapons.

Or perhaps our churches are just full of gutless hypocrites.
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


To write a thrice weekly blog on current events becomes profoundly depressing because it is a constrant remember of the  presence of greed in our society. There are no limits to the greedy of our wealthy, /Consider. We are planning for a war which, if it were ever fought, would destroy all human life. We murder quite helpless people on a massive scale all over the world - as in Yemen - and it's not at all clear why this is necessary. We have missiles that can destroy most of humanity. How will that make this a better world?

The  U.S. has capitalists creating private schools for those rich enough to attenc them. But surely such a system (if it does work) could be done just a effectively with public schools. Why, then, is it denied to low income children/

I'll all for a system that would improve literacy. My childhood friends were illiterate. Of course. They weren't stupid. But the parents and most of the community were illiterate.. Of course. They were poor. They had limiated chances at best. They group up in a separate world All that ssved me from living in poverty was that my father read. I had books from the age of six. And it made all the difference.

To grow up poor is to grow up in a hopeless world - and a different one from the world of others. (I think here of two boys I taught in grade seven who, before they were twenty, were shot and killed by police. That happens when you grow up ini a world without a chance.)

A simple thing like reading and writing can put one in a different world. The U.S. proocides the essential help to get there - but only for kids with prosperous homes who probably don't need the help. Wouldn't it make sense to provice the public schools with such help?

No. Not to the capilal'sts. Their only interest in it is in making profits for themselves.

The U.S. has spent billions since 1950 to kill tens of millions of people all over the world. Was that to save us?  Save us from what?

We live in a world dominated by the murderous greed of some of our most resoected cutuzens. And, yes, even Canada capitalists pay the game. We have developed destructive systems so vile that just the existence of them could destroy us all.

This is insane. This is the result of greeds so powerful that, on our present course.  we cannot survive.

We have monstrous problems of poverty and suffering all over the world. And the U.S., British, French, etc. responses are to do things like killing more Venzuealans so billionaires can steal their oil.

In a world of serious problems, we are led by people whose only interest is their own greed.  In this moment, we are ruled by the greediest, most obsessed and most evil people in history.
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.

Forgive me for not checking my spelling on this one.It's getting late - and I'm tired and not in a cheeful mood. It's very unpleasant to write, three times a week, about the most evil people this world has ever known.

Feb. 16: Our daily destruction of ourselves.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/canada-haiti-deportation-violence-protests-1.5021661

For decades, Haiti was ruled by dictators subservervient to American billionaires. Then Haitians won the right to vote.

So the U.S. sent troops to bring back the good old days.  And Canada kissed up wih 'peacekeepers'.

Yep. American governments are great believers in democracy.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/16/tijuana-migrant-child-murders-mexico-us-asylum

The refugee crises have just begun - in South America, Africa, parts of Asia. They can only get worse - much, much worse. And our most prominent response has been to act like the racists we are.
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Venezuela might have beaten off the attempts of American capitalists to take it over. But now what?

It has still to deal with the U.S. restrictions on its trade. And until that happens there will be poverty and starvation. Unless....

China and Russia become a presence in this crisis. But then the rest is anybody's guess.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/13/venezuela-nicolas-maduro-juan-guaido-campaign-latest
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This next one is possibly a repeat.

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-hard-to-fathom-why-allies-support-u-s-on-venezuela
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How the very wealthy live off our taxes - but don't pay a cent of their own.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/15/new-york-hq-fiasco-and-0-federal-taxes-say-critics-confirm-amazons-status-deadbeat

How come our news media haven't launched any attempt to tell this story? Could that be because of who it is that owns most of our news media?

Get the picture. In fifty years, the U.S. has invaded over fifty countries. That's pretty expensive. And every one of those countries was invaded to meet the needs of Amperican capitalists.  (Thousands, including Canadians, died in the war in Afghanistan. Why was that war fought? it was fought because AFghanistan is up to its ears in minieral wealth - and American capitalists want it, That's why Canadian died. Forget the crap propaganda about how they died for Canada. Afghanistan was not a threat to Canada - or the U.S.)

If the U.S. fights a war in  Venezuela, it will be for exactly the same reason - to make American capitalists richer.

And who paid for those wars? Every cent came from the pockets of taxpayers in the U.S. and in American colonies like Canada. Nothing - not even a cent - came from the pockets of billionaires. They pay no taxes but the wars are fought to make them richer.

That's why the U.S. is facing severe education crises. That's why it can't offer its people medical care. That's why it can't deal with its massive homeless problem. That's why many tens of millions end their working careers in hopeless poverty.
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Our children are the ones who are going to suffer for the greed and corruption we have not had the courage to face and to deal with.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/15/16-year-old-greta-thunberg-cheers-beginning-great-changes-climate-strike-goes-global
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/02/14/1200-kids-gun-deaths-parkland-did-i-say-i-love-you
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Is it true that the U.S. needs a wall against Latin America? It's not just the U.S. We're all building walls. And it has nothing to do with criminals crossing our borders.

https://www.thenation.com/article/walls-and-borders-are-this-countrys-most-consistent-climate-change-adaptation/
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America! Where you can say whatever you believe. (As long as it's the same as what everybody else believes.)

https://www.thenation.com/article/colin-kaepernick-nfl-settlement-collusion/

In this case, the sinner has been forgiven by the NFL for, among other things, dropping to a knee during the playing of the national anthem. However, the patriots in his home state don't feel any need for fortgiveness. They have banned him from being named as a role model in Black History Month.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/16/the-venezuelan-coup-a-media-success/

The U.S. (like Canada only more so, much more so) has been a murderous, empire-biling nation from the early days of European settlement. There was  the slaughter of native peoples by the millions,  the war on Mexico to steal what is now Texas, Arizona, California, etc., the seizure of Hawaii, the several attempts on  Canada, the colonization of Latin America, of The Phillipines and, most recently of lands in Africa and the middle east.

How many were slaughtered in all of this? We'll never know.

Some lover of democracy!
________________________________________________________________

The next item seems true enough. But it seems hopelessly idealistic. The U.S. (like many other countries is hopelessly mired in propagandas that they call their histories.)

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/16/trumps-state-of-emergency-a-step-towards-presidential-dictatorship.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6705421/Three-babies-DAY-killed-conflict-turn-one.html
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Thinking of moving to California?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/california-nightmare-over-half-of-the-people-living-in-the-state-wish-they-could-leave
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The following account is heavily biased and, some times, just plain wrong. But compared to the reports we usually get about Cuba, it's brilliantly truthful.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51112.htm
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Here's a point of view very different from any in our news media.

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/893-venezuela-blitz-part-2-press-freedom-sanctions-and-oil.html
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Are Canadians cruel and arrogant?  You bet.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/15/news/people-will-die-if-nothing-done-cat-lake-first-nation-considering-evacuation-one

If those people were big time capitalists, that town would now be awash in doctors.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/indigenous-communities-halting-humanitys-race-to-disaster/5668766
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/one-thousand-children-die-measles-madagascar/

Sorry, kids. We're all tied up killing children all over the world.
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/children-in-conflict-save-the-children-report/
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Here's a whole page of off-Guardian stories to give a sense of its general tone.

If off-Guardian is right and The Guardian is such a bad paper, why do I include it in my list of news media?

That's because, bad as it is, the Guardian. is still the best of major newspapers in this world. It's not so much a recognition of The Guardian quality as it is of the lying propaganda of all of our major news media.
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The following story can't be true. If it were, our news media would have told us all about it.https://truthout.org/articles/incarcerated-immigrants-are-being-tortured/

https://truthout.org/articles/incarcerated-immigrants-are-being-tortured/

Anyway, Trump's supporters are devout Christians - as is Trump. So there.
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https://theintercept.com/2019/02/16/brazil-bolsonaro-indigenous-land/

Bolsonaro, new president of Brazil, is much admired by Trump and the Republican Party (and some Democrats).
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I was reluctant to  publish this one at first because it makes a complicated issue seem simple. The tone of this is that all Jews must be above criticism, and that any criticism is really a form of anti-semitism.

In fact, there is a lot of anti-semitism still out there - all over the western world. But it does not follow that all criticism of Jews is anti-semitic. (By the way, arabs, too, are semites.)

My experience of Jewish communities in North America - which is extensive - has been that these are intellectually alive and both intellectually and financially generous.  ( In speaking to audiences, which I did many, many times every year for many years, I would look foward to Jewish audiences more than any other.)

As a teenager, I remember walking to see friends in Montreal's Jewish ghetto, and feeling a tremendous boost at window signs expressing delight at the founding of Israel.

But I came to know many Israelis - and to learn about their abysmal treatment of Palestinians.

For the Jews of Europe, Hitler destroyed their belief in Jewish principles. Understandable. But that has created an Israel lacking in in the religious principles of Judaism - making it rather, I fear, like those fundamentalist Christians who support Trump.

https://thesaker.is/and-now-a-word-from-the-jewish-democratic-council-of-america/

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It's a slow day for news - so let's spare a few moments to get rid of misuse of some words.

To many people, communism and socialism are simply dirty words. To many others, the dirty word is capitalism.So let's try to get real.

Capitalism is a system in which economic growth is encouraged by encouraging private owndership - and depending on market controls to ensure it meets needs.. The problem, alas, iss that there are virtually no market controls. Major capitalists  got rid of controls almost from the start so that the whole purpose of capitalism became not to develop an economy but to open it up to mass theft by a very few.

Karl Marx was a man dedicated to improving the condition of human life. He proposed a system based fitting the distribution of wealth by ensuring access to adequate housing, food, education....for all. But don't waste your time arguning about it because it's very, very rarely been even tried. The Soviet Union, in particular, was never communist.

China's communism, tried with some messiness by Mao's China, did have some success. By 1950, a China long brutalized and impoverished by western capitalists could hold its own against western capitalist armies. Over recent years, China blended communism with capitalism - and this counry which had suffered brurality and poverty inflicted by western capitalism suddenly emerged as a major world power. Offhand, I cannot think of any country in world history that has accomplished such a rapid change.

This surely suggests that neither capitalism nor communism is a remedy for the world's ills - but that combination of the two might work.

Socialism? Fundamentally, it's very similar to communism - but that similarity is avoided by all sides.

Very simply,capitalism simply means the accumulation of  wealth by the already wealthy. it is designed to serve capitalists and only capitalists.And, left alone, that makes it a sure path to disaster.

The invariable result of lone capitalism means sure destruction of a society. We need a strong dose of legislation designed to benefit the whole society - not just its billionaires. Call it communism. Call it socialism. We need a system that creates - but also shares - wealth.

When I worked in China, I saw a country whose cities and housing and roads looked much as they must have done a century and more earlier. No more. Today, its housing increasingly resembles that of western powers. it's education is excellent. In a very short time, China has leaped from being a nation of shanties. I can recall - often - seeing outhouses as toilets in the middle of cities

With it's reliance entirely on a super-wealthy class and with its utter failure in paying attention to the rest, the U.S. (And Canada and the west in general) are headed for one hell of a crash.

As it is, our billionaires are destroying themselves.
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Feb. 14:We never got smart enough.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/haiti-quebec-canada-stranded-1.5019136

Haiti, after years of American-approved dictators, established a democracy. But it didn't last long. The U.S. invaded, setting up a new dictatorship.  (Canada, as usual, helped the U.S. along by sending 'peacekeepers' to make it all look respectable.)

American and Canadian capitalists see Latin America as simply a place of cheap, cheap labour, cheap resources, very limited education, and virtually no social services. And they intend to keep it that way.

Are power to delude ourselves surpasses understanding. The U.S. (sometimes with Canadian help) has murdered millions since 1950. It has specialized in killing civilians and children. We have specialized in some of the worst greed this world has known.

But we are good. And God is our commander-in-chief in all our murders.

Now, that Maduro ---he's just evil.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/02/canada-talks-democracy-while-us-eyes-venezuelas-oil
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-hard-to-fathom-why-allies-support-u-s-on-venezuela
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/14/unhinged-mike-pence-warns-new-holocaust-team-trump-tries-rally-eu-leaders-war-iran

Wow! If Iran is a military threat to the world, what is the U.S. record?
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We are daily being robbed of huge sums by our very wealthy. Canada has lost  uncountable billions,  the U.S. perhaps as much as a trillion.  In addition, we have to pay the immense
cost of fighting their wars. Why are our news media not telling us this?

And those same people find in a horrible cost to them to pay minimum wage of $15 or so an hour.

This is greed gone wild, and it's happening with the full cooperation of our governments. What nations of wimps we must be!

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/13/fix-system-let-trump-stop-paying-social-security-taxes-40-minutes-2016-sanders-says
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/14/thwarting-trumps-climate-change-denial/

And who are the climate change deniers? The most influential and important ones are the billionaire ownders of oil fields. Since climate change will kill them, too, what does this tell us about their intelligence?

The world has seen major wars constantly since 1950. Our side are heroes. The other side is invariably referred to as terrorists.  What does this tell about our human thinking processes?  More on this at the end of this post.
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Ontario's prime minister, Doug Ford, would make a great republican senator - and possible even a great U.S. president.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/13/news/public-outrage-growing-after-doug-fords-claims-he-can-stamp-out-crazy-marxist
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https://theantimedia.com/media-trump-rubio-venezuela-aid-pr-stunt/
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Remember - after decades of British dictatorship and plundering of its oil, Iran got rid of the British - and created a quite respectable democracy.

That democracy was overthrown by the U.S. and Britain in favour of a dictatorship. Eventually, the Iranians managed to get rid of the dictator and to attempt a democracy again. But, in American and British eyes, there is nothing worse than democracy.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-suffering-of-the-iranian-people-has-made-in-usa-stamped-on-it/
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In U.S. upper class circles, the purpose of medecine is to make the rich richer. In Mexico, the purpose of medecine is to heal. I don't think we begin to realize what a backward nation the U.S. is in ignoring the needs of its people.

https://truthout.org/audio/americans-cross-border-into-mexico-to-buy-insulin-at-a-fraction-of-us-cost/
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Today's Ukraine is really a creation of the U.S. (Perhaps that explains why it supports such a large nazi movement. (And no, that's not calling it names. This is Nazi - including a worship of swastikas and of Hitler.)

https://www.voltairenet.org/article205172.html
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We human types have been around for a very long time - some for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest ones looked more like apes than humans - but they were in our direct line of descent. And, perhaps 70,000 years ago, we evolved into a very human type called Neanderthal, a type that looked very much like us today.

Neanderthals, at their peak, numbered perhaps a million. They lived as hunters and gatherers, nothing more. There was nothing more they could do because neanderthals, much as they looked like us, lacked our intelligence.

Then, some tens of thousands of years later, we (homo sapiens) appeared. Seemingly, homo sapiens looked much like Neanderthals. But there was a big difference. Homo sapiens have a much more highly developed brain than anything that had ever lived before.

They had brains that could plan strategies. That made it possible for homo sapiens to wipe out all forms of previous human life - to steal their land, etc. Those brains also made it possible to develop agriculture and,relatively recently, industry ----and war.

But having the biggest brains of our time is not necessarily a good sign for the future. The future may very well be one that calls for even bigger brains than homo sapiens has ever developed.

For several centuries now, we  have been creating a world of almost constant war. We have done so despite all the evidence that our power to control war has long since disappeared. Yet Donald Trump recently announced a return to preparing for a world nuclear war that would destroy all of us.

In world war 2, we thought we were preparing for a better world. In the song by Vera Lynn,

There'll be blue birds over
The white cliffs of dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after,
Tomorrow when the world is free.

In fact, war began again right after World War Two ended. And it began again in an even more dangerous form than ever before.

That's what made me think of the superior brains of homo sapiens. They have certainly given us enormmous powers to destroy, to plunder... But in ten thousand years, they have not seriously addressed poverty. In fact, we are major causes of poverty all over the world. We have not stopped killing. In fact, it has continued at full war levels.

Ihe passage of time has not made us smarter - but has infected some of us with a stunning arrogance. Some of us have an astonishing record of greed and plunder - how else can we describe policies that kill by starvation and murder all over the world? The rest of us actually pay for this with our taxes and with low salaries. The very wealthy get rich. And in getting rich put all of us into dreadful danger.

They also plunder much of the world - like Africa and Latin America - to enrich a wealthy leadership. And it's made worse by climate change crashing into refugees in much of the world.

And where will all this take us? Where it has already taken much of the world, including large parts of wealthy countries - into poverty and hunger. With a lack of brains, we are repeating the Homo sapiens slaughter of neanderthals; but doing it to ourselves.

The leaders in all of this are the super-wealthy who, despite their obvious intellecual and moral weaknesses, see themselves as leaders when they are really our symbols of intellectual decline and decay. The super-wealthy and their political hacks are taking us - and themselves - to destruction. Soon.

We got bigger brains from homo sapiens some tens of thousands of years ago. But they obviously are not yet big enough. (No intelligent population would vote for Liberals or Conservatives or Republicans or Democrats.

Our capitalists are not just evil. They are remarkably stupid - more along the lines of neanderthals. And our time is very, very short.
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Canada has a Donald Trump.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/16/news/scientist-who-resisted-censorship-climate-report-lost-her-job
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Feb. 11:Gettting close to the last call...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-socialism-canada-1.5010033

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/11/trump-offers-socialism-for-the-rich-capitalism-for-everyone-else
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Until recently, I lived in New Brunswick where all newspapers are lying,  propaganda sheets in praise of their multi-billionaire owner. I now live in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, where I first thought the newspapers were just brainless.  But, no, I've just learned that the major one is not just dumb. No. It's a progaganda sheet just like the irving press of New Brunswick. The Wednesday Feb. 28 edition of the Ottawa Citizen, between its stretches of boredom and trivia, has a piece of propaganda kissing up to the very wealthy. But it is presented as a piece of news from a prestigious research institute, the Frazer Institute..

Readers are schocked to learn that very large numbers of the poor don't pay any income tax. And - horrors - the poor often get financial help from the government as well - you know, help with child costs, food.....  And the top 20 percent are paying 70 percent of all income taxes.  And it's just dreadful how the very rich have to pay so much tax.

Obviously, The Frazer Institute has never heard of how the very, very rich pay NO income tax at all. None. Nada. Zilch.

Nor does the paper bother to tell us who The Frazer Institute is. It's a propaganda outfit financed by the very wealthiest people in Canada  - the ones who pay no income tax at all. It poses as a serious research body. In short, it's a liar.

We are flooded by these 'research' institutes that like to call themselves 'think-tanks'. They are, in fact, hired pimps to serve big money - The Frazer Institute, The CDHowe, the Atlantic Institute of Market studies.... And all of them create propaganda for the billionaire owners of most of our news media.
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The American empire in Latin America - and it's Canadian pimps.......

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/02/indigenous-rights-defenders-guatemala-challenge-logging
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/02/human-rights-defenders-are-fighting-climate-justice
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I have no great love for any Canadian political party. I don't think the Liberals, for a start, are all that different from the Conservatives. But there is a growing difference between those two parties as the Conservatives move off into some very destructive positions.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/activist-toolkit-blog/2019/02/canadian-provinces-are-poised-lot-more-populism-%C3%A0-la
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/electric-cars-already-cheaper-own-run-study
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/11/trump-offers-socialism-for-the-rich-capitalism-for-everyone-else
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/12/not-so-veiled-threat-war-john-bolton-says-iran-may-not-have-many-more-anniversaries
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/12/we-have-entered-age-environmental-breakdown-report-details-world-edge-runaway

But there is not the slightest possibility that the very wealthy will do anything about it.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/11/global-poll-reveals-surging-fear-climate-crisis-and-us-power-under-trump

And Canada's Trudeau has humiliated this country by supporting Trump in Venezuela.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/11/scientists-warn-crashing-insect-population-puts-planets-ecosystems-and-survival

And what are we doing about it? We're kissing up to billionaires whose only interest is in making money. You can go to jail for going through a red light. But there's no penalty at all for destroying a world and billions of people.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/12/u-s-poses-as-humanitarian-while-it-weaponizes-starvation-in-venezuela/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51080.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51083.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/12/features/noam-chomsky-couple-generations-organized-human-society-may-not-survive-has-be

Tell me what capitalists are doing to deal with this.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/07/news/doug-fords-ontario-proposing-stop-tracking-carbon-pollution-fuel-sold-oil-and-gas
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I'm so happy to have this chance to help our oil billionaires.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/08/analysis/2-billion-oil-industry-subsidy-making-trans-mountain-files-toll-application
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/10/10-reasons-the-gilets-jaunes-are-the-real-deal/
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Not long ago, Haiti was a functioning democracy. But the U.S. ended that with a return to rule by dictators.  And Canada, kissing American rear ends, took part in the process by sending 'peace-keepers'.

https://greedmedia.com/thousands-of-haitians-protest-corruption-rising-living-costs/
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Here's an aspect of the Venezuela crisis that has not been reported in most of the western press.

https://thesaker.is/saker-interview-with-michael-hudson-on-venezuela-february-7-2019/
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205147.html
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205061.html
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Will our world last? No. Not as long as it is dominated by capitalism. I can't pretend to be an expert on these things. Capitalism might work - under controls. I don't know. But I do know it has no controls. I know that it has killed millions of people since 1945 - and obviously intends to kill many millions more.

And oil companies, defying the warnings of just about all the world's scientists that this will destroy the planet and all its living things, are determined to keep pumping it.

Is this because oil bosses are people of superior education and knowledge?  I know of no evidence of that. Quite the contrary, very, very few have such advanced scientific training. (I think here of  Irving, the oil baron of New Brunswick, who quit university while only half way through so he could take over one of daddy's companies. Half way through his first degree - that would qualify him - maybe - for a job as a door to door salesman. (But daddy owned an oil company. So he today, giving his 'expert' opinion, says it is perfectly safe to go on pumping oil.)

Think of a person like that who has the arrogance and power to make decisions that can kill all of us.

Do the people of his province get the chance to question his opinion? No! The only information they get appears in all the newspapers he owns. And that sort of thing is true over most of the world.

I can't pretend to understand these dangerous and vicious people. But the reality is that there power is enormous. These are the ones who decide to kill and to do it in millions. And it is possible, even likely, that they will kill all of us (and themselves) within the century. Nor will it be a quick death as climate changes kill us.

Climate change and our uncontrolled capitalism have already created millions of refugees, especially in the southern half of our planet. They try to escape the horror - and they're allowed to drown by our governments. The few who survive to get to, say, Europe, are shoved into hopeless and miserable camps. The ones who get to the U.S. are imprisoned with the children separated into cages.  And this is just the beginning.

The climate and our capitalism and our greed are creating numbers of refugees that we can't simply stuff into camps. We are going to have to kill them. And we will, by the millions.

What we and our capitalism are like we can see in Latin America. With the powerful backing of the American government - and possibly with the wimpy help of Canada - capitalism has driven most of Latin America into despair. It has impoverished nations. It has murdered uncounted (and usually unreported) numbers of people. And its going to get worse. Much, much worse. The current attack on Venezuela is to ensure that not a penny of oil money of that country ever gets to the people of Venezuela. This is quite as brutal as the behaviour of the old British empire, of Columbus in South America, and Hitler's Germany.

The people of Latin America have, for the most part, been driven into severe poverty. The intention of capitalists is to do the same to Venezuela. They have already done it by cutting off Venezuelan trade. Now there will finish the job by sending in their butchers.

This is not an exaggeration. This is daily life for most of Latin America. It is not an exaggeration  to call capitalism brutal. It has left a long trail of misery and suffering and death behind it in that region for over a century.

Is capitalism viable? Can it be controlled? I don't know. I do know that capitalism has been the cause of almost all wars for the last several centuries. (Yes. That includes World War Two. Indeed, many leaders in the U.S. and Britain were great admirers of Hitler. Henry Ford, the capitalist, admired Hitler. So, for a considerable time, did Churchill. In fact, Churchill turned against Hitler only when it was clear he was creating an empire that would threaten British capitalism.)

Capitalism did not give us medicare - and of course Americans of the richest country in the world still die from that lack of medical care that capitalism insists on.

Big capitalists refuse to pay taxes - not a cent. That places a heavy burden on everyone else because the big capitalists insist on big government spending - for them.

The myth of capitalism is that it creates wealth. And that's nonsense. Just look around. Wealthy Americans  have been rolling in cash, especially since the 1950s. But most other Americans have remained relatively poor. And, related to that, countries like Venezuela and Haiti have been driven into poverty to further enrich wealthy Americans. That's what the Cuban revolution was all about. Cuba now is punished by the U.S. for its revolution - but even with that punishment, Cuba is a hell of a lot better off than when it was under the control of American capitalists.

As a result, we are heading for one hell of a big crash. We are also headed for the war to end all wars - and all of us - soon.

Can we head this off?
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Feb. 09:We still live in 1939

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/antarctica-greenland-weather-1.5011904
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There were people who fought fascism, including Brits, Canadians and Americans who fought fascism before that was respectable - through the years when our government and business leaders still thought Hitler was a nice guy. (One of the Hitler admirers of the time was Winston Churchill.)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/04/johnny-longstaff-a-forgotten-hero-the-spanish-civil-war-fighter-the-younguns-folk?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Outlook
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/phrma-drug-prices-pharmaceutical-industry-pmprb-health-1.5012423

The U.S. is notorious for having the highest drug prices in the world. And I mean really high. Of course. The U.S. market is controlled by capitalism, and capitalism exists to enrich capitalists. Who cares about people and health?
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The U.S. created the blockage of food to Venezuela. Now, as a nation starves, American capitalism (disguised as Christian concern) waves a magic wand to get food to them. The western news media will, of course, applaud this generosity - though it's real purpose is not to feed the people but to win over the Venezuelan army.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/feb/07/venezuela-blocks-border-as-maduro-tries-to-keep-troops-on-side-video

The poverty and hunger part will come back as American capitalists get control of Venezuela's oil fields. This has nothing to do with helping the Venezuelan people in the midst of a crisis the U.S. has created. It has everything to do with helping American billionaires.
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/09/democratic-republic-of-the-congo-election-a-defeat-for-democracy-disaster-for-people-mo-ibrahim

The African state of Congo has been under the control of western capitalists since 1876. And in that time, the people of Congo have known nothing but exploitation - particularly of their minersl resources - massive poverty, extreme violence, lack of basic needs, extreme disorder.....
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/02/canadian-policy-venezuela-about-imperialism-not-democracy

We should   be learning more about imperialism - which has a long history of greed disguised as patriotism.

Imperialism, blended with  populism and and very narrow form of patriotism as laid out by Hitler and Mussolini have been the guiding principles of our time. It's the reason why the western powers generally supported Franco in Spain. Donald Trump is today's love-child  of Hitler and Mussolini. Another is Ontario's Doug Ford.

It is not a coincidence  that Hitler and Mussolini - almost to 1939 - were much admired by politicians like Churchill and by capitalists like Henry Ford.  (No. I am not exaggerating. Hitler and Mussolini are the ones who are the models for much of political thinking of today. What we call patriotism in our invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela .....is exactly the same as the aggressions of Hitler and Mussolini. The American war on Japan was not because Japan was evil. It wasn't even Pearl harbour that started it. It was because U.S. capitalists wanted the same control over China that Japan (and Britain) had taken.

In many a sense, we are our enemies. We are what we claim to hate.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/activist-toolkit-blog/2019/02/canadian-provinces-are-poised-lot-more-populism-%C3%A0-la
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https://www.thenation.com/article/nuclear-madness-inf/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-washington-funded-counterrevolution/
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Long - but intelligent and impartial.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/09/what-the-press-hides-from-you-about-venezuela-a-case-of-news-suppression/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/09/oil-agriculture-and-imperialism-averting-the-fast-track-to-armageddon/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/08/dont-expect-rulers-of-nuclear-armed-nations-to-accept-nuclear-disarmament%E2%80%95unless-theyre-pushed-to-do-so/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51077.htm

Too true.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51071.htm
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As an aside to this next item, - there's a problem. The west is very, very vulnerable because of its addiction to uncontrolled capitalism. But there's a danger of the East falling for a similar addiction.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51073.htm
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And here is what might force Trump into more violent measures on the Mexican border.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/poll-trump-voters-will-mutiny-if-the-wall-isnt-built-faces-43-drop-in-support

The decisions are being made by developing hatreds - in the populist style of Hitler and Mussolini. Latin Americans are Trump's Jews. The decisions are not about people - they are about race fears and hatreds. That's why there is no attempt to help with the terrible situation in which these people find themselves. They are Trump's untermensch.
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And, if you're honest, this is why you have a very limited future as a journalist.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51068.htm
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http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/892-venezuela-blitz-part-1-tyrants-don-t-have-free-elections.html

http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/893-venezuela-blitz-part-2-press-freedom-sanctions-and-oil.html
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Fascists are always careful not to spoil women.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/08/opinion/putting-pay-transparency-ice-ontario
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/08/analysis/2-billion-oil-industry-subsidy-making-trans-mountain-files-toll-application
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Sieg heil!

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/07/news/doug-fords-ontario-proposing-stop-tracking-carbon-pollution-fuel-sold-oil-and-gas
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Following is an extremist view of  a world like ours in which Donald Trump and Doug Ford are not extremists.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/08/the-real-left-phony-left-and-whats-left/
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/09/oil-agriculture-and-imperialism-averting-the-fast-track-to-armageddon/
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And, of course....We have the insiights of John Bolton...

https://theantimedia.com/pompeo-iranians-venezuela/
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And don't worry about the story below. Canadian and American weapons makers will still supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, and with the blessings of both Canadian and American governments.

https://theantimedia.com/khashoggi-murder-saudi-officials/
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In fairness, Pope Francis is the first pope to publicly admit failures of the Roman Catholic clergy.

https://theantimedia.com/pope-francis-nuns-sex-slaves-priests/
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This next item does not affect Canada. Canada has an effective and affordable system to make medical care available to all Canadians. The U.S. has a system that is affordable only to the wealthy. The U.S. has a pure profit system that condemns most of its population. But the U.S. billionaires tell us, as richest country in the world,  can't afford a better system.  It needs a system that, in fact, makes huge profits for the world's most wealthy people.

By coincidence, Trump who is the darling of the  religious voters of rural America, has done nothing that could be called religious compassion - while the CCF party which was the founder of medicare in Canada and was the one that forced medicare on the old parties was profoundly influenced  by religious values.

https://truthout.org/articles/two-thirds-of-personal-bankruptcies-are-caused-by-illness-and-medical-bills/
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I notice quite a bit of religion in today's blog. Now, despite a very early fling as a preacher and a potential Protestant clergyman, I have no religion. That doesn't mean I have no religious values. In fact, it's probable that most of my values are Christian and Jewish - and quite likely shared by Muslims and Hindus.....

Back in the days when I was giving 80 or more public talks a year, many were religious groups. Of them, my favourites were synagogues and other Jewish institutions. (They responded to serious discussions; Christian preferred jokes. I still, now retired, miss my Jewish groups.)

But, alas, Jews are people and, like us Christians and Hindus and Moslems and the rest they can also be - well - human and vicious. It was Hitler that brought that vicious side into power. They had not only had a dreadful experience. They also realized that the western world in general was brutal toward them - and the only reason it gave them Israel was to get rid of them. (That's not a rant. I saw anti-semitism from the time I was a child. Almost all of us Christians were guilty. And it still happens in the most respectable circles.)

The settlers of Israel knew they were sent there to get rid of them. They retaliated by treating Muslims just as Hitler (and us) had treated them. It was contrary to the teachings of Judaism - but the rest of the Jewish world, elated that the years of discrimination seemed to be over, accepted it for many years.

But no more.

North American Jews, in particular, are increasingly dismayed at an Israel that seems to be working on hatred just as Hitler's Germany did. And their support of Israel  has noticeably weakened in recent years. And that is made worse by the U.S. use of Israel against its Muslim neighbours.  Thus the horrible treatment, rarely mentioned in our news, of Palestine.

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/democrats-end-right-ariel-sharon-israeli-occupation-palestine/
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We are in a dead end. World War 2 had to be followed by a massive change of governing principles, of social values.....but it didn't happen. We simply recreated the world of 1939 with some change of actors. Like the world of 1939, it was designed to make the rich richer. Only that. That's why Britain continued the wars to reconquer bits and pieces of the British Empire. That's why the west, led by the U.S., invaded Korea. That's why Britain and the U.S. have been fighting wars ever since to do what they have each been doing for centuries - to conquer countries for the benefit of their very wealthy.