August 29:starve your family, pay for wars.....

....our billionaires need your money.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-oil-and-gas-methane-emissions-1.5263859

Of course.

And before you heave a sigh of relief that we Canadians don't live in the U.S., think.

Canada's Conservative party  is the equivalent of Trump's Republicans. Canada's Liberal party is the equivalent of those Democrats who are a lot like Trump's Republicans.

And neither Conservatives nor Liberals have much of a policy policy beyond calling each other names.

And Canada really doesn't have an equivalent of  the Bernie Sanders Democrats. And both the NDP and the Greens fall short of the dynamism that characterizes Bernie Sanders.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/election-leaders-1.5260586

I dread our coming election.
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https://www.theguardian.com/international

Eighty years ago, Britain ruled the largest empire in history. Of course, while the British people (like today's Americans) were propagandized to cheer for the empire, they got nothing out of it. While the British wealthy plundered the wealth of their empire and built mansions,  most of the British people lived in a filth and poverty that was famous across Europe. Millions of children never got an education because from the age of 5 and 6  they had to work a fifteen hour day.

Will things get better now with Brexit? Dream on.

And relive history as the American empire plunders its victims - widens the ranks of the poor among the American people.
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__https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/29/xikrin-people-fight-back-against-amazon-land-grabbing

If Canada's native people rise to stop this sort of destruction in Canada - which side will you be on?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/29/500-million-bees-brazil-three-months

It's happening here, too. But who needs bees? Right?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/28/a-nuclear-option-hong-kong-and-the-threat-of-the-emergency-law
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/08/whats-stopping-us-taxing-rich

This world has millions of the poor and their children sleeping in the streets. Within  walking distance of Buckingham Palace, there are children living and sleeping in cardboard boxes. All over the world people are dying of the hunger and filth they have to live in. All of us suffer from financially starved schools. A rich country like the U.S. cannot give medical care to most of its people. But, oh, we can toss billions at the feet of the very wealthy who don't pay any income tax at all - and who can buy off the people who should be helping us.

And oh the West will spend trillions to fight wars for those same rich who don't pay taxes.

And this is going to destroy all of us.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/08/whats-stopping-us-taxing-rich

And so will this.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-corruption-william-barr-g-7-doral/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/29/leaked-un-draft-report-warns-rising-warming-oceans-poised-unleash-misery-worldwide
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Israel's wars, for the most part, have not been wars in defence of Israel. They have been wars of aggression by Israel - and all with American blessing.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/we-are-waiting-for-war-lebanese-say-israel-has-gone-too-far
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/why-is-the-climate-changing-like-this
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This next one is a little gushy. In my visits to public washrooms in Montreal (one), London, Germany, etc. I have not felt a spiritual awe. But it can be a tremendous relief.

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/08/29/Real-Cities-Have-Washrooms/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52177.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52172.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52174.htm

A capitalist America cannot reach a peaceful relationship with China (or Russia).
Capitalism exists for its own profit, nothing else. And that means wars with Russia and China are virtually certain - and probably unwinnable for either side. It may be some comfort to know that we may all (both sides) be destroyed by nuclear war before we have time for a conventional one.

By the way, have you noticed that capitalist leaders almost always make demands rather than proposals?
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52179.htm

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52166.htm

I've found many articles like this one in the left-wing press that I favour. But I don't agree with them. I agree that China is wrong in it's behaviour to Hong Kong. But  I don't believe the U.S. is doing any good in supplying money to Hong Kong. Indeed, the American government has no interest in helping Hong Kong democracy. On the contrary, it has destroyed democracies all over the world. And I guess we might well date that to the American massacre of at least 200,000 Guatemalans in the 1950s.

This is not money to help the people of Hong Kong. It is money to attack the government of China. And it serves the interests of the U.S., not of Hong Kong.
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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/29/ice-solitary-mental-health-corecivic/
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Aug. 29: a very bad time.

My birthday is winding down. So I have time for a  brief blog.
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The best  article on the Koch brothers I have seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/27/death-destruction-david-koch-legacy

Take this very seriously. The Koch brothers are just two specimens  of a capitalist breed who kill to maintain their profits.
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https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/donald-trump-skips-g7-talks-on-climate-crisis-and-amazon-fires
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mercosur-negotiation-canada-tuesday-1.5260998

Of course Canada will not criticize Brazil. It will criticize Venezuela. It will probably criticize Iran. Canada jumps up whenever the U.S. blows the whistle. But Brazil's president is a U.S. pet.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/libya-migrants-mediterranean-1.5261055

This can only get worse as climate change and western brutality create a hundred million and more refugees.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/27/holiday-heat-headlines-not-focusing-enough-on-climate-crisis-reality-experts
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/27/brazilian-amazon-deforestation-surges-to-break-august-records

Not to worry. No matter how destructive it gets. Brazil can count on the support of the U.S. and a wimpy Canada.
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Jason Kenney, premier of Alberta, may well be the least intelligent and most dangerous politician Canada has ever produced.

Just a few days, I was reading a bit of his financial wisdom. He said that if we cut taxes to the very rich, then they will use their extra money to create jobs in Alberta. This is brainless.

If you cut taxes to the very rich, they will spend this money wherever in the world it can be profitable. And if that means they will create jobs in China, that's what they will do. American and Canadian mining companies pay almost no taxes in Latin America. But we don't see money pouring into jobs in those countries.

I don't know whether premier Jenney is a liar or just stupid - but I lean to liar with promise in stupidity. And Canadians should all watch him. He is on friendly terms with an Alberta group that wants to separate Alberta from Canada. Think about it.

This is of course , an attempt by oil bosses to get rid of those fussy Canadians who want to survive in a dangerous world. And if Alberta were to secede, guess what..  It would immediately, with help from Trump and big oil, become an American state. That's not as good as Trump getting Greenland - but the U.S. is suffering from climate change across its south and west. Alberta could become a very attractive place for Americans.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/andrew-weaver-jason-kenney-every-day-you-keep-opening-your
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https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=373697047018228084#allposts

When the U.S. led the way to creating a war in Korea (and sucked in gullible Canadians and others as well), we were led to believe that an innocent South Korea had been brutally attacked by a villainous South Korea.

In fact, the government of South Korea was a dictatorship made up of those who had been collaborators with a terribly brutish leadership imposed earlier by the Japanese.

Think about it. That's what  Canadians were sent to fight for - and, many of them, to die.  What the hell were we thinking of to send Canadians to die defending a murderous and corrupt government? Hasn't The Canadian Legion ever thought about that?

The ended with the south and it's Japanese collaborators still  in power. This is what we sent Canadians to die for.

In fact, Canada and the U.S. didn't give a damn   about either North or South Korea. What they (the U.S.) wanted was a base for the invasion of China so that American capitalists could get control of what had been a part of the British Empire. And that's why Canadian soldiers died. And it marked the beginning of our fatal involvement of sending more Canadians to die for American capitalists - as in Afghanistan.
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https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=373697047018228084#allposts
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52177.htm

As I read t his, I remembered my students who came to my office to say goodbye. He was going home to Palestine. And he knew there was no hope.

There is nothing Judaic about Israel. On the contrary, it is a betrayal of Judaism -  a betrayal that we helped to create.

When Hitler began his murder of Jews, we said nothing. Our leaders knew what was happening. They let it happen. Any Jews who tried to escape to Britain, Canada, the U.S. were turned back. We didn't know that. But our governments did. And if our governments had helped those Jews, the Canadian, British and American  people would have raised hell. We, overwhelmingly we were in favour of doing nothing whatever to help the Jews.

I grew up in a Montreal that hated Jews. I remember that day in school when I couldn't find my friend who was he only Jew in the school. So I asked the principal. "Oh", he said, "We sent him to a school with  children of his own kind."

As late as the 1960s, I constantly ran into Jew - haters. When I ran a Jewish summer camp, I wore a Jewish T shirt. And I wore it when I was invited to spend a day at  a lake that was a holiday spot for wealthy Montrealers like The Birks and other economic leaders.

That night, there was an emergency meeting of the lake association to find out who had invited "the Jew".

That reminded me of my days at scout camp when the whole camp ate at a dining hall. On troop at a time, we would give our troop yell. When the Jewish troop took its turn, it would end it "YMHA, ra-ra-ra".

And all the others would chant ha-ha-ha. No other troop was treated that way. And none of our leaders intervened.

Hitler treated Jews as sub-humans. So did a great many Canadians, British, and Americans - and it was hatred enforced at the highest levels.

Hitler horribly abused the Jews. And so did us Christians all over the western world. Not surprisingly, many Jews,  perhaps most, came out of World War Two with a hatred. And when Jews settled in Israel, they took out that hatred on people who had not abused them - the Palestinians. In fact, Jews and Palestinians of that region had lived together in harmony in the same land for centuries.

Today, the Jews of Israel are hateful, murderous, cruel beyond belief. Who made them that way? It was Hitler, of course.

And it was us.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52179.htm
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https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=373697047018228084#editor/target=post;postID=6658922933659664384;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname
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Almost everything we said our parents and grandparents fought for in World War Two has been tossed aside.  Most of our political leaders are patsies paid for by major capitalists. We are heading, inevitably, into wars that will simply destroy all of us.

Democracy? Equality? Forget them.

Canadians are actually willing to vote for Conservatives who are openly the puppets of major corporations. Liberals do the same with slightly more class. (only slightly).

We are actually getting poorer - have been for some years - as billionaires sweep our incomes away. Yes. We  have been living through years of prosperity in which billionaires socked away  the money. Canadians and Americans are actually poorer today than they were twenty years ago. And there has been no attempt to deal  with this. It's going to go on. It's going to get worse.
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Well, I found the time on this, my birthday, to get a blog off - if a messy one. It turned out I didn't need as much time to open  gifts as I had thought.

August 23: An interrupted day

_This may be a little shorter than usual. I had to deal with computer problems.
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https://www.rt.com/news/467142-david-koch-richest-dies/

Russia Times is, of course, a propaganda agency. But it doesn't lie. Indeed, it beats most of the western press for honesty - often being kinder than it should be. This item on the death of American billionaire David  Koch, for example, could have been quite brutal  In fact, he was as vicious as they come, a man who among other interferences, ordered his many thousands of employees at every election to vote Republican. He also heavily financed (bought) the Republican Party and sometimes the Democrats at every election.

 But it doesn't attack him. In fact, it is kind.

I don't suggest RT always tells the whole truth. But it doesn't lie.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/amazon-brazil-wildfires-indigenous-rights-1.5258075
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/alaska-salmon-heat-deaths-1.5256288

Pay no attention.  The premier of Ontario and several of his Conservative leaders assure us there is no climate change. And they all have high school leaving certificates. So there.
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___https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/david-koch-brothers-political-influence-1.5258077

Of all things, the CBC is the one that has the best coverage of the Koch brothers ,far superior to RT which, on this issue, reads rather like a right wing tabloid. - though I still think the CBC is a little kind to them. This is a family that has largely destroyed honest government in the U.S. (So don't tell our Liberals and Conservatives about them.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g7-biarritz-trump-trudeau-macron-1.5257020

Trump will be a disaster. Nor can we have much faith in Trudeau. He has already demonstrated that.  And Canada, let's not kid ourselves, is an American puppet.
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China would be very wise to come to an agreement with Hong Kong. But I think it unlikely it will be wise. To make it worse, it is very likely that the U.S. will intervene in a way that is no help at all to Hong Kong.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/hong-kong-fresh-rallies-as-protesters-target-airport-transport
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/bolsonaro-enjoys-comedy-club-outing-as-brazils-wildfire-crisis-rages-on

Bolsonaro - the one who's Trump's kinda guy.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/david-koch-americans-for-prosperity-scott-walker/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/how-koch-brothers-and-other-family-capitalists-are-ruining-america/

...and Canada.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/take-action-now-protect-immigrant-families-on-food-stamps/
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The friend of the U.S. and Canada in Brazil.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/leaked-documents-show-brazil-bolsonaro-has-grave-plans-for-amazon-rainforest/?fbclid=IwAR2X4WO2AIF6UVpHjSwj83lCpoQeqW4xVZktREZ7J9fBArqPJNViee9ZyM8
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/earth-4c-hotter

We're running out of time.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/climate-criminal-australia-sabotages-pacific-islands-forum-threatens-all-island-nations
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/jeff-bezoss-politics

And Canadians can apply this to almost all of their news media.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/boris-johnson-gmos-and-glyphosate-irresponsible-negligent-and-criminal
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/23/brazil-from-global-leader-to-u-s-lapdog/
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/05/04/news/how-canada-made-koch-brothers-rich
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The people who have no choice.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48627.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52157.htm
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For all  the size of it's military and it's mercenary armies and it's phenomenal military spending, the performance of the US military has not been impressive since 1945. That was obvious - or should have been obvious - in Korea, Afghanistan, French Indo-China (Vietnam)....In Africa, it's wars have created chaos and horror and dreadful suffering for 70 years - with no impressive results.
That's why it is now flirting with playing it's nuclear cards - which can only make it all worse.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52140.htm
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I'm taking a break here because it's getting very late. (I couldn't get started until quite late. I've also had to resist the temptations to comment more fully because that would just make me later. )

I'm off to bed now, and will finish this on Sunday.
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https://truthout.org/audio/why-monsanto-tried-to-discredit-a-book-that-has-no-factual-errors/

Amazingly, Monsanto has been getting away with this poison for decades. When I lived in New Brunswick, it was stunning to see how both the Liberals and Conservatives stumbled over themselves to protect Monsanto.
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https://truthout.org/articles/amid-warnings-of-recession-trump-proposes-more-tax-cuts-for-the-rich/
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article207382.html

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/refugee-detention-1.5216860

The west creates refugees. It has done  that with its empires for centuries. The wealthy of the west have long used their power to keep the poor very, very poor indeed. And when the poor try to escape the horror they live in, they are pushed back into the sea or, as in the U.S., put into wire cages.


Capitalism has created massive poverty all over the world. That's what the people of Latin America are trying to escape. That's what millions in Africa are trying to escape.

We have no sense of the horror and suffering we force on these people. And it's going to get much, much worse.

The U.S. and, to a lesser degree, Canada, is now doing it to their children in their education systems. The U.S. gives every chance in life - to those who can afford to pay for private schooling. So does Canada.

Those in public schools are the products of public education that we starve for money. A very high proportion of our children have to attend public schools that are poorly funded. That means they grow up in a  social setting that does little or nothing to train them for life.

I was one of those kids. I was kicked out in grade 11. "Let's face it, Decarie. You have no brains at all. Clean out your desk and get a job."

All this attracted no attention at all in my neighbourhood. Our families never expected us to have any brains - not like those nice kids in private school.

In fact, private schooling is NOT better. What's happening is that public schooling is being debased. So a working class child entering public school commonly does poorly - and never does escape it. Children who attend private schools are not superior.  I taught many of them at university. They are simply taught that they are superior. And they grow up with expectations that us street kids were not allowed to have.

Thus a Donald Trump.

Britain was a model of this sort of training. Into the 1920s, most children of  five worked full time. Commonly, they might work fourteen hours a day, six days a week. They were jobs of filth, sometimes of danger. (In the days of sailing ships very young boys of five or six worked on the warships, often doing dangerous jobs and in combat. They were children born on the ships, children of the women who also lived on the ships and who slept with the sailors ( all of them)  who served the guns. Thus the expression 'son of a gun'.)

The children of the rich might be and often were not very bright. But they attended private schools which set them up with rights that other children could not even dream of.

The U.S. and, to a lesser degree, Canada have set themselves on that course.

This is happening at a time when we are making the world unlivable for many, many millions of people. We are doing as we always have done to plunder the lands of those people. And, as they try to escape, we put them into wire cages - or kill them - or starve them.
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I may miss Tuesday's blog. It's my birthday - and you never can tell. Some people may come to pour fabulous  gifts on me. 

Think about it.

August 22: The Canadian Disaster

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/shock-denmark-greenland-cancels-visit-1.5254311

This is serious. The U.S. has a president whose  ego is wildly out of control. And it can only get worse. This is a man of huge arrogance and self-worship. We've seen it run wild many times. Let's get real. This man is mentally ill. He is very, very dangerous.

Having been humiliated by the rejection of his bid to buy Greenland, he is likely to take his anger out in very dangerous areas. One is Iran. He could plunge into a war there - a war that would  pull much of the world into it. Or he could do the same in Venezuela. This also happens at a time when Trump has re-awakened the threat of nuclear war with China and Russia - a war that could set off other nuclear wars and other insanities.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/21/trump-press-conference-greenland-jewish-democrats

This is a seriously disturbed and very dangerous man.
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https://www.rt.com/news/466994-putin-inf-us-missile-test/

Well, yes, of course. Funny our news media never noticed that.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/22/brazilian-minister-booed-at-climate-event-as-outcry-grows-over-amazon-fires
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2019/08/captive-breeding-only-works-when-animals-can-go-home
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/08/humanitarian-groups-continue-work-us-mexico-border-despite-risk-prosecution
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https://www.thenation.com/article/democrats-media-debates/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/22/game-changer-sanders-unveils-green-new-deal-plan-detailing-10-year-mobilization

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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/08/21/Why-SNC-Lavalin-RCMP-Investigation-Will-Not-Happen/
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https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2019/08/20/SNC-Lavalin-Scandal-Sideshow-Corporate-Control/
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https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/08/16/Ready-Or-Not-And-Mediocre-Rich/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-unveils-warrant-seizure-iran-operated-grace-1/5686647

There is every possibility this could provoke a war  the U.S., Britain and Australia and perhaps Canada - and that such a war could draw intervention from Russia and China. In fact, it could go a good deal further than that since it involves many nuclear powers.

Is the U.S. morally in the right? No. The U.S. has no right to tell Iranian ships where they are allowed to go.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52139.htm
(see entry above.)Maybe even Canadian ships will be sent in to help American capitalists steal Iranian oil. We've sacrificed Canadian lives before to fight for American billionaires. (Think Korea, Afghanistan, Libya.)
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/19/us-immigration-detainee-class-action-lawsuit
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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/leaked-documents-show-brazil-bolsonaro-has-grave-plans-for-amazon-rainforest/

Bolsonaro is much admired in the Trump White House.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/freeland-cuba-venezuela-1.5256502

Canada is  holding talks with Cuba to get it to  help the U.S. with Venezuela?
How much rolling in slime does Canada had to do for the U.S. The U.S. after all, is the one that established a murderous dictatorship  in Cuba, tortured and killed thousands of Cubans, then tried to invade Cuba. It has since done it best to impoverish Cuba.

And we are sending a delegate to Cuba  to get it to kiss the U.S. rear end?

I don't think so. Cuba has a lot more integrity than our wimpy government has.
This is disgusting - but typical of Canadian governments.
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https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-by-focusing-on-russia-we-ignore-trumps-existential-threat-to-climate/
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 https://truthout.org/articles/the-amazon-is-dying-and-bolsonaro-is-fanning-the-flames/   
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https://truthout.org/articles/trump-escalates-war-on-species-as-we-face-an-extinction-emergency/
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https://truthout.org/articles/gops-response-to-inequality-crisis-more-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-of-course/
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https://truthout.org/articles/progressive-jews-hit-back-after-trumps-anti-semitic-smear/
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https://truthout.org/articles/red-states-cut-worker-pay-by-1-5-billion/
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https://truthout.org/articles/we-cant-confront-climate-change-while-lavishly-funding-the-pentagon/
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Today's blog is the most depressing, infuriating one I have ever written. The powers of greed rule us. Our governments - including the 'democratic' ones are controlled by unspeakably greedy people. Indeed, democracy is a term that no longer has any meaning. In the U.S., virtually all decisions are controlled by the greedy and vicious. And don't kid yourself about Canada, the Liberals and Conservatives serve the very, very rich - nobody else.  And the very rich drive us down by hiding all the money they should be paying for taxes.

Canada and the U.S. are both governed by the very rich who wallow in the national wealth while millions get poorer - and situation which has become markedly worse.

Canada is now holding an election to choose between an unspeakably corrupt and wealth-worshipping Conservative party - and an almost identical Liberal party. And, damn, the Canadian people will not wake up. They plod to the polls to vote for the people who have been stealing their money from the start. 

The Canadian people have learned nothing in a century and a half of government by those parties. And that means more  corruption, more neglect of the Canadian people, more joining to support the U.S. in its plundering as we once killed and died to support British plundering. (Check the Boer War.)

I really cannot understand how so many Canadians can be such wimps as to vote for the parties that abuse them. Conservative? Liberal? They're the same party.     A prime example of our Baa-Baa mentality is New Brunswick where the Irvings, a family without morality or social awareness is killing them - but still gets the votes.   

How could the people of Ontario vote for a Doug Ford who's nothing more than a bum boy for some of this world's most vicious capitalists?   And Alberta with its premier who shows nothing but subservience to the very, very rich.

Canadians have always been political wimps. And we are now about to pay one hell of a price for that.                                   

August 20: A world out of control. (error. A world controlled by.......

A note on the leaders in our business world.. (This article immediately below is not by me. This is from a note that was sent on to me.)

"In January 2019, I received the horrible, unreal news that I had a tumor growing not only in my scalp, but also through my skull and inside my skull, around my brain and some pretty big damage was caused. On February 4th, I went into surgery, and a biopsy done while my scalp was open and peeled back, indicated I had a lymphoma. A week later, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota confirmed diffuse large B-cell Non-hodgkin's Lymphoma.

I have said this before: The known candidates and causes for this cancer include being a man, being over 60, having AIDS/HIV and glyphosate. Only one of these has not been tested or proven in my case so far. I am not a man. I am not over 60. I do not have AIDS/HIV. Testing for glyphosate is coming up.

I have been engaged in the call for an end to spraying in Nova Scotia for years. Former Minister of Environment, Margaret Miller blocked me a few years back, because I wouldn't leave her alone after she approved multiple permits around the province. It kills our wildlife, it poisons their food, destroys their habitat. It ends up in the water. It is destroying the filters that clean our air. It is in our food. It has been linked to NHL for years. It has been proven that Monsanto has lied about its impacts and influenced reporting on it.

This spraying of carcinogens on our food and forests is for profits. Profits for large corporations. Our lives are worth more than the wealth of a few.

It has to stop."

(The killer, in the Maritimes, is the Irving Family of New Brunswick. which happily sprays no matter how many sicken and die.)

_______________________________________

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/does-canada-have-a-moral-obligation-to-hong-kong-1.5250098/foreign-affairs-parliamentary-secretary-says-plans-are-in-place-to-assist-canadian-citizens-in-hong-kong-1.5251689

How inspirational!  Yes, Canada helping a people beaten down by their government. Yes. For that matter, they might have helped Hong Kongers for the very long period they were abused and humiliated by the British. And we could have stepped in. Yeah. Or we could have stepped in when the British  were starving and killing the people of India and China by the millions. Oh! - and all of the those Africans the British killed  - some with Canadian help. Or we could offer to help the people of Venezuela (and Cuba and Guatemala and others) who are being abused right now by the U.S.

For that matter, it might help it Canada were to begin honest treatment of it's native peoples..... Yeah! Lots of information there.

_______________________________________

Russia Times is, of course, biased. So it does not report stories unfavourable to Russia. That makes it very unwise to take RT as a sole source of information. However, while it is deliberately designed to be critical of the U.S. while at the same time ignoring Russia and the rest of the world, what it does report is usually reliable. It would be a big mistake to take RT as a general source of information. But it would be a bigger mistake to think it just prints propaganda.

https://www.rt.com/news/466829-us-missile-test-banned/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/19/why-does-donald-trump-want-to-buy-greenland

This is not a joke. And forget the stories your going to be told about how Americans will benefit from this.

If the U.S. buys Greenland, it will be for the mineral wealth of that region. Who would pay for this purchase? The American tax payer. the ordinary man and woman in the street. Who will get the benefit of it? The billionaires - who don't have to pay anything because they don't pay taxes in the first place.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/20/donald-trump-uk-trade-brexit-chaos-boris-johnson-us-eu
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https://www.thenation.com/article/iran-media-war/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/central-america-migrant-crisis-foreign-policy-trump/

Trump is, of course, an ass. But he did not create the viciousness and greed of American foreign policy. That goes all  the way back to George Washington.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/iran-media-war/

In war, the news media always blame the other side. In World War 1,  the British media blamed the Germans. The Germans blamed the British. Same in World War 2.

Since World War 2, the U.S. has bombed, starved, invaded over 50 countries. Think of one, just one, of these assaults and mass murders the U.S. has criticized.  (In fact, try to think of how many or few we have never even been told about - like the mass murder of civilians and clergy in Guatemala.)
______________________________________
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/08/canadas-troubling-policy-honduras
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/ucp-slaps-alberta-teachers-association-%E2%80%A6-probably-not-last-time___________________________________

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/ucp-purges-ndp-appointees-albertas-boards-agencies-and
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/kenney-conservatives-create-policy-panel-push-working-poor-back
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/greening-news/2019/08/resistance-trans-mountain-pipeline-growing-all-fronts
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/20/prayforamazonia-goes-viral-twitter-users-call-attention-international-emergency
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/israel-pushing-palestinians-to-leave-gaza

Israel - the deathbed of Judaic principles.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/the-quest-for-an-ideal-teacher

This includes university teaching. And I would urge university teachers to take this seriously.
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https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2019/08/20/SNC-Lavalin-Scandal-Sideshow-Corporate-Control/

Too true. The SNC  Lavalin scandal is not just about the Liberals. Indeed, it even may be  more about the Conservatives. And that's been true of just about every political scandal in the history of Canada.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/media-cant-even-tell-the-truth-about-canadas-foreign-policy-history/5686502

Didn't you learn all about this in your high school history courses?
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52123.htm

Predictably, the people of Hong Kong have been forced to choose between two evils - China and us.
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I'm really not sure what to make of this one.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52123.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/20/coverups-and-lies-systemic-cancer-world-oilpatch-health-and-safety-breaches-say
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/20/bolsonaro-greenlights-new-pesticides-even-advocates-mourn-half-billion-dead-bees

With Bolsonaro on our side, who needs enemies?
_______________________________________
https://truthout.org/articles/we-could-eliminate-extreme-global-poverty-if-multinationals-paid-their-taxes/

But we won't make multinationals pay their taxes. The problem is US!
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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/20/trump-jews-disloyalty-democratic-anti-semitism/

Trump is disgusting. At least 42% of Americans support him.
Canada sits on a border next to the U.S., the world's leading killer since 1945. Canada has sent it's military to kill in order to please American mass murderers in Korea, Afghanistan, Libya, and others. Trudeau will roll over and kill for Trump in Venezuela. Count on it. Canada's Conservatives are, if anything, much worse.

Wealthy Americans are determined to control and loot  the whole world. They spread poverty and death wherever they go. Just take a good look at what has happened to almost all of Latin America. And Canadian capitalists have happily joined them.

The role played by Canada in the world has been as a bumboy to the U.S.

It's embarassing, worse than embarassing, to see the role Canada has played. Though it's good, of course, for Canadian billionaires who get to share in the plunder of regions like Latin America.

I remember the joy of Victory in  Europe day. I remember the wonderful things that were going to happen. But what did happen was that Canadian billionaires were just as greedy as American ones. And so we now live in a nation that let's the super-rich to live tax free while millions live in poverty.

If the Canada Legion would bother to look, it might notice that we have betrayed everything we said Canadians fought for in World War Two. We certainly did not fight World War Two so we     could help the U.S. to defend a brutal and corrupt regime in Korea. (Yes. That means South Korea - it was a regime as vicious as they come.) And Canadians died to defend it. If the Legion cared about it's members, it hasn't said so about that or about our troops in Afghanistan.

The U.S. and Canada today cannot be called democracies. Both are nations controlled by the very, very wealthy. (And Canada's Liberals and Conservatives lick their feet.) Trudeau is a lap dog for Trump. And if the Conservatives come to power, they will be much worse. (Alas! The NDP and the Greens have not taken up the slack.)

The winner of the coming federal election can only be either Liberal or Conservative. But neither of them can be anything but what they already are - puppets for the very wealthy. And that has been the history of Canada for most of the years since 1945.

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And now, a quiet moment.

Last night I was watching a British movie on TV.  It was about the dreadful retreat to Dieppe. The horror of it still  holds power for this seven year old boy. With the collapse of most of western Europe and France in the face of a well planned German assault, the remnant of a British army had to flee to the French coast and line up on the sands of Dieppe hoping Britain could evacuate them. This was crucial. If the Germans could reach Britain's only major army,  thousands would die - and the war would be over.

But the British did, for the most part, escape. And Hitler would lose. As I watched it, I thought of all the Boy Scouts from my father's  troops who were coming to see us and say goodbye. And I was enraptured by the voice of Vera Lynne and her rendition of "There'll be Blue Birds Over

                    The White Cliffs of Dover..."

There was courage in terrible, terrible danger. There was a determination to 'carry on'. There was a magnificence in all of this. But how did it start? If you read the newsmedia of the time  (or if you look at you high school history books),, Hitler was the evil one. And evil he certainly was.....but....

In reporting war news, our side is always good, and the other side is always evil. But --well ---

In  World War One, nobody had really started it. What happened there was that the nations of Europe were faced with the new situation -  the covering of Europe with rails and steam power. Most nations felt this meant that the next war would be the one that most quickly  used trains to move their troops to decisive battlefields.

That was when a student murdered the archduke of Austria. Nothing suggested that any country organized this. But every country  packed its troops into trains and set them out in ways that could not be changed. That is how World War One began. Nobody started it. Or everybody did. But this had no effect on the news media. All of them reported their own side as being good, and other sides as bad.

However, at the signing of the peace treaty, reality was recognized. Really, nobody had started that war (Or everybody had.) So at the treaty signing, there were no crushing financial penalties. Until....

Britain demanded heavy financial penalties to impoverish Germany.. Why? Germany didn't start the war. No ------

---but, much to the annoyance of British capitalists, Germany had been rapidly developing as a financial power - and British capitalists were not amused by this challenge to their power. Thus the British decision to place savage terms on the peace treaty, terms that made Germany a pauper. Germans were, of course, infuriated. All of this came to the ears of a  young      veteran of World War One who had been trying, without success, to rouse Germans to anger and conquest in reaction to their defeat in the war.

Adolph Hitler was, at the time, writing his thoughts for the future of HIS Germany. It was called Mein Kampf. British treatment of Germany had been an insult, one that Hitler could use. At the same time, he created his myth of evil Jews. Did he believe it? Almost certainly not. But, like Donald Trump's later treatment of Latins, it proved useful.

So who set the world up for World War Two? The single biggest villain probably was Britain.

And before you angrily erase all this, check  your history. The Britain of several centuries up to1939 might well still have been the most murderous nation in the world. It was driven by the greed of it's capitalists.

Similarly, the American war with Japan was a set up. U.S. capitalists wanted that war to provoke an attack on the U..S. by the Japanese. At the time, with the British hopelessly tied down in Europe, China was wide open to domination by the U.S. capitalists. But the U.S. needed  Japan to make the first move. So it cut off almost all of Japan's fuel supplies.

American leaders were expecting a Japanese response. And they got it. But they weren't expecting Pearl Harbour. 

Shortly after, the U.S. would enter the war in Europe - but not because they gave a damn about Europe or about Britain. Their real interest was in grabbing control of British oil in the middle east. So it was they stole Saudi Arabia from the British. It also stole Iran - but lost it again.

And so I think of this British soldiers lined up on the shore at Dieppe.  They were brave. But it does not follow that their leaders were either brave or wise.

Canadian soldiers have fought bravely. It does not follow that their political leadership thought wisely or honestly in, say, the Boer War, Korea, or Afghanistan. If The Canadian Legion really wants to serve is members - shouldn't it be addressing that? And if we really value the service of our military, shouldn't we be more critical of how they are used?

A final thought.
Our world cannot possibly survive being taken to where we are taking it.

August 17: worse and worse.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-cenotaph-dedication-again-1.5250149

We most  certainly should remember those who died in Afghanistan. But we should not use such an event to glorify war - though that's a bad habit we have.

The war in Afghanistan is an American war - and it is a war that has no justification. Canadians went and Canadians died. But we had no business to send them. Nor did the U.S. That lesson should have been rubbed home in recent months as the U.S. is making noises about peace after 19 years of  killing people it  had no reason to kill in the first place.

Why did the U.S. start that war?  (It had earlier trained and equipped those same people to kill Russians.) The U.S. fought that war because it looked easy, because there were resources to be plundered.... Those are not legal reasons to start a war.

Why did Canada join that war? Was Afghanistan a threat to Canada? Nobody has ever said so.

Why did the U.S. want Canada to join that war? 1. Because the U.S. wanted to give the impression that the west in general supported this war. 2. Because Canada is an American colony. 3. Why didn't the Canadian Legion raise hell about us sending Canadians to die in an illegal American war? Because The Legion leadership has always seen its role as being to glorify war....and to do it in a simple- minded way.

Should we remember those Canadians who died in a war that was none of our business? We certainly   should. They put their lives on the line.

But let's not glorify this. Those Canadians who served and died certainly did so to serve their country. But they weren't serving their country. They weren't even serving the U.S. They were serving wealthy Americans who wanted to plunder the resources of Afghanistan. And let's not pretend it was anything else.

We owe those who served and died in Afghanistan. And we can only pay that debt by telling the truth.  But by lying about it, we simply guarantee that more Canadians die fighting wars for billionaires.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-trade-war-impacts-1.5247996
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/tropical-fish-nova-scotia-1.5248688

We're changing nature. And there's a heavy price for that.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-teachers-march-to-protect-our-students-in-1-of-several-demonstrations-1.5250973

Why are the Hong Kongers so determined to maintain their freedom? It's because they and other Chinese had the horror of living under British and other European rule through many lifetimes.  The British, in particular, were murderous, arrogant, savage. I was in Hong Kong in its late years of British rule. The British didn't kill Hong Kongers any more but, oh, they were unspeakably arrogant. I got to meet senior British officials - and they were as racist and hateful as - well - as racist and hateful as they had always been.

Hong Kongers were delighted that the British were leaving - but they had no taste for the Chinese masters who would follow the British. The got used to freedom after the British left - and they wanted to keep their freedom. This is not just a rising again Chinese rule.  It is shaped by those long years of the horror of British rule. Thus the intensity of their resistance to China.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/not-for-sale-danish-politicians-ridicule-idea-of-trump-buying-greenland-1.5249336

Did Trump actually mean this? I think he did. But he has since been trying to laugh it off.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/iran-oil-tanker-us-uk-gibraltar-warrant

Don't be lulled to sleep by the Iran confrontation. This one has the potential to spark World War Three.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/15/uk-caught-in-middle-of-us-power-play-with-iran

When I was very young, Britain ruled the waves. It was the greatest empire in history. In grade 1, we saluted the Union Jack, pointed to it, and said,  "I pledge allegiance to THIS flag and to the empire for which it stands."

Now, it is in the final stages of its ruin, clinging to a U.S. which abuses it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/16/warning-signs-for-global-economy-the-countries-spooking-investors
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/17/nuclear-arms-race-is-back-and-more-dangerous-than-before
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/17/trump-netanyahu-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre

Check your calendar. This is 75 years after the war to end all wars.
________________________________________________________________
__https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
______________________________________________________________
https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-corporate-media/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-recession-bill-maher/

Of course. In a time of recession, the Trumps and the Fords and the rest of that crowd  will reduce taxes on the rich - and say it's good for us. That's what happened in the 1930s.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/militarization-national-religion/

It's not just the U.S.  Many, many countries glorify war. They seem not to have noticed that Naziis glorified the military as people who fought for their country.
So did the Japanese.

Leaders of The Canadian Legion should be pioneers in helping us to understand war. Instead, they teach us to glorify it.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/new-york-times-donald-trump-election-2016/

The world of journalism is largely a gutter of lies and propaganda. And that includes even the New York Times. And Conrad Black really filled the gutter when he founded Canada's National Post.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/central-america-migrant-crisis-foreign-policy-trump/

We have very limited information about the U.S.  murder, starvation, slavery of Latin Americans. (And none about Canadian behaviour in that region.) This is the old, British Empire with a vengeance.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/17/bolton-desperate-start-war-us-issues-warrant-seize-iranian-oil-tanker
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/08/for-cliff-may-war-pays/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/india-may-use-nuclear-option-first-to-pre-empt-attack-of-pakistan

There are now several nuclear  wars in the making. Not bad for a world that said it would never use them.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/july-2019-was-hottest-month-since-records-began-in-1880

Hey, trust your billionaire oil barons. They're only doing what's good for you. And trust Canada's Conservatives with their long history of going only what is good for...
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/uncle-sam-was-born-lethal/

In fairness, the Americans learned about greed and brutality  from the British Empire. But, oh,  they built on it. And their schools lay the groundwork for more greed and murder with a heavy groundwork of historical lies.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/is-white-supremacism-a-mental-illness/
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https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/08/16/Ready-Or-Not-And-Mediocre-Rich/
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/08/15/Liberal-Partisan-Response-Trudeau-Scandal-Sad-Reality/
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Pay attention to ALL of this one. Alberta can do well without the oil industry.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/14/Calgary-Oil-Gas-Execs-Backing-Scheer/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/19-million-acres-farmland-were-not-planted-crops-this-year/5686601
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The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the most vicious and criminal act in the whole history of warfare. And the excuse that it saved American lives is pure bunk.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/were-atomic-bombings-hiroshima-nagasaki-war-crime-crime-against-humanity/5683441
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I haven't been able to use this site for some months - but the problems seem to have cleared up - and it's an excellent site.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/
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I don't doubt that the following story is true. The U.S. is interfering in the Hong Kong/China dispute. But it's also true that the Hong Kongers are desperately anxious to live in a democracy - and that China is NOT a democracy.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52103.htm
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Forget the phony bluster in Trump's speeches. Ordinary Americans and Canadians are getting systematically robbed by the very, very wealthy of these countries.

https://popularresistance.org/a-litany-of-economic-woes/
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/plants-struggle-grow-atmosphere/
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This next item on education is true so far as it goes. But it is kind to the western world. The reality is that our western societies have their own barriers to education. An important barrier, one I grew up with, is that children of low income families are not motivated to learn. They have no sense that this is any part of their world. (And it doesn't help when we reduce teaching staff in our schools. and it doesn't help when we ignore the problem.)

One might add - though large numbers now go to university, their university professors have no training in teaching. None. Nada. Many regard it as beneath them. More are just lost in their own egos.

How should learning proceed at university level? Most have no idea. I still have a strong memory of all those courses I took - and memorized for exams. I remember nothing of them, any of them. Well, I remember a course on pilgrimage in the middle ages. And I  remember that 'if yow leste' means 'if it is pleasing to you.' But I've yet to see any opportunity to use that knowledge.

It takes study and training to know how to provide useful stages in learning. Most university teachers don't have that. (And it's an unforgivable sin for a university teacher to say that.)

My first course in university was a great, big blog of information about Canada from then to now. It had little to do with the reality of Canadian history. It was just masses of time to spit out on  exam day.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/16/inside-the-submissive-void/
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There seems to be quite a rash of these reports lately. There is some truth in them. But it's also true they ignore the needs and values of the people of Hong Kong. Those people were always treated brutally and even murderously by their western invaders - notably the British.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/17/china-and-the-zombies-of-the-past/
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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/16/portland-far-right-rally/

The world tomorrow.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-cenotaph-dedication-again-1.5250149

They were noble. Okay. And what about those Afghans who died fighting for their country. Were they noble, too? The British who  conquered much of the world - China, India, Canada, the U.S., much of Africa - were they noble? And the people who defended themselves against them - were they all noble? In the Americas, our ancestors stole land and murdered native peoples. Was that noble? And the native peoples who tried to fight back - where they noble?

Isn't it time for us to stop romanticizing war, and to look at what it really is? Canadian veterans of Afghanistan were sent to a country which in no way threatened Canada. No. The Canadians were not evil. They were victims of our use of them. We were evil for sending them to kill and die in an American invasion of them. We were evil for not questioning why we did this. We were guilty of sacrificing Canadians to fight for billionaires who wanted to make big money out of this - for themselves.

Let's grow up. Let's stop glorifying war. Let's recognize the truth. We sent those Canadians to kill people they knew nothing about, people who in no way threatened Canada.  We put Canadian lives at risk for no good reason.

When, a century and more ago, wealthy Brits wanted to plunder countries, they sent British  troops to to the dirty work for them. The troops got nothing but words of praise ('splendid chaps) for young men who were dumped on the streets as soon as they were no longer needed.

War is not glorious. It is a product of greed and murder to serve the rich. Almost all wars have been like that. Praise for the troops is an abuse of them. Let's grow up.

August 15: a confused day.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-cucinelli-statue-of-liberty-verse-europe-immigrants-1.5246852

And the evangelical churches that support Trump will also support this racist policy.
__________________________________________________________________https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/14/trudeau-broke-ethics-law-in-snc-lavalin-case-watchdog-rules

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/ethics-report-1.5247595

And Conservatives would never, ever break the ethics law. No. Well, not  unless they could get paid for it.

At this crucial point in history, the western world, and maybe the eastern one , has   crashed into chaos. Americans are nearing that important day - election day - when they vote out of colossal ignorance  about their own country. They believe the myths of their lying history even as they plunge into a period of racism that Hitler would have admired. And they bemuse themselves that their votes matter at a time when the election campaign is running on the money of billionaires, and even as most American voters are ignorant of most of the real issues.

Canadian voters must be the same because  Canadians seem to have no idea what the issues are. The Conservatives are demanding honesty in government. Come off it. The Conservative party was created long ago to get bought by the wealthy to make them wealthier. It was a den of thieves long ago under John A, and even before.

The Liberals think they're the good guys because - damned if I know why. They, like the Conservatives, were founded as assistant thieves to please the very rich. Now they've   capped it with Trudeau whose only move to deal with the climate change issue has been  to piddle around with the prairie oil issue  without actually doing anything. Meanwhile, he has publicly sold himself to the thieves who operate SNC Lavalin.

Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have any significant policy to deal with anything. Both are are on the take. And the Canadian people, bless their little hearts, remain ignorant of the world that is crashing on us. They are also, I regret to say,  soaking up the political idiocies of the United States - hatred of immigrants, willingness to kill, refusal to face the realities of the world we live in. We, too, have entered the age of stupidity and greed.

The Greens and the NDP at least make a gesture to deal with the problems we face. Both are much too meek about it. However, both are far, far more honest than the old parties. Alas! Canada is still a land that prefers lying and corrupt parties - you know, "I always vote Liberal (or Conservative) because my grandpa always did...." And, oh, that has produced some gems - like a Trudeau who's way over his head, a Doug Ford who doesn't have enough head to be a way over, a  Cheney whose mind, at best, is trivial, lying, and really, really stupid.

As we hold this election, the world is in chaos. At least a hundred million are homeless and wretched. And we  haven't done a damn thing to help them. It's not just climate change. It's the massive destruction of agricultural land. Yes folks. All over the land we are seeing a massive loss of our food supply. Brazil is creating what may be the greatest destruction of the environment in history. It's going to destroy the Amazon rain forest. That means destroying its animal life and, indeed, the lives of native peoples. It means destroying the forest's purpose in sustaining a livable environment for the whole world.  So Trump applauds its appointment of its ambassador to the U.S.  - the son of its hate and vicious president. (Hey, gotta concentrate on the evil Venezuelans who think they should be allowed to run their own country.)

All over the world, and in the seas, there has been a colossal disappearance of species - species we need for our own survival. Without them, we die.

As other species die, humans are dying now at rates in the millions. Within a very short time, the millions will be multiple hundreds of millions and, ultimately, it will be us.

The preservation of oil drilling will, of course, briefly save jobs. It will also kill us all. We are seeing it now where large parts of the Earth have become death traps, where the oceans have become poisons, where the fields have become sands.

We have not done a thing to change this.  Other people are dying. And soon, other people will be us. And here we are  wondering whether we should vote Liberal or Conservative, whether we can depend on the wisdom and insights of a Trump whose only interest is himself, or a Cheney whose education is so feeble it would make it hard for him to get a minimum wage job.

We have little time, so little it may already be too late.

And so the Liberals and the Conservatives bring on the clowns.

Canada should be ashamed.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-trump-omar-tlaib-1.5247941

Note to Donald Trump and all his "semite" friends. Palestinians ARE     semites. Semites are not just Jews. All people who speak semitic languages are semites - that includes Jews AND arabs. Israel has stolen exclusive use of the name for itself just as it has stolen the land of the Palestinians.

And Trump? He's just ignorant.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-cucinelli-statue-of-liberty-verse-europe-immigrants-1.5246852

Of course, the statue of liberty verse is about white folks. The U.S. has always been racist. Remember, the U.S. is the one that almost annihilated its native people so it could steal their land.

(Yes. Canada did some of that, too. And it still does.)
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/15/us-moves-to-block-release-of-iranian-vessel-in-gibraltar

Of course , the U.S. has a right to tell countries who they are allowed to trade with. It's the only country in the world that has that right.
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I have looked at Fox news only recently. Almost all Canadian and American news agencies are heavy on bias. But I am amazed how Fox news has managed to be the worst. It is, of course, pro-Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/15/fox-news-nation-todd-starnes-migrants-nazis-invasion
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/14/it-can-happen-again-americas-long-

The U.S. has always been racist, ever since the earliest landings of Europeans. So has Canada. But the reality is we are living in a world that cannot survive racism. We live in a world that, like it or not, has to accept massive movements of its peoples - at least hundreds of millions of them. Otherwise, none of  us survive.
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-even-by-middle-eastern-standards-the-latest-skirmishes-in-the-region-are-bizarre
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I'm afraid this next one is more optimistic than the situation deserves.

https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/9531377-gwynne-dyer-at-this-point-the-hong-kong-confrontation-is-purely-symbolic/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/15/global-temps-continue-soar-upward-noaa-confirms-july-2019-was-hottest-month-records

Not to worry. The Conservative Party of Canada says it ain't happening.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/15/we-will-not-let-violence-stop-us-jewish-activist-group-says-guard-was-driving-truck
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/14/now-earning-278-times-more-average-worker-new-study-shows-ceo-pay-has-grown-more

What we are slow to recognize is how we are being aggressively cheated, making us poorer even as the rich are getting richer. We are being plundered - and it's going to get much, much worse. How long will we stand around like this with our faces hanging out?
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/14/fracking-boom-us-and-canada-largely-blame-massive-rise-global-methane-levels-study

And New Brunswick's  Irving family just loves fracking. When do we wake up and realize how greedy, vicious, and irresponsible such people are?
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/08/13/bulletproof-never-looked-better-and-america-has-lost-its-mind

Yes. America has lost its mind.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/militarization-national-religion/

I recently had a post from an old student praising Canada's military. Now, I have nothing against those who serve. And there have been times when we have desperately needed them. As in World War Two.

And there have been times when we have callously thrown them into battles that meant nothing to us. Not all of our military roles deserve praise. Too bad the Canadian Legion has figured that out. Too bad it has never given our governments hell for throwing naive young people into the fire - as we  did in Korea and Afghanistan.

And we should protect young people - especially the many of those who joined not to serve anybody - but for the pure thrill of it all. I remember them when I was a child, and they were volunteering for WW2. I knew them again when I was 15 or so, and they were volunteering for Korea. Few of them had any sense of 'serving   Canada'. It was just the thrill of war that attracted them.

We should remember our veterans. We should be grateful to some of them. We should be penitent for our encouragement to them to go to wars that had nothing to do with  us. We should remember them, often with sadness, not with brainless cheering.

As a kid, I remember Bertie, a seriously retarded 16 year old who played with me when I was seven. He stole his brother's draft papers, and joined up. In his first action, he was screaming for his mother when a machine gun cut him in half. What did that have to do with 'serving the king' ?

I remember the boys from my father's scout troop coming back at age 17 or 18 to say goodbye. Was it patriotism? No. Even as a child I could see it was the excitement that got to them. A little older, I would see kids just older than me joining up. It wasn't patriotism. It was excitement.

And what did their service provide? What was the "better" world they made? It wasn't better. The the war ended, Nazi aggression was replaced by American aggression as the U.S. has invaded at least 40 countries - sometimes with Canadian help. It is now threatening Iran, Syria, China - countries all over the world. I don't know why my father's boy scouts joined up in 1939. But I don't think it was so a handful of U.S. billionaires could plunder the world.

Alas. The Canadian Legion, which should have protected our veterans, immediately became a propaganda glorifier of war. It's leadership has failed to notice that World War Two and Korea and Afghanistan have not been used to make this a better world. Quite the opposite. They have been used to increase wars and plunder.

Yes. Some of those wars were started by 'the other side'. but most - like Korea and Afghanistan and Libya, and our flirtation with the Russian border, and with Iran were the creations of our wealthy as Canadians died to made billionaires richer. (Add to that the 30,000 Canadians who served in the U.S. forces in Vietnam. And tell me what that has to do with patriotism.)
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_http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/rabble-radio/2019/08/elizabeth-may-we-dont-have-choose-between-economy-and
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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/08/canadian-health-care-will-be-front-and-centre-both-canadian-and-us-elections
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/viewpoint-reproductive-justice/2019/08/fords-cuts-health-care-and-our-rights
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2019/08/new-ipcc-report-flags-diet-and-land-use-changes-curb-climate

Yeah. Yeah. What does David Suzuki know. I mean, we got Conservative leaders who are intellecually proven like Kenney and Ford who both finished high school.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/alberta-may-still-be-mired-climate-change-denial-rest-world
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/how-the-u-s-created-the-central-american-immigration-crisis
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/the-fading-home-of-homo-sapiens
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https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/07/Industry-Endangered-Species-Clash/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/14/russian-blast-points-to-danger-of-new-nuclear-arms-race/
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I have mixed feelings about this one. I don't see where the alternatives could be - on either side. The British were certainly brutish in their years in China. They treated the Chinese with utter contempt - and happily killed them. There were still echoes of that in the Hong Kong I saw some   30 or so years ago.

But I don't see a solution in this article.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52085.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52088.htm

Again, I see two points of view. I can't see any merit is supporting either of them.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52093.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52098.htm
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Canada and the U.S. throw away their potentially clever students from their public schools. Here's a more sensible response.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/brampton-manor-students-offers-oxbridge/
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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/14/trump-iran-worst-lies/
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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/14/ice-solitary-confinement-mental-illness/

Surprise! Surprise!
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I'm pretty sure I misnamed a Canadian premier somewhere in all this. But It's been a long day, and I'm tired. Find it and use to attack me, and maybe even demand that the Canadian Legion be called in to criticize me.