Feb.31: And Worse

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/mar/30/self-isolate-giant-yacht-david-geffen-social-media

I'm so happy for the super rich who can pass this awkward time at sea in their multi million dollar yachts. and their doctors and their services and their coronavirus-free tropical islands.  Too bad there's no room for you and me.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/31/bailouts-coronavirus-state-aid
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/31/report-reveals-massive-plastic-pollution-footprint-of-drinks-firms
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/us-ignores-global-appeals-
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/antarctica-what-it-means-when-the-coldest-place-on-earth-records-an-unprecedented-heatwave

Not to worry. Real smart people like  Donald Trump and the premiers of Ontario and Alberta have assured used that climate chinge is not happening.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/coronavirus-covid19-march31-canada-world-1.5514497
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/other-hand/2020/03/now-good-time-begin-managed-decline-canadian-fossil-fuel
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/03/what-are-credit-cards-doing-about-coronavirus-basically
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/alberta-government-moves-lay-more-public-employees-time
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/cathy-crowes-blog/2020/03/not-game-hotels-are-only-defence-homeless-people-pandemic
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/never-mind-jason-kenneys-blueprint-jobs-26000-jobs-disappear
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2020/03/five-ways-mobilize-social-change-during-pandemic
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A  couple of things are worth noticing at this point.

One is that CBC, though the best official news source in Canada is often a little feeble (as today) over its coverage of news. One reason for that is that CBC is sometimes vulnerable to political interference. Rabble.ca is not.

A major reason for that is Karl Nerenberg, a founder of   Rabble.ca. Through most of his career he was an oustanding parliamentary reporter for CBC. And I'm sure he must have been under pressure, probably often, from political interference/ And that, probably, is what led him to be a founder of Rabble as a more independent news source.

The other thing worth noticing is that China has been growing rapidly as a an economic competitor to the U.S. That's why U.S. big business (and almost all American politicians) have been preparing for war with China for many years. This has been true since 1945 when the British got kicked out after generations of brutal rule. And that is when the Americans got a shock. The American army in Korea was really there to invade China - and Chinese troops stopped it cold.

Since then, American leaders have been obsessed with helping the billionaires to rule China - and they have steadily lost as China is now at least the second power, economically, in this world - and growing rapidly.

American billionaires are desperate for the destruction of China as an economic competitor.

But the U.S. has been showing for many years that, for all the size of its army and for all it's world record spending on war, it's not very good at it ---think North Korea.    Think Vietnam. Think Afghanistan. Think a Middle East where the U.S. is challenged not just by the people of the Middle East, but by both China and Russia.

No. If the U.S. is determined to go to war (with China and, probably,Russia) it is going to have to go nuclear. And if it does,   everyone will go nuclear. And we will, most of us, be destroyed. There will be no winner.

But that is what the U.S.  has been planning for 75 years. And it  knows that the final war must be very soon - or never.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-hiding-covid/

Our future is very likely to be decided by a self-worshipping man who is, almost certainly, mentally ill, a man who was never very bright, and whose supporters are, in the majority, religious fanatics and self-righteous fools.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/31/fed-economists-warn-us-unemployment-rate-could-soon-reach-32-during-great-depression
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/31/shameful-new-low-amid-covid-19-crisis-alberta-govt-ponies-1-billion-keystone-xl-tar
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/31/i-havent-heard-about-testing-weeks-leaked-audio-trump-dismisses-governors-concerns
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/31/thousands-las-vegas-hotel-rooms-sit-empty-city-paints-social-distancing-boxes

God bless America.
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2020/03/30/loaves-and-fishes-and-toilet-paper-crackpot-trumpian-pastor-arrested-packing

He is, of course, an evangelical Christian.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/30/coronavirus-exposes-deep-flaws-profit-system-biden-doubles-down-opposition-medicare
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/30/covid-19-world-suffering-less-from-coronavirus-crisis-more-from-an-america-crisis/
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/gaza-fights-for-freedom-review

Hitler's murder of Jews does not give Israelis the right to murder and horribly abuse Palestinians.

And how soon we forget - the countries that led the way from the 1930s to 1944, at least, in refusing to help Europe's Jews were Britain, Canada, and the U.S.
And even at the end of the war, when they gave Israel to the Jews, they did it so the European Jews would not migrate to them. By far, those Jews who did escape the holocaust could do so only because China and Latin America would accept them.
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/why-the-u-s-is-the-worlds-leading-perpetrator-of-global-terrorism

Yes. The U.S. really is the Nazi Germany of our time. That's not at all an exaggeration. (But don't expect to see that in your daily news.) The U.S. is the bastard chlld of the British Empire which was, probably, the most brutal empire in world history.

And, just like the British Empire, the U.S. has pandered to it's small circle of
Billionaire thieves - while neglecting the rest of it's population. For a British sample of this sort of abuse, read any Agatha Christie detective story, expecially those featuring Inspector Clouseau.

I love Agatha Christie's stories But her obession with the super rich can be a bit much.
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/corona-china-and-india-support-each-other

China is gaining support in Asia and the Middle East. The U.S. is losing it. That's why U.S. capitalism needs a war with China. And that's why it has to be a nuclear war.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/31/trumps-chernobyl-moment-the-us-may-lose-its-status-as-world-superpower-and-not-recover/

And the reaction of western super-rich? This is precisely why they will want to go for nuclear war before it's too late for them.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/27/bailouts-for-the-rich-the-virus-for-the-rest-of-us/

And, in Canada, this is exactly what the Liberals and Conservatives are doing.
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Here's a report that is kind to Trudeau - but rather more than it should be. Trudeau has already made it a priority to give billions to people who already have billions. Admittedly, though, the Conservatives have been even worse.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/03/30/Other-Virus-Test/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinese-team-equipment-arrive-uk-support-virus-fight/5708193
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-rejects-congressional-oversight-corporate-bailout-bill/5708033

We gotta make the super rich happy.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-canada-side-fanatical-coup-regime-bolivia/5708073

Of course, Canada supports the U.S. in this. Canada is, after all, a colony of the U.S..
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54089.htm

For 75 years, the (Christian) United States has been the world's most  murderous cocuntry.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54092.htm

Unless of course, American capitalists decide to chance it all on a nuclear war while they can.
_________________________________________________________________'http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54087.htm

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https://www.tert.am/en/news/2020/03/30/china-resuming/3249892
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The way capitalism works............

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US-Teen-Dies-After-Being-Rejected-by-Clinic-for-No-Insurance-20200329-0002.html
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54081.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54085.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/31/news/tc-energy-enlists-alberta-help-finish-us8-billion-keystone-xl-project
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Notice the two stories at the end of this one. Canadians and Albertans are really going to suffer from the days of Alberta oil. It could take up to 2,800 years - and the oil companies will not pay a penny of it.

Canada has never been as forceful as it should have been to the oil industry. Here, we ignore all the advice of the world's leading scientists on climate change. All of this to please moronic premiers.

The end of the world is real. And, at the present pace, it's soon.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/31/news/alberta-tweaks-orphan-well-rules-giving-more-power-oversight-body

And most Canadians, it seems, prefer to vote for represenatives of  the super-greedy.
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https://truthout.org/articles/trump-and-his-allies-have-decided-to-preserve-capitalism-at-any-cost/
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March 28: Nore of the same

The Irving family of New Brunswick has been plundering the people of New Brunswick and of Canada  for what will soon be a hundred years. It poisons the province's forest and wildlife with chemicals. The Canadian and New Brunswick governments smile - boys will be boys. The leaders of the family pay no income tax - though they have uncounted billions of dollars from sweetheart contracts of their many businesses as in oil, forestry, and many others. .

Not long ago, it was loaned 42 million dollars from the Canadian government to develop its wallboard industry. No problem, assured the Canadian government - as it forgave almost all of the loan. But the Canadian government wanted to be nice to the Irvings. So it forgave them another 2 million so they wouldn't cry.

Most recently, the boss Irving - remember he's a multi-billionaire - has announced a gift of one million dollars to feed what has become a province with a very, very poor unemployment rate.

And what will this mean to the poor and hungry of the province?

There are no figures available yet. But as this recession deepens, his gift could mean, oh, a couple of bucks for each hungry person - the price of one, large chocolate bar.

Remember.the Irving share of its money from all Canadians is in the billions of dollars. - on which they pay no income taxes whatever. And one million is just one thousandth of one of their many billions.

The Moncton Times and Transcript (which the Irvings own) is sure to slobber all over this story as it alway slobbers over whatever the Irvings do. They own all the papers in New Brunswick - and all them slobber over the Irvings.

For many years now, North Americans have suffered a steady decline in income for most of us. And that decline has been caused by the greed of some of the most vicious greedy this world has even known. They own most of our governments. And they own us.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/27/trump-narcissism-american-blood-coronavirus

And all of those sick Americans are just on the other side of the Canadian border.
Mind you, Trump's most faithful supporters are the evangelicals who believe this is part of God's plan for the end of life - and they they and only they of all humanity will get to heaven. That's why, as you can see on TV, they are still holding crowded mass rallies of the faithful. (And governments are still allowing them to do it despite the danger of such rallies.)
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https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirustracker/
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/epa-enforcement-covid-19-1.5512023
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/think-what-we-could-have-accomplished-if-wed-concentrated
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/03/crisis-comes-worst-time-struggling-canadian-workers-and

And, gee, our super rich have not paid income tax for many decades - and they have been skipping uncounted  billions of payment. And I suggest that maybe they can give us back some of our money so that ordinary Canadians can live.
Interesting I have not seen any mention of this in our news media, (most of them owned by our super rich.)  In fact, Canada's own Conrad Black (ex-con) has raised his whining voice to demand even more for the super rich.

(I got to know him when we were both on Montreal CBC's early morning show.
I got to know of his arrogance, his pointing his nose skyward and his eyes closed as he spouted his idiot opinions. - he never listened to anybody but himself. He did prison time for his financial greed - but got cleared when he wrote a book about how wonderful Donald Trump was - and so got a pardon from the president.)
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2020/03/turns-out-billions-dollars-arent-needed-g20-summits
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https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/were-all-socialists-now-least-while-covid-19-crisis-lasts
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/03/federal-pandemic-funds-first-nations-woefully-inadequate
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https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/covid-19-and-war-terror
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/change-gonna-come/2020/03/addressing-child-poverty-during-covid-19
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https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/sanders-senate-coronavirus-relief/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/28/unacceptable-dems-fume-after-trump-announces-plan-refuse-congressional-oversight

Not surpriingly, Trump is more concerned about helping the super rich ahead of all the rest.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/holy-crap-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental

To hell with the needs of millions. Republicans and most Democrats have always existed to serve the super rich. That goes back ( despite all the bragging about democracy) to George Washington and earlier.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/set-approve-45-trillion-bail-out-corporations-trump-white-house-objects-1-billion
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/27/covid-19-the-craziest-things-about-america-highlighted-by-this-virus/

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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/does-religion-matter-communal-violence-in-india

Strange how religions, almost all based on love, are leading causes of hatred and murder. Perhaps the greatest murderer, plunderer and starving in history was the British Empire. These days, it's the American empire. Both are the empires of largely Christian nations.

And their churches have rarely said even a boo.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/27/bailouts-for-the-rich-the-virus-for-the-rest-of-us/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/27/gaza-has-been-under-siege-for-years-covid-19-could-be-catastrophic/

The holocaust made many Jews as savage as imperial Christians. And so much of values of both religions has been tossed into the dumpster.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-gaza-40-icu-beds-two-million-people-under-siege/5707771
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And a geat disappointment........

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bernie-sanders-voted-corporate-bailout-bill/5707757
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54071.htm

When national president puts a price on the head of another national leader, That's called murder. And American presidents have made a habit of it. And don't shrug this off. This is common murder ordered by a man who has murdered all over the world..
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54076.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54074.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54075.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54072.htm
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https://mondoweiss.net/2020/03/blocking-medical-aid-to-iran-isnt-just-immoral-its-stupid/
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https://truthout.org/articles/trump-and-his-allies-have-decided-to-preserve-capitalism-at-any-cost/
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If we don't wake up and grow some, it will soon be game over.
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March 26: And it goes on......

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2020/03/united-nations-calls-peace-during-coronavirus-pandemic-war

Something I should have made clear from the start is that this blog is not intended to be the usual sort of news sheet. We can get lots of those  with our local news media.  It's purpose is to get away from the bias and, sometimes, many times, the dishonesty of mamy commercial news media.

That's why I don't try to tell most of the news, but try to counter much of the dishonest knews we get, and to find that news that most of our news media don't report at all. Since 1945 the U.S. has attacked 70 or so countries for no good reason. But most of our commercial news media have not reported that. The U.S. has specialized in the killing of civilians and children - but all we have read is what   heroes 'it's brave and patriotic lads' are.

That's why I avoid most commercial news media - with the exception of a few - The Guardian, CBC and, I hope soon, Haaretz.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/us-unemployment-rate-coronavirus-business

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/26/rightwing-populist-leaders-oppose-experts-not-elites

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/coronavirus-us-second-wave-pandemic-trump-loosens-restrictions-easter

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/mar/26/kill-chain-hbo-election-hacking-documentary

Think of it. Millions of Americans ill. The Trump response a shambles.
And Canada, with it's long, long border, is next door.
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The people of Alberta, Canada's province of oil fields, are taught by their politicians and their news media that there is no such thing as climate change - so we can happily squirt oil all over the world without harm. That's also the attitude of a significant part of the rest of Canada - and of people like Trump.

And this still holds even as we have just ended a year of the highest temperatures in the recorded history of this world and watching the meltdown of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/wine-cooler-global-heating-helps-swedens-vineyards-to-success
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Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, has been one of the world's most vicious and destructive leaders. But he is a pet of the U.S., so Justin Trudeau has, from the start of his destructive rule, publicly supported him. Well, of course. Both Liberals and Conservative governments in Canada have always sucked up to the Latin American pets of the U.S.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-coronavirus-crisis-is-a-media-trick
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-border-coronavirus-1.5510853

A typical Trump move. Everybody is picking on the U.S. The reality is that it is more likely that Americans will be fleeing to cross the Canadian border. After all, the U.S. is the one that's weak on medical care - and it seems to be the one with the higher proportion falling victim to coronavirus.
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https://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/rabble-radio/2020/03/covid-19-and-food-security-cuba-understands-it-better-we-do
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https://rabble.ca/news/2020/03/paul-weinberg-when-poverty-mattered

You want to end poverty? Then make the super-rich pay their taxes like everybody else.And stop giving billions to the super rich out of the taxes the rest of us pay. You want to end war? Then stop using our tax money to pay for the wars of the super rich. (Just about every war in human history (including our two world wars, all British imperial wars, and all wars since 1945 have been fought to benefit the super rich.)
(And, no, that is not an attack on our military who have fought in wars. It is an attack on the abuse of young Canadians and their lives by our political leaders and our greedy billionaires - most of whom (like George Bush), have been careful to avoid going to war themselves.
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2020/03/healthy-forests-mean-healthy-people
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https://rabble.ca/news/2020/03/trumps-plan-ignore-doctors-and-open-economy-endangers-both-americans-and-canadians

Trump is mentally ill, of course. But most of the Democrats are no better.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/slavery-reparations-compensated-emancipation-act/
Just like today's rush to benefit the super rich.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-gaza-strip-disaster/
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-keep-it-quiet-but-universal-basic-income-is-coming
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/26/foreclosure-king-steve-mnuchin-says-never-seen-surge-unemployment-not-relevant

The U.S. - and Canada - will never reccover as long as we vote for governments that exist only to serve the super rich.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/26/ireland-nationalizes-hospitals-duration-coronavirus

Good. Hospitals should never exist simply to make the rich richer.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/26/looting-america-big-corporations-progressives-appalled-senate-unanimously-passes
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/26/another-attempted-coup-us-rebuked-absurd-drug-trafficking-charges-against-venezuelas
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/25/sanders-threatens-demand-stronger-conditions-500-billion-corporate-welfare-fund-if

Corporate bailouts are billions of dollars for the super rich. But they all have  many billions of dollars tucked away by not paying income tax, billions of dollars they have been allowed to tuck away by not paying income tax.

Even Canadians and Americans can't be  dumb enough to buy that.

Can they?
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/25/assange-extradition-assange-denied-bail-further-visits-despite-virus-risk/
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/a-viral-climate-of-fear
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/03/20/Bail-Out-Workers-Not-Fossil-Fuels-Say-Climate-Advocates/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54064.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54067.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54061.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54066.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54068.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/24/opinion/covid-19-crisis-tipping-point-will-we-invest-planetary-health-or-oil-and-gas
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/25/opinion/265-academics-trudeau-no-bail-out-oil-and-gas-response-covid-19

So far, our biggest payments HAVE been to the oil and gas industry. So far, both Canada and the U.S. are rushing to help.......a small number of richest people in the world.
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https://truthout.org/articles/the-stimulus-fails-student-borrowers-congress-must-cancel-their-debt/

University debt is a real killer. Even in my student days, and with scholarships, I left university with a debt of some 16,000 dollars that took me many years to pay off. Today's students will owe much more, and at a time when there will be less income.

Of course, just making the super-rich pay taxes likes the rest of .us is something Liberals and Conservatives and Republicans and most Democrats would never dream of. Indeed, in many 'democratic' countries all over the world, political leaders scramble to please the super rich.
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https://truthout.org/articles/to-confront-coronavirus-we-need-an-emergency-wealth-tax/

With our present political leadership, good luck on that one.
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https://theintercept.com/2020/03/25/is-the-trump-cult-a-death-cult/
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https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/trump-cabinet-bible-studies-coronavirus/

Canada has the misfortune to live next door to a nation with very primitive ideas of what religion is about. --and that religious element is spreading in Canada, too. Christian evamgelicals cheer for this economic disaster because they think it is done by God who has decided to end the world --and everybody (except evangelical Christians) will go to hell.
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Perhaps the most disturbing is that we are fighting all the usual wars even as this happens - wars that can only end in great wars among the major powers. Nobody can win those wars.

But the U.S., more than any other country is spending hugely on these wars, the wars that we will all lose. Going that route, we will all be losers.

What we need is for all the major powers to back off from all wars - and for all to cooperate in dealing with the real world.

But there is not the slightest sign of that.
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March 24: It was the worst of days.

The problems is bigger even than coronavirus. It goes back to 1945 - and earlier, much earlier.

Almost all wars in history go back to greed. The news media always portray wars as wars of the good nations against the evil ones. And that's nonsense. Our soldiers are brave lads. Those on the other side are bullies and cowards. And we win because God is on our side. But that has never been true.

The British Empire - like the Romans and the Chinese and the American empires - have always been wars of the greedy The British killed over 400  million, and  enslaved more millions. (There is no count). The American Empire almost annihilated aboriginals, including childred and even babies in it's cowboys, cavalry and and indians phase. Nobody knows how many Africans died in the slave trade. In it's 120 years of deliberately impoverishing Latin America - again,
there is no count of the enormous numbers killed or, in effect, enslaved by American big business (with the cooperation of Canadian big business. As I write this, huge numbers of Latin Americans to this day are being starved to death by the U.S.

The brutality of Hitler was nothing unusual. In fact, Britain, Canada, and France refused before and during the war to accept those Jews who escaped.They were sent back, quite deliberately, to die. And the creation of Israel had nothing to do with helping Jews. It was an attempt to get rid of all of them in Christian Canada, Britain and the U.S.

Our righteousness was faked when our troops discovered the death camps. Our leaders had known all about them long before they were 'discovered'.

I spent some time in China. In that time, I saw dreadful housing. I'm astonished now when I see pictures of Chinese cities with houses and apartments I would be happy to live in. I'm astonished at the spread of public schools and universities. China has become a very modern country.

Alas! The China I saw when I was there was the shambles created by the British  in their long rule of  plundering, starvation and slavery. (This is something the U.S. wanted to continue at the end of World War Two. This is why it now wants a war with China. Think of that when you see TV parades of 'fine young men marching to serve their country."

Just as in the days of the old, British Empire, the folks at home get little - if any-
benefit from the all this. In the days of Empire, most British lived in slums. As the U.S. today kills to makes profits for the rich, the numbers of it's poor and homeless are growing. Only the rich can afford health care, and even public education is becoming beyond reach for a great many people..

Get used to it. Us humans have a long, long history of being murderous, thieving bastards. (But we call the worst ones financial leaders.) At the present time, both Canada and the U.S.and many other countries, supposedly democracies are really run by our murderous, thieving bastards.

The great change after the defeat of Hitler and of Japan? It wasn't our attitude toward greed and murder. It was the hugely destructive weapons that the war had developed, weapons that now can destroy all of us (and whose costs all over the world have spread poverty - but which produce great profits for the super-rich.)

What we had to do was to create a world order. That's what the UN was supposed to do. Instead, the UN became the weapon of the very rich. A prime example of that was it's support for the Korean war. (The purpose of that war had nothing to do with defending South Korea which incidentally, was not a country ruled by democracy but by a gang of thugs who has been agents of Japan during the WW2.  The purpose of the Korean War was to establish a base for an invasion of China which U.S. capitalists had wanted for their empire.)

In fact, ever since Korea, the U.S. has been building a brutal, murderous empire just like the old ones and, for that matter, like Hitler's Germany

Too bad most of our news media have never reported that. The result now is that everybody is getting poorer - everybody except the super rich. And China has advanced remarkably since 1945 with every sign it could soon be the world's leading economy.

The U.S. (And British and Canadian super rich) now need a war on China. But it can't be a conventional one. (The American conventional wars since 1945 have not been impressive.) It has to be nuclear - and that will set off nuclear responses all over the world.

And so we now have every sign that the U.S. wants a war with China.

It might be time for veteran's organizations, like Canada's Legion, to stop being cheerleaders for war. While they cheered, it was wrong for Canada to enter the Korean War. It was wrong to enter the Afghanistan war. It was wrong to use Canadian troops to help the U.S. destroy an independance and democracy   developing in Haiti. It is wrong to have our troops along the Russian border where they can, in any case, do nothing but get killed. It was wrong for Canada to bomb Libya. to please the U.S. It is wrong for us to interfere in the Syrian war.

Our armies are supposed be be used to defend Canada, not to be bum boys for the super rich.

The legion was founded to help veterans, and it has done that well. Alas! It has also become a cheerleader for billionaires who want more Canadians to die in the service of billionaires. And that is no help for our children who will have to die in these wars of greed.

As for the future of the U.S. It is very possible that it's on a path that will destroy it as a nation. It is then, very possible, that it will launch a war on China while it still can..

Hitler was not an unusual phenomenon. There have been Hitlers all through history. They are now as powerful and as vicious (and evil) as ever. And we have very little time to block them.

I don't know how other religions are, but Christians, surely, should think about where they stand. (In Germany, as in any country I know of, they have almost always been on the side of the super rich. They cheered for the horrors of the British Empire, the American Empire, and Hitler's empire. And they've been pretty damn quiet about homelessness, the near-slavery in Latin America, the unjustified Afghanistan war and most of us have been mugs for those very unChristian acts.
________________________________________________________________

(This blog may now be shorter in it's news portion.)
_______________________________________________________________

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-syria-says-it-intercepted-drone-near-hmeimim-air-base-1.8704003

I THINK I signed up for Haaretz, the Israeli paper. I should know in a day or so.
________________________________________________________________

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/covid-19-climate-crisis-governments-coronavirus

There's an important hint. Right wing governments have a strong tendency to protect big buisness - and to hell with the rest of us. And it works as Trump now is rising higher than he ever has been before.

It is not likely he has made the crisis worse than ever with US matching Chinese deaths. And that means Canada may have some very serious border problems, especially since many Americans, including armed ones, will be trying to cross our border.
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/trump-pandemic-floundering-coronavirus-crisis

The U.S. is in real trouble because Americans are raised with false ideas about the world and their place in it. That's true, I guess of all empires. The British thrilled to the days of their empire - though, like the American empire in the U.S. it did nothing for the British people. They were taught to believe that God wanted them to conquer the world, that Britain was God's chosen land.

Americans have been raised in the same idiocies. They're taught them in their schools. Political speakers rub in the story. Hitler did the same in Germany. The ancient Romans did. It's a game that goes with greed.
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/the-guardian-view-on-china-and-the-us-a-stricken-world-without-leaders
________________________________________________________________

Then there's the evangelicals.....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/24/liberty-university-reopens-despite-coronavirus-closure-calls-jerry-falwell-jr
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-universal-basic-income-1.5501938

We're going to have to wake up. For decades now, we have been giving out superwealthy freedom from income tax. Even worse, we've been throwing bundles of our money to people like the Irving and the oil industry for reasons that are not clear.
In much of the world, we exist only to make the super rich even richer on our money. And that will come to a terrible crash...probably soon.
_________________________________________________________________

https://rabble.ca/news/2020/03/trumps-plan-ignore-doctors-and-open-economy-endangers-both-americans-and-canadians
_______________________________________________________________

https://rabble.ca/news/2020/03/canada-prepares-vote-covid-19-measures-while-us-president-decries-socialism
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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-spain-us/
_______________________________________________________________

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/nicholas-lemann-transaction-man-review/
_______________________________________________________________
Gwynne Dyer always makes more sense than most columnists.

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-covid-19-wont-change-world-forever-but-it-will-change-a-lot-for-a-long-time
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/massive-scandal-trump-fda-grants-drug-company-exclusive-claim-promising-coronavirus
_______________________________________________________________

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/packed-churches-all-over-our-country-i-think-it-will-be-beautiful-declares-trump
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/fury-virus-illustrates-folly-war-un-chief-calls-global-ceasefire

This what we have to do to survive. But I see no sign that Trump is even thinking of this.
_______________________________________________________________

https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/hubei-chinas-first-locked-down-province-to-reopen-on-march-25
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54063.htm
________________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54068.htm
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I'm ending this here because it's been a very, very long day for the news, something over the usual ten hours. As well, much of the news is highly repetitive on this issue.

A great danger for Canada is that the U.S. is on it's border - and the U.S. is coming apart at the seams. It may well turn out to be the most destructive of the period. And that may spill over into Canada.

The U.S., as usual, is in a dream world of worship of it's own glory, of it's (mythical) history and it's right to rule over others. Add to that it's addiction to capitalism, one of the most vicious and destructive systems in history. Add to that the greed of capitalism, and the control of capitalism over American (and Canadian) governments.
There seems no way to scrub away the myths of what Americanism is.

And donne-moi un  break. It's been a very tiring day. So I am not proof-reading this. (Check for my spelling errors and enjoy.)

March20: A ray of light?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/chinese-life-slowly-gets-back-to-normal-as-the-epidemic-subsides-coronavirus
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Note in the report below that China has no new cases within China. The only new cases - a small number - are Chinese who contracted it while abroad.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/coronavirus-at-a-glance
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And a surprise....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/21/mike-pence-coronavirus-crisis
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/21/universal-basic-income-michael-tubbs-stockton-coronavirus
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/cuba-food-production-us-oil-sanctions
Despite American pressures and bullying, Cuba has become an astonishingly progressive nation. (And that is precisely why the U.S. wants to destroy it.)
________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/uk-presses-us-to-ease-iran-sanctions-to-help-fight-coronavirus
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/coronavirus-covid19-canada-world-march21-1.5505520
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ideas-nahlah-ayed-coronavirus-western-leaders-1.5503672
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https://rabble.ca/news/2020/03/ndp-will-vote-trudeaus-measures-wants-immediate-action

There seems to be a remarkable silence on the part of the Conservatives.
_________________________________________________________________

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/change-gonna-come/2020/03/all-workers-deserve-live-dignity-midst-coronavirus

We live under governments that had no problem with handing out 25 billion dollars  to oil barons who want to build an oil pipeline. But prefers to give just pennies for those who are going to suffer from unemployment.
_______________________________________________________________

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/other-hand/2020/03/canada-closes-us-border-amid-coronavirus-pandemic
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-not-good-news-anyone-probably-worse-news
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https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-cuba-cruise-ship/

Compare that to the U.S. attitude.
______________________________________________________________

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-spain-us/

The U.S. is about the learn the human price of it's lack of medicare for all.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/nicholas-lemann-transaction-man-review/
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And a very sobering note...

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-most-developed-countries-choose-lives-over-lucre-face-long-covid-19-lockdowns
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And another....

https://www.barrierestarjournal.com/news/gwynne-dyer-says-we-need-planetary-maintenance-engineers/
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The American political sense of priorities.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/20/do-f-35s-fight-pandemics-amid-covid-19-outbreak-law
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/20/utter-disgrace-gop-stimulus-plan-would-cut-taxes-corporations-while-denying-benefits

Capitalism likes any crisis so long as it has a profit potential.

The U.S., compared to Canada, is probably going to get a heavier dose of coronavirus than Canada. In fact, it is now growing faster in the U.S. than any country. Think now, of what is going to happen in a country that has always put profits ahead of health care, a country that has always seen medical care as essentially a profit-making industry.

It is quite possible that this will lead to severe violence.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/20/demands-resignations-more-gop-senators-accused-smash-and-grab-stock-dumps-ahead

Since the American revolution (and even before) U.S. has been a nation to serve only the very wealthy. (So is Canada).
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And now a break from virus reporting.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/20/us-commandos-deployed-to-141-countries/

We like to think of war as glorious (when we are doing it.) Sometimes it is justifiable and necessary. More often, it isn't. If your town suffered attacks from gangsters in a neighbouring district, would you call them heroes?  American troops in much of the world - such as Latin America and the middle east - are not heroes.   Nor are they there to help nobody except the billionaires back home.They are killers and thieves. They are, at best, gangsters, hired murderers and like our urban gangsters enthusiastic about murder and rape.
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/coronavirus-reasoned-post-for-non-italians-aka-your-government-is-not-taking-this-seriously-enough
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/coronavirusbusiness-of-sickness-and-the-socialist-alternatives
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/the-virus-and-capitalism/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/fighting-covid-19-in-cuba-china-and-the-united-states/
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/03/20/Bail-Out-Workers-Not-Fossil-Fuels-Say-Climate-Advocates/

Most western governments are, literally, owned by the super wealthy. And that is a pattern notable in both Canada and the U.S. In the U.S., both parties are guilty of this. In Canada, it's the Liberals and the Conservatives who are guilty.

In Alberta, for example, the oil industry is pretty much done for. And yet, the federal government is handing out 50 billion of our dollars so the oil industry can get a new pipeline. This is insane.

What we should be doing is closing down our oil industry, and use the 50 billion or whatever it takes, to begin the massive job of destroying many decades of land destruction by the oil bosses. (No. There's not the slightest chance the oil baron will clean up the mess they have created.)
________________________________________________________________=
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/03/20/Game-Over-For-Kenney/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/biden-trump-november-tulsi-caves-loses-credibility/5706893
________________________________________________________________

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54048.htm
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It's important to understand the meanings of words - especially those tossed around by our politicians. and most of our news media. For example, what are terrorists? When western media report on our killing of muslims in the middle east, it calls them terrorists. The reality is that we are and always have been the terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Latin America...and many, many other countries. We are the ones who kill huge numbers of civilians, women, children...

The West has been happily starving, murdering, robbing millions since the days of Columbus. It is quite possible that the British Empire was the ultimate murderer of hundreds of millions. But the U.S. is trying for an even bigger score.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54051.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54049.htm
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Canadians are lucky. Under our system, medical treatment exists to help those who are ill. In the U.S., it exists to make profits for billionaires.

https://time.com/5806312/coronavirus-treatment-cost/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54041.htm
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I idon't know what to make of this one.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54044.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54043.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/20/news/decision-hand-over-irregular-migrants-us-knowingly-creating-chaos-says-refugee-group
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Christian evangelicalism may well be a bigger threat than coronavirus.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/20/what-evangelical-leaders-told-their-congregations-about-coronavirus/
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article209501.html

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It's time, more than time, to forget about wars. Wars are normally fought, whatever the politicians tell us about how evil the enemy is. In fact, wars are almost always created by the super rich to make themselves richer. That what the U.S. has done all over Latin America, the middle east, and with an urge to get control over China. It's all been a spreading poison since Columbus, Belgium in the Congo, France in Asia and Germany in China and Africa, Britain all over the world.

And it got worse, much worse, in the late nineteenth century with the rise of industrialization and it's related wars. In most of our news media, wars are created by evil people - always on the other side. In fac almost all have been caused by captialists on our side and, sometimes as with Hitler's Germany, by both sides.

We can't possibly hope for a better world while putting all our time and energy into those wars, notably by Britain and the U.S. (But most of our news media never report the wars in that way.)

The only comfort, sort of, is that the next world war will be the last one.
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March 19: Some good news.........

........

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/19/us-healthcare-industry-working-class-deaths
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And some, possibly, bad.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/19/ivanka-trump-coronavirus-brand
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/mar/19/how-donald-trump-changed-course-on-coronavirus
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/19/us-healthcare-industry-working-class-deaths

Capitalism doesn't work. Get used to it.
_________________________________________________________________
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/revealed-the-great-european-refugee-scandal
________________________________________________________________
...and another piece of good news.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus
________________________________________________________________
And another....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/mar/10/wuhan-closes-last-makeshift-coronavirus-hospital-video
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/coronavirus-covid-19-canada-world-march19-1.5502505
________________________________________________________________

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ohio-primary-coronavirus-1.5499987

The U.S. is crashing itself. It now seems certain that either Biden or Trump will be the next president. Both of them are in the tradition of American politics going back to 1776 and even earlier. Both of them are servants of the super rich. Both of them are dedicated to plundering the world. Both of them support the constant wars that have been the mark of U.S. capitalism.

Expect the super rich to become even more so. Accept the spread of poverty that has become a characteristic of the U.S. Accept the many wars to come. Accept the violence and murder that has long been a characteristic of American life.

Accept the refusal to recognize climate change.

Accept the certainty that other other world powers will have to unite to deal with American aggression.
_________________________________________________________________

https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/federal-support-package-pros-cons-and-next-shoe-drop
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And let's remember the long term effects of this crisis.

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/bill-morneaus-covid-19-response-economic-and-health-crisis-no
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Don't expect to see the story below in American (or most Canadian) news media.

https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/cuba-teaching-world-lessons-sustainability
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https://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2020/03/watch-coronavirus-capitalism-and-how-beat-it
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https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-pelosi-bill/

Too true. The Republicans are on the far right and the servants of the super-rich. The Democrats are one the far, far right - and the servants of the super-rich.
I would not wish to be an American now - and I'm not crazy about being it's neighbour..
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/here-are-51-republican-senators-who-just-voted-against-expanding-paid-sick-leave-all

As a rule, U.S. politicians, both Republican and Democrat, will probably leap to give "relief" payments to billionaires, while ignoring the needs of the rest of the population.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/economists-demand-trump-immediately-lift-iran-cuba-and-venezuela-sanctions-are

_____________________________________________________________

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/bolsonaro-out-balconies-and-windows-millions-demand-ouster-brazilian-president-over

President Bolsonaro of Brazil has been wildly irrresponsible in environmental destruction and a killer of native peoples. But he's a    friend of Trump  - and so he's also a friend of Canada's Trudeau. (Anybody who's a friend of Trump and of American billionaires is also a friend of Canada's Liberals and Conservatives.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/18/literally-weaponizing-coronavirus-despite-one-worlds-worst-outbreaks-deadly-virus-us

This is the kind of war - as in Venezuela and Cuba - that Trump likes - the mass murder of people, mostly civilians, without using troops or requiring political approval.
________________________________________________________________.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/18/an-exceptional-nation-fails-its-people-as-cns-editor-first-learned-20-years-ago/

Under American capitalism, the purpose of doctors and hospitals is not to heal the sick. It is to make profits for the billionaire owners of the medical industry.
That's why so many Americans die younger than Canadians do.
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-china-and-cuba-send-medical-teams-equipments-and-medicine-to-countries
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/19/under-capitalism-every-plague-has-a-silver-lining/
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https://theantimedia.com/iraq-and-russia-prepare-to-boost-military-ties-as-us-threatens-sanctions/

Would the U.S. be foolish enough to start a war over this - or even create a situation that would lead to a war?.  Quite possibly.
________________________________________________________________

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-vaccine-medical-supplies-price-gouging/
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https://thesaker.is/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.voltairenet.org/article209489.html
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I found today's news not as helpful as it should have been in understanding what is happening. That, of course, was very true of the commercial news media - but it was also noticeable in the other sources I use.

For a start, I haven't seen any analysis of how the super rich with their many, many billions in taxes they don't pay.

It's bad enough that they take this money while forcing the rest of us to hand out the money to pay for the wars of the super rich. We have now lived through decades of the super rich stealing our money. And watch.  They'll be demanding even more of our money in government handouts - just like Canada's 25 billion dollar gift for an oil pipeline.

Think of what that means as you're figuring out your income tax. Think of what it costs you to pay for essential services, services that are steadily declining because our taxes really can't cover them. We are already suffering from economiic decline, have been for many decades.

What kind of greed and insanity is this to wave stacks of money to the super rich, a process that will become even more destructive as the months pass?

I'm a child of the dirty thirties. I still remember what that was like. My parents couldn't afford to heat our small flat. Breakfast was, to say the least, limited. And when I began school in 1939, it was common to have no lunch. Only occassionally would any of us get a free half pint of milk at school.

Friends began dropping out of school between grade four and grade seven. They couldn't earn much. But their families needed it. 

We're heading into another time like that.  Probably a worse time.  So that billionaires can escape paying taxes. Are we crazy?

Even in the better times after the war, very few would finish high school. And university? Forget it. We wore clothes that had to last even as we outgrew them.
To this day, I have toes that bend in - a result of shoes that HAD to be worn as long as possible.

It was bad. But what's coming may well be worse.

We are crazy. We let the super rich avoid billions in taxes. We freely offer them gifts - like the oil pipeline. We're headed for nothing for us, and nothing for our children. In the U.S., it's even worse as both political parties are servants of the very, very rich.

There is every possibility - well, certainty - of violence and quite dreadful suffering. (Every country will face this).

All this is made worse by the our wars of the super rich because the super rich no longer (if they ever did) cannot fight wars and operate nations. Get used to it.
Either we cooperate with each other or we all die in the final war.

Our politicians and our commercial news media have long encouraged international hatreds and war. We have to get off that. As it is, most politicians and news media encourage international hatreds. The Chinese are evil? The Russians are aggressive? In fact, the leading killers of the last few hundred years have been the western powers.                       

China is evil? Hey! If it's evil you want, take a look at the years of British power in China. And think of how, say, the U.S. would have been just as bad. I could certainly wish that China were more democratic. But the reality is that China has advanced remarkably after years of British plundering and murder and American threats.

Russia's a threat? Well, it's not Russia that has murdered and plundered all over Latin America and the middle east.

We are at a turning point in history. Either we break the power of the super rich and get rid of capitalism and stop ALL wars - or it's game over.
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Forgive me. I've been working on this blog for ten hours. I really don't feel like spell-checking. (Okay. Report me to Donald Trump.)



         

March 17: The wasteland we have created.

Haaretz is an Israeli newspaper, and one of the world's best. I don't use it much for my blog because it costs money - and there's a limit to how many papers I can afford to subscribe to. But I've often thought Haaretz well worth subscribing to.

It's much superior to the Israeli government.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgxwHMPgkKCdpFKnFhgfrgnZZsQKq
_________________________________________________________________

As I go through the news of recent days, particularly the spread of coronavirus, I am struck by a constant reminder. The death total now for the whole world is some six thousand. That's since the first report of it on Nov. 17  - four months ago. How does that rank as an international disaster?

Actually, we don't know much about that. The reality is that our governments commonly lie about death tolls. They lie in gross style. And most of our news media print the lies as truth.

How many Iraqis were killed by the American invasion? When asked, the American commander said, "We don't count them." Then he gave a count in the low hundreds. In the years since, news media like Common Dreams have specialized in doing research, and have learned the count was almost certainly in  the millions. And, in another point mentioned by Common Dreams, the count was especially high for civilians and children.

On can find similar results for American (and British and Canadian) killing in Afghanistan and other wars. There are no real figures for war deaths. And they are commonly off by millions.

As I write this,  I've been checking on reporting on the Guatemalan conflict in the early 1960s. This was a conflict in which the U.S. used a gang of hired, international killers to murder some 200.000 Guatemalans. The hired gang was called the CIA. It murdered, tortured mostly innocent people, especially priests, nuns and missionaires who got in the way of American domination of their country. The "general" of the CIA was George Bush Sr., a devout church goer, and future president of the U.S. And, in fact, he was an agent of American capitalists who wanted control of Guatemala.

But - funny thing - almost all the sources that I checked blamed religious Guatemalans for the conflict.

The truth is that we have no idea of how many people our armies have murdered. in recent years. Indeed, this goes way back to the days of British imperialism when, for example, Winston Churchill deliberately murdered millions of the people of India by starvation, and ordered the bombing of Kurds by hitting only undefended, civilian targets. If Churchill were living today, he would probably be wearing a cap with "Make Britain Great Again."

How many people has the U.S. murdered in it's history? Nobody has any idea.
It began with the slaughter of native peoples - even before George Washington got into that game. It expanded with the war against Mexico to steal half of it, and then the conquest of Latin American, of The Phillipines.......  (though it did fail in several attempts against Canada. Will there be another attempt against Canada? You can bet on it.)

We have no idea of how many people we have killed. And that's the first rule of war - always lie and blame the other side.

Coronavirus is certainly a threat to the world. But, at the present death rate of that disease, it comes nowhere close to the horrors we are inflicting with our wars.

Coronavirus will, eventually, disappear. But our greed and viciousness will not.
And we have now reached a point at which greed, viciousness - and lying politicians and news media - are the real coronavirus of our time. The world of today is, quite possibly, the worst it has ever been with destructive power so great that nobody could possibly win.

We, almost all of us, will survive coronavirus as we have always survived such plagues. But unless we take intenational action, and very soon, we shall not survive our own behaviour. But in all this, our greatest enemy will be - capitalism - including that capitalism that is a part of both China and Russia.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/coronavirus-latest-at-a-glance-tuesday
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/17/self-isolation-survival-guide-relationships-coronavirus
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/15/prepare-for-the-coronavirus-global-recession

Global recession has dreadful memories for me. I was born at the depths of the recession of the 1930s - and, even by the terrible standards of that time, at the bottom of the poverty ladder.That lasted even through World War Two.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/revealed-the-great-european-refugee-scandal

Onward Christian Soldiers....
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:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/delhis-muslims-despair-justice-police-implicated-hindu-riots

India's murderous attacks on it's Muslim population have not made much of a stir in western news - even as Trump visited India at the height of it and praised the government of India without mentioning it's role in supporting murderous riots.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-coronavirus-financial-supports-1.5500045

Governments don't have the money they used to have - not since those days when the super-rich used to have to pay income tax just like us peasants. We have allowed to sell out real power to those billionaires who sponge on us. So if governments are to continue that - where is the money going to come from?

We are impoverishing ourselves to hand out billions to the super-wealthy.  And it's not just tax breaks. We also hand out billions of our money to people like the Irvings and the Alberta oil lords.

We have to deal with that - and soon. But I don't know of a single government in Canada (all of them Liberal or Conservative) that would have the courage or honesty to do that.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/coronavirus-guide-explainer-1.5497009
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-sean-mallen-coronavirus-1.5491827
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/alberta-covid-19-cases-rise-74-ucp-push-budget-through-jason
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/can-jason-kenney-pass-ucp-budget-prorogue-legislature-and-get
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Meanwhile, in a typical, everyday life............

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mike-davis-covid-19-essay/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/many-lawmakers-out-town-democratic-house-quietly-weakens-paid-leave-provisions
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/coronavirus-death-toll-continues-rise-iran-global-calls-mount-us-lift-immoral
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https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/03/17/Ten-Ways-Pandemics-Change-Humanity/

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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-as-coronavirus-spreads-johnson-plays-roulette-with-british-public

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And some good news....

https://www.globalresearch.ca/cuban-drug-could-save-thousands-lives-coronavirus-pandemic/5706643

..... And I note that this good news does not seem to have been reported in most North American news media.
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And another story  that North American news media have been pretty quiet about.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/maximum-pressure-march-us-hybrid-war-venezuela-heats-up/5706559

This is Trump's kind of war. It goes against international law. In effect, it murders huge numbers of innocent people. But it involves no risk to the U.S. or it's military. Trump is also using the same method, probably with much worse results, in Iran. It's risk-free murder of the helpless.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-indifference-public-health/5706599
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I don't go so far as to agree with this next story. But it is quite true that countries - especially the imperial powers from Portugal to Spain to France to Britain have happily used biological war against others for centuries.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-wuhan-virus-cia-biological-warfare-cuba/5706466
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Despite the joyful tone of this next item, it does nothing to cheer me. This will also have an impact on Canada.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54018.htm
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And more....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54017.htm
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And more.....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54022.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54013.htm
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A root cause of the problem...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54021.htm

Capitalism is NOT effective. It has NOT produced an efficient U.S. And it has greatly interfered with efficiency in Canada.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54014.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54009.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/16/opinion/canada-can-and-should-play-bigger-role-preventing-future-pandemics

Canada's problem here is that we are dominated by American interests. Most American leaders in business and politics have no interest in Canada except to use it as an errand boy for American business in Canada, and as an ally of American capitalism.
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https://theantimedia.com/iraq-and-russia-prepare-to-boost-military-ties-as-us-threatens-sanctions/

I know nothing about the values or principles of Russia's Putin. Nothing about whether he's a 'good' guy or an evil one. But his records shows that he seems to have more brains than most national leaders - and far more than American ones.
I'm sure he has calculated that the U.S. will back off over a war about Iraq. But, oh, this is still dangerous - for all of us.
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Enough. This is the most unpleasant blog I have ever written. And I'm sure it will depress you to the same degree. But...well.....

This day at least offers us some very basic solutions. Perhaps the most important one concerns the nature of American power.

For all that mythology, it has never been true that the U.S. was a land of the American people, of democracy. On the contrary, power in the U.S.  has never been directed or controlled by the American people. Like the Britain it is modelled on, it has alway been a society controlled by the wealthiest, and so much so that it has never really given a damn about the rest of society.

That's why, as  you read this, the U.S. has a very high percentage of it's people living in poverty - and an even higher percentage of them terribly vulnerable to their abandonment of the rich. Indeed, I'm not referring simply to those in poverty but to the majority who are just getting by.

The U.S. is run and governed by the super rich and, oh, most Americans have been drifting downward for some years now. The capitalist system is one that cares only about itself. It always has been. It simply does not care about ordinary people. That's American governments are full of Donald Trumps and why my province of Ontario has a Doug Ford. Such people are quite indifferent to what happens to the rest. That's been a human characteristic since the beginning of recorded history.  Now, the U.S. is about to crash. But the Trumps and the Bidens will ensure that they will be protected. Canadians, somewhat better off on matters like medicare, will still get savaged by it's Doug Fords and it's Irvings.
We've been here before, in the 1930s. Canadian governments then did nothing for the terrible suffering that most Canadians endured.

Capitalism cares only about the capitalists. It's approach to economic depression has always been to enrich the capitalists - and to hell with the rest.

And the Canadian and American people?  Their reactions have yet to be useful.

Oh - will Christian evangelicals remain faithful to Trump?  You bet they will. They believe this, under a Trump, is part of God's great plan for the end of the world. And that's what they want because they, and only they, will be accepted in heaven. (Whether God will kick out all those non evangelicals of the past thousands of years, I don't know.)

Would the election of the Democrat Biden be of any help? None whatever. Biden, like Trump, is committed to the prosperity of the people - but only the very, very rich ones.
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