Oct 28: The savagery of wealth

The UN has warned that we are very close to starving to death a  whole generation  of children in Yemen. Onward Christian soldiers. 

After I read about this, I came across a new report. For some time under Trump, U.S. drone bombers were bombing civilians - and drone bombers make no distinction. In fact, the U.S. routinely bombs countries with which it is not at war. And drones routinely bomb children.

Do you feel angry at those children? threatened by them.?

I wonder how many children around the world our leaders have murdered. Starved. Crippled. The U.S., since 1945, has murdered, starved, crippled children in well over 50 countries. American soldiers and airmen get medals for it. Christian chaplains bless them.

When Canada went to war against Afghanistan (a country that never attacked Canada or the U.S.), Canadians stuck signs on funeral roads. calling them the  Highways of Heroes. Canada sent troops to destroy Haiti, a country that had never attacked anybody.

How many have we killed to please the U.S.?

 Who's counting?

Why are wars fought? Almost always, wars are fought - on one side at least - to please the wealthy. World War One was fought, primarily, at the urge of capitalists on both sides. On each side they wanted to damage capitalists on the other side.

However, unlike the American military today, (and unlike the British Empire in it's glory days) it did not make a habit of killing civilians, children...babies.

No, I am not exaggerating. In Korea, the U.S.made a point of bombing civilan targets. Same in Vietnam. In fact, that has become standard practice for American bombing.

Then there were the attacks on Venezuela that included starvation. And why did they attack Venezuela? That was because those selfish Venezuelans wouldn't hand over control of their oil fields to American billionairs.

British and American capitalists have a close relationship to Hitler's holocaust of Jews. So it was that the U.S. made it a point to kill Roman Catholics - priests, nuns, missionairies..in Guatemala.  And none of our news media to this day have ever carried that story.

We are living in the most dangerous time in history.It is possible for a Donald Trump to effectively wipe out the whole population of China with nuclear attacks. And that would be the greatest mass murder in history. (Oh, and Canada would be instructed to join in. And there are probably Canadian legionaires who would wet their pants for joy.)

And, let's get real - It is quite likely that a Biden would do the same. American presidents have been as murderous as the most savage. George Washington ordered the mass murder of aboriginal babies. The U.S. army, from 1900, has spent it's time conquering Latin Americans, conquering oil producing countries all over the world. American capitalists, from 1945, have been obsessed with conquering the world - thus the Trump slogan - MAGA. Thus the constant American wars going back to their wars through the centuries.

We allow the super rich to run wild. We always have. We've done it .when the super rich were kings, emperors. This is a human behaviour that goes back thousands of years  - and has now reached it's most savage level.

Either we control our super rich or it's game over and, no, it's not just Trump. It goes all the way down to the level of one of our Canadian capitalists, the Irving oil family.

And among our Liberal and Conservative parties, our politicians bend their knees to the super rich. A leader in that whose picture I see every day is our premier of Ontario, Doug Ford - who slobbers at the feet of the very rich -very much like the slobbering of the government of New Brunswick. And, in that context, one should never forget the government of Alberta.

We learned back about 1990 of the damage that was going to come down on us. Our Liberals and our conservatives did virtually nothing. Now, the storm is coming down on us - Arctic ice is disappearing with ocean change rapidly rising and with terrible effects on coastal area, fish stocks are in serious trouble, a variety of creatures, from bugs to elephants are disappearing. Terrible fires now happen every year. Not only has this done massive destruction. (The fires are now all over the world). They threaten even cities like Los Angeles.

But major capitalists, notably in the oil business just close their eyes. We've knowm this was coming for 30 years. But our oil execs think they know better than all  the world's scientists. And that's why we're doing nothing.

In recent years, we have changed the world enormously because billionaires can make more billions out of that.

Soon, very soon, perhaps already, it will be too late.But don't worry about the super rich. They are already building survival communities, mostly underground.

But no. You won't be invited.

 

a

griculture

Oct.26: Don't think; it ain't good for you.

 I know, I said I would stop bothering you with my blog. But I made an extremely unpleasant discovery. Go to Counterpunch in your blog titles for October 26. The first item on that page is about Trump and China. It says that Trump plans a nuclear attack on China at about his election time.

No. It won't be a conventional form of warfare. It will be nuclear, using nuclear bombs far more powerful that those used on Japan in 1945. And the article doesn't say so,  but I'm sure Trump will be calling on Canada for military support.

(And I feel fairly sure the Canadian Legion will jump with joy.)

China has no great nuclear arsenal - somewhere in the low hundreds and so far as I know, nothing to attack the U.S. which has something over 10,000 nuclear bombs. Of course, the U.S. will need to have enough bombs in reserve in the very strong possibility of a Russian entry into the war. And even the possibility of European powers supporting the Russians.

What's this all about?

It's about the American election. Trump is a genuine psycho. He is a man obsessed with - himself - and only himself. Within days, he faces an election. And it's quite possible he will lose. For a man of his ego,  losing an election is an impossible humiliation. So he will destroy millions - and himself.

Will the Canadian government send Canadians to fight this quite insane war?

It probably will. With the end of World War 2, Canadian governments stopped fighting British wars. That's because Britain was no longer an economic giant. That is why Canadians served and died in Korea - and Afghanistan - all over Latin America..anywhere the U.S. told them to go.

That is why the sons of the Candian rich (like their American cousins) have not rushed to serve in their country's wars. 

In 1945, I was thrilled to stand in a huge crowd to celebrate the end of war. And I was wrong. Almost all wars are fought to benefit the very rich. That's why Canadians fought and died in Korea.That's why Canada, foolishly, sent Canadians to die in Afghanistan.....

The history of humanity is a history of killing millions to benefit a few super rich.

Oh, and don't mutter about the Chinese being evil timers compared to Americans. The Chinese have been far more productive of good than Americans and British ever were. I don't like some of their behaviour, especially as regards Hong Kong. But on the whole,  they've been far better than the U.S. and Britain. And Hong Kong had a long history of abuse by Britain.

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I'm thinking of coming back to this site in a different way. I'll post this site beginning with letting you look for your own selection of sites. I'll put a list of the sites I've been using - and you can pick the ones, you want to read and to make your own judgement about.

There's may be other changes I haven't worked out yet.

The sites I use are 

Guardian, rabble.ca, CBC, Gwynne Dyer (he might be a little awkward to get). The Nation, Consortium news, Counterpunch, Breaking News. common dreams.org..

Haaretz (it charges a fee), Counter Currents, The Tyee, Global research, Information Clearing House, National Observer, Truthout, The Intercept, The Saker, Voltairenet.

Look through the sites that are interesting to you.

If there are sites you don't like, tell us about that in the blog.

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Oct. 17: The evil that men do....

No. I said I would take a break on writing my columns. And I will. But.....something came along. It's about Canada's billionaires - which are pretty much like  billionaires all over the world.

Canada's biggest billionaire is David Thomson who is listed at 43.4 billion dollars. (Canada has a total of 45 billionaires.

They are, you will be pleased to hear, making more money than ever. Yes. They are making bigger profits. After all, they can cut staffs, reduce salaries, fire workers by the million while making their cheaper replacements harder working.

How rich are these billionaires? Nobody knows. In addition to not paying taxes, they can hide enormous sums of money that are kept secret. And it's assumed that within the current lifetime, they will hit a total of trillions. That's 100,000,000,000. And even that isn't counting that fact they already get lavish gifts of our money from the governments (Liberal and Conservative) that they own.

And I, yes I, have been on the edge of their world with the Irving family of New Brunswick.

It began with my decision to quit teaching high school and to go back to school for an MA. My choice was a university in Nova Scotia, Acadia University. It was a pleasant school in a pleasant town. I got a room in a university residence which contained an even greater thrill. I had been assigned to the same room that had been assigned to a student of 1920. By the time I got there, he was the richest man in the Maritime provinces. He was K.C.Irving, oil magnate.

Alas, he dropped out after only one year. By the time I arrived, there were already Irving rooms and Irving scholarships. And two Irving sons had been at Acadia just some ten years before I got there.

But like there daddy, they quit too, so they could concentrate, like daddy, on making piles of money. Both James Irving (6.9 billions) and Arthur Irving (3.5 billions). And, like their father, both sons lusted after recognition with the result that Acadia today is smothered under Irving buildings, Irving scholarships, pictures of Irvings..... I had never before seen such a craving after honours and praise from a university for a family that was largely ignorant of anything but making money.

The irvings learned early that all you have to do to get huge sums of money out of Canadian taxpayers is to buy off the Liberals and Conservatives. Then you can invade aboriginal land and get police lined up to shoot any who protest. (I was at one of those.) You can poison the land with oil development. You can hide money that should have been taxes. You can crash one of your trains killing people in the middle of a city - and not even have to say sorry. You can take money the government and people need for schools and hospitals, and instead give piles of it to Irvings. (And you can take comfort by going to Acadia university and looking at it's pictures of Irvings and it's magnificent display of Irving rooms, and it's list of Irving scholarships.)

The Irvings own all the newspapers in New Brunswick, and they're even more wimpy and  lying than usual. (Check them. Tell me how many stories you can find critical of the Irvings.)

In the province's last election, one of the liars for the Irvings won. Of course, only the Liberals and Conservatives had the money for an election. The NDP was out in the cold with no money. Result - New Brunswick is going to hurt terribly in the coming years. Already, the homeless are showing up in the streets; and that is going to get worse, much worse

The Irvings, of course,  have no shortages (except for their shortage of decency).

So far as I know, and much like all the other super rich, The Irvings are still making profits. And that's pretty much the case all over North America. The super rich are savaging all the rest. They are making huge profits as millions starve. It was like that in the Great Depression, too.

What we're watching is the old evil of the depression years and all the years before that. Greed and savagery are built into us humans. Unlike all other creatures, we are born with evil in us. That's why empires and kings rise and fall.

Right now, as I write this, humans like the Irvings are destroying Canadians just as Rome destroyed itself, as Britain destroyed civilizations, as the US today murders men, women and children all over the world. We've been doing it for thousands of years. And, as always, even our churches don't seem to notice - or care.

For the people of New Brunswick, I dearly wish you could wake up. You have very little time.

Oct. 13: Enjoying the life I have left.

When I begam this blog, my purpose was not to express my opinions. It was, in the face of a largely dishonest news media, to expose readers to a larger range of choice in reading the news. This larger change meant bringing in honest commercial news media (like The Manchester Gardian, CBC and, when possible, Haaretz) as well as those web sites we call social media.

Alas! That came crashing down some weeks ago. That's why this issue of the blog relies on my own opinions - chosen from those of a small number of journalists I have some faith in.

However, I have never wanted, really, to force my opinions on anybody.I have simply wanted to supply reading that, so I have learned, is honest.

Most of today's blog is based on my opinions. However, late in today I have managed to reassemble at least one and myabe more sites that permit you to form your own opinions. As I write this, I already have one site that does this - and I hope to have more before bed time.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/oct/14/coronavirus-live-news-restrictions-tighten-across-europe-global-cases-near-38m_________________________________________________________

 Forget all the polls showing Biden in the lead. We should pay more attention to the Gallup Polls. Gallup has been in the business for a long time and, according to a story in Information Clearing House for Octobert 12, Gallup shows that over 60% of Americans feel they have been better off under Trump than under any recent president.

Gee! I feel better already. Mind you, I can't see any great difference between Democrats and Republicans. For all the American chatter about right wing and left wing, the reality is that neither party has ever been anything but right - far right. And both parties, going all the way back to George Washington, have always been owned by the super rich. (George Washington,  remember, was of British descent, and like any upper class Englishman of his time - and of today - had nothing but contempt for anyone who wasn't rich.)

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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/10/stephen-harpers-son-lands-plum-job-alberta-premier-jason

_https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/10/stephen-harpers-son-lands-plum-job-alberta-premier-jason__________________________________________________________________

In the Guardian, German researchers have issued  report that we could solve world hunger with just 330 billion dollars spent over just 10 years. Will we do it? 

Of course not.

We need that money to spend on wars. There's profit in wars. No. I'm not exaggerating. This is a decision we made long ago.

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Also in The Guardian, the Arctic is losing ice at the rate of a million tons a MINUTE.That, of course mean rising sea levels along our coasts. (It means  Florida under water and a New York. It also means the extinction of much of the wild life of the Arctic.) And we are doing......

....nothing.

Of course, most of our newsmedia haven't mentioned it.

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In Rabble.ca, a piece of good and heart-warming news. Stephen Harper's son (You know Stephen Harper. He was once premier of Canada for the Conservative party.) Well, he has a son who is only 24, and who just got his first job. And his starting salary is a hundred thousand a year. Isn't that nice?

He'll be working in the office of Premier Kenney of Saskatchewan - who, by concidence I'm sure - is a Conservative.

By the way, most senators in the U.S. are millionaires. You know, these are the ones who help the poor and  homeless in the U.S. - some day, maybe - but probably not.

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This next item appeared in Information Clearing House.

"Only one government in recent history has endeavoured to overthrow fifty foreign governments....established an intelligence agency that has killed at least 6 million people in the first forty years of it's existence...

...developed a draconian police record to destroy any domestic political movements that challenged its dominion...

...constructed a mass incarceration system that cages a greater percentage of the population than any other country in the world, and which is embedded within a global secret prison network and torture regime.

Hint - It's a country that calls itself a democracy."

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Information Clearing House

President Madura has announced their have been 400,000 deaths in Venezuela caused by an American blockade for 20 years that has made it impossible for the country to sell it's oil. (U.S. billionaires want to own Venzeuela's oil just as they stole British and middle east oil.)

I'm no fan of anybody's oil but ---he U.S. has no right to tell any  country who it's allowed to trade with.And to do so is illegal.

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Hurray, the kind of site I hope I'll be getting from now own. Just press on the blue print - and read - and make up your own mind. (This particular example is not really a good one. But I'm hoping it will open the way to some good ones.)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/13/brexit-michel-barnier-mocks-boris-johnson-third-deadline-on-talks                                       

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No. Dammit. I'm learning that this blog just depresses me. Maybe it's time for me to get a life. The reality is that we are among the most lying and murderous nations in history.

You're heard of war crimes? Okay. How many war crimes do you hear of on our side?

The U.S. routinely tortures and murders prisoners. That is a war crime. Have you ever seen charges of that? No. And you won't.

When Canadian troops were in Afghanistan, Canadian troops handed over prisoners to the American army. t

They did it knowing those prisoners would be tortured to death. The Canadian army knew it. And knowingly doing such a thing is a war crime.

Hello, Canadian Legion, didn't you know that?

Many years ago, I had to appear before a Senate comittee investigating alleged crimes by Canadian troops in World War Two. (Interestingly, Canada's military historians were too busy to be there.) It was there I got into conversation with a Canadian general who had served in the invasion of France. There, he stood on a bridge over a river. On the other side, Canadian soldiers were marching hundreds of German prisoners along the river bank.

Shortly after they had passed, he said, he heard a tremendous amount of shooting. Then he saw the hundreds of bodies of dead German soldiers floating toward the bridge.

The murder of prisoners is a war crime. Hello, Canadian Legion. Hello, Canadian military historians. Didn't you know that?

The soldiers in both sides of any war I have ever heard of have raped, gang-raped, and murdered many thousands of women on their side and the other side in every war I have ever heard of. That's a war crime with a death penalty. Ever heard of a trial?

(Well, in fairness, I have to say that the U.S. did try and execute some soldiers in World War 1 for gang rape. But it was mostly blacks who got executed for it.)

American soldiers in the Pacific often cut off the heads of Japanese dead to keep the skulls as souvenirs. That's a war crime....that nobody cared about.

Fortunately, it is not a war crime to murder civilian men, women and children. So the U.S. since 1944 has specialized in murdering them - as in the middle east. In  the 1950s and sixties, it added a refined wrinkle to that by murdering nuns in Guatemala. As they say, God Bless America.

Britain, of course, beat this sort of killing  with the mass murder of civilians in the glory days of the British Empire. But in fairness we have to mention the mass murder of native peoples in Canada, and the even more savage mass murder of men, women and children native peoples that was begun by George Washington.

We are, all of us, happy killers.

Wars today are based on the mass murder of civilians, of women, children and babies. That's why babies are starving to death in countries like Lebanon. That's why children in Vietnam were born with horrible defects caused by American chemicals.

World War Two, we were told, was the war to end war. But in just four years it became what is so we were into the war of 70 years, and probably much, much more - while morons cheer.

The U.S. wars generally begin with a request for God's blessing. When the Japanese Bombed Pearl Harbour, military chaplains acted in a way that prompted a popular song, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". General Rommel's favourite chaplain with his German army was one who loaded the guns for firing at British tanks and troops.

Uh, well, as I understand it, The Bible says thou shalt not kill. But that must be the most ignored statement in Christian history. Christians and their churches have supported whatever side their governments are on. and they've been doing it for thousands of years. Commonly, Christians have fought and killed Christians. I can't think of any more ignored Christian principal. George Bush Sr. was a devout church-goer. But in the 1950s, he led the mass murder of Catholic priests, nuns, and missionaries in Guatemala. His son (also George) was equally a devout Christian. And he led wars that killed men, women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. (There was no valid reason to attack either country. Canada, very foolishly, joined the American side in that war for no reason except to make George Bush happy. And the Canadian Legion, which should have been supporting our soldiers, happily shipped them off to die in a wildly illegitimate war.)

Almost all wars, for thousands of years, have been fought to please the super rich and super influential among our number. These are the people who impoverish all the rest, using the rest to kill and die for them. They are quite possibly the creators of our human requirement for greed. And they are certainly the most evil group in human history. (And they act in quite the opposite way of anything that Christianity represents.  Alas! Their evil and greed has been adopted by the churches which pray for their victories.)

In two thousand years, we have not changed this. Indeed, we have made it far worse - so far worse that time for all of us is running short under corrupt and evil governments which are, probably, the last start for human life on earth.

We now have weapons, like nuclear ones, that can kill uncountable millions of people. The U.S. is in the late stages of creating a rocket, nuclear bomb that can hit targets anywhere in the world. And we are also now developing robots to kill for us. (They will also, no doubt, make great members for the Canadian Legion.)

Capitalists, who are as evil as any group to arise from our human society, have just ignored the news that last month (yesterday) was the warmest in recorded history. And most of our news media have just ignored it though we live in a world in which just a small rise in the temperature can end us.

The super rich of the oil industry know that. And they know our use of oil is a major cause of it.  And they don't care. For Canada, the most notorious for ignoring all this are the corporations who own our oil fields - and premier Doug Ford of Ontario who happily destroys any attempt to deal with climate change.

And climate change itself? Our deep oceans are hotter than has ever been known. The world, because of climate change, has just lost a major part of the Arctic with the last parts melting down quickly to flow down and destroy states like California and Florida - soon. And China, quite soon, will be hard hit by the destruction of it's coastline well into the interior (And the clowns we call leaders are doing nothing.) Ocean fish are dying, coral reefs are disappearing.

Much of our world is dying of starvation as climate changes. That's going to get worse - soon. All of this, and more and worse, has been well known for some 30 years. And we have not lifted a finger.

African refugees have been fleeing to Europe to try to stay alive. (And Europe sends them back to die.) Millions of Americans and Canadians, adults and children, have been sent to die of hunger and disease in the streets.

Meanwhile, the super rich have continued to get richer for the last 70 years - even as incomes for Canadians and American have been going down for those years. (Yes.  I know incomes have been slowly rising over those years. But the value of that money has been dropping.)

The big incomes that, to this day, are still rising are those of the super rich. We call them billionaires. But nobody knows how much they own since they've been allowed to hide their money and avoid taxes for seventy years and more. The big ones don't have billions any more. They have trillions in the greatest display of greed the world has ever known. That's why the U.S. can't afford to feed it's people. That's why most Americans cannot afford medical care.

(Rich Americans and Canadian send their children to private schools. No. I've been a teacher, and I know that private schools are not better. But the private schools are designed for children who are going to be rich and greedy.) Meanwhile, the hell with public schools. They're so underfinanced that even the children in them (of whom I was one) were conditioned to be poor.

Both American parties are owned by the super rich. Canada has two such parties, Liberals and Conservatives.

Why are Canadians and Americans so ignorant of what is happening? I don't know why - except for a part of the answer. The super rich own almost all their news services. That's why here in Ottawa where I live, the news media are ghastly.

We are, as we always have been, governed by the most evil and corrupt people in our world. That's why the world is rapidly crashing in on us. Humans have been dominated by evil since the earliest of our breed appeared.

I began writing on this for 20 years without making the slightest dent. And as I look into a mirror it's obvious I don't have another twenty years. So, for a while, I'll try to catch up on having a real life.

Oct. 1o: Evil

75 years ago, I was a child standing on a main street in downtown Montreal and spellbound by the hysteria of thousands of people. A huge crowd followed a leader with a wire wastebasket resting on his hand. I looked to my left - to a store window. A soldier leaned against the window. He had only one leg.

On the window was a sign...we've won the war. I was caught up in the hysteria -   we've won the war..now, my father would be coming home.

Then I read "now we've got to win the peace". But I paid no attention to that. We won the war. And if we've won the war, of course we've won the peace.

In less than five years, we were in another war. We've now been in wars ever since. We've had troops in Korea, Afghanistan, the middle east..we've destroyed democracy in Haiti to please the world's leading aggressor, our neighbouring U.S. We have troops almost on the Russia border. Canada and Canadian capitalists routinely do favours for a plundering U.S. in Latin America.

Canada no longer has any interest in the Britain our soldiers died to defend in World War 2. No. Britain is out of style.. Now we serve American capitalists in the world they have made a hell out of, killing, starving,  bombing (especially civilians and children and that's deliberate). We don't even declare war any more. We just kill. We, with the U.S., have become what the Naziis were.

And the worst is yet to come - a nuclear war against China and Russia. (Oh, you think they're evil? The U.S. is far, far more evil. That's why Europe is turning against the U.S. That's why nobody at the UN takes Canada seriously. But don't worry. Your newspaper won't tell you anything about this.)

That's why I so clearly remember that day in 1945. We have abandoned all that we said we were fighting for in world war 2. And it's is almost certain to get worse. The U.S. is fading as  a world power. It's a mess as a world power. It is thoroughly disliked by most of the world. To make things worse, we are in the middle of a climate change. Don't kid youself about that. It's rapidly getting worse as California is showing. And it's getting more worse in places like Brazil with its forest fires that have destroyed the Amazon rain forest - which will encourage even more destruction all over Latin America and will kill almost all the wildlife - though that wildlife is important to our survival. This is happening now. And we're going to feel it very soon. Our vegetation and our animals are essential to our survival.

And our political leaders? The Liberals have done close to nothing. The Conservatives are worse, much worse. Conservative premiers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan have been actively destructive of the environment. (The premier of Saskatchewan has been even worse. He has a long record of drunk and dangerous driving, a record that includes his killing of a woman. If you want to know more about that, don't waste your time looking at our commercial news media. Check out rabble.ca on your computer.)

Oh, my. I got carried away. This daily going through the news in one, horrible, experience

We've won the war. But the reality is we have to win the peace.

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Now, let's change the topic.

Donald Trump has far the worst record of any president of American history. His support is weakening; but it's still, at 40% or so, remarkably high. How can we understand that about this hopelessly incompetent leader?

Can you say evangelical? There's a branch of Christianity that's called evangelical.

While other Christian churches have been losing ground for some years, evangelicals have been growing. I've known a good many of them, including their clergy. The main thrust of their believes has nothing to do with the usual Christianity. They don't care about life on earth. They don't care about most of the usual Christian values. Their obsession is getting to heaven.

They don't care about social problems. The focus of their faith is on dying. They want to die. They want to go to heaven.  And, there, they want to stand on the clouds and do nothing except to sing praises to God -not for just thousands of years but for eternity.

And God, they believe, will accept only them.  All other Christians will go to hell with all the world's other Christians and, most certainly,along with all other religions. And they are now convinced that Donald Trump has been sent by God to create the rest of the world to - you know......

Yes. This is quite a perversion of Christianity. But it has a powerful hold on parts of the U.S. Now........

What will they do if Trump loses? There's a strong possibility that they will still have a large following in some states, large enough to break away from some states. Indeed, along with the tremendous  emergence of armed 'militia' in some states, it is very possible that both groups will separate.

The U.S. is already deep into self destruction. We could see a much reduced and weaker U.S. And a reduced U.S. might well find itself looking for additional land and population --- in Canada. And Canadian capitalists might well support that.

I don't think that will happen - but it's a lot more possible than I would like it to be.

(The U.S. government had a  plan to attack Canada as recently as the 1930s. Don't kid yourself about the possibilities.)

The U.S. also has another reason to need Canada.

Climate change has a powerful effect in the U.S. The whole state of California has become a basket case that can only get worse every year. Indeed, California wildfires with spread to other states and, almost certainly, to Canada. And the fires generate even worse conditions as they raise temperatures. Even a one degree rise would be disaster.

Scientists have warned us about this for some time. And we've done nothing. It takes only a tiny rise -and we are creating these tiny rises. Now,  the fires have been moving inland. We're seeing the same thing in Latin America and in other parts of the world.

Despite what capitalists tell us as they pump ever more air into our atmosphere, and slaughter wild life, we're moving very quickly to destroy the possibility of life on this planet. So why do we go on destroying it? Why do we go on with this insane destruction?

That's because our super rich ignore the tremendous damage they are doing. They are obsessed with wealth. Wealth is all they understand. It's all they care about. Scientists all over the world have been warning them. They don't care. They are today the most murderous people in the world. We can kill millions. We are killing millions with a temperature rise of just a degree. And we are killing them.

We need our wild life. Our planet cannot survive if we destroy our wild life. All of nature works and has to work for us to live. But we are destroying wild life all over the world. That's happening with our destruction of the Arctic. It's happening with the fires and destruction of forests Latin America. They are destroying life from animals to insects - and that is killing us. We're destroying our oceans with our tremendous dumping of plastic in them for the last 75 years ago.

The reality is that we cannot survive in the horrible abuse we impose on all other forms of life.

And it may already be too late.

For thousands of years, we have been producing some people who understand only greed. And only their own greed. We have now placed ourselves in the grip of those who understand only greed. Indeed, as we suffer unemployment for millions as the super rich have increased their wealth in every one of those years right up to today. And they are letting millions starve. And they own our Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.

I despair of Canada when I see the people of New Brunsick vote for a Liberal party that, like the Conservatives, will always be a servant of the unspeakable Irvings who have been robbing the people of New Brunswick blind for almost a century. Then there's the people of Saskatchewan who support a Conservative leader who, in addition to his kissing rich asses, is a serial drunk driver who killed a woman and fled the scene but has never been charged. And here, in Ontario, we have a premier who causes enormous destruction of the envionment and adds to climate change.

It's reminicent of a British Empire that starved and abused most of the population of Britain. And the super rich of the timesigned up the British people (with almost no pay) to murder over 400 million people all over the world to make the super rich richer.

We  are ruled not really by our governments but by the super rich------who are the most thorough and evil bastards this world has ever seen.

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By Tuesday, I should have this blog working under my original purpose - to provide important information from the best sources I can find so it's not just my opinion - but it's sources one can rely on - unlike most of our commercial news media..

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Oct. 9: A confession

 This is an extra (and short) post on the subject of communism. It arises from an earlier blog in which I noted the western fury at the rise of communism in Russia of a century ago and in China today.

As I said eariler, I do not write this with any great understanding of communism. I don't know enough to either approve or condemn it. But I am interested in how our politicians and news media have dealt with it.

Russia's performance in World War One, a time when China was ruled by the Romanovs and by the Russian aristocracy. life for all others was brutal and miserable. That may explain why the performance of the Russians against a German invasion was not impressive. But it also triggered a revolt against the Romanovs and the aristocracy who had long abused the Russian people And abused them horribly. So it was that the Russian people arose against the Romanovs and the aristocracy. And they fought for a form of government called communism.

The western leaders, including those in Canada and the U.S., were horrified. In Britain, Winston Churchill pressed for an invasion right away. (Of course. The monarchy and aristocracy was all that he knew and loved.) He wanted a new war even as World War One was still going on.

The western news media demanded a western attack on Russia. Of course. They were owned by exactly the same sort of people as were the Romanovs and the Russian aristocracy. A Russian revolution would be a terrible threat to them. So, even as World War One was going on, our news media demanded an attack on Russia.

Oh - and did I tell you they accused the Russian rebels of all kinds of sins? But for the Russian royal family they had only praise. Many Canadian  papers wept over the murder of the Royal family, especially the women. But I haven't seen them at all concerned about the U.S. targetting of millions of women and children.

In 1918, Canada sent an army into Russia. It was only just over 4,000 men who immediately settled into a quiet city and did nothing much of anything. In two years, the total Canadian sacrifice was 14 men. The U.S. and Britain sent small forces - that also did much of nothing.

Japan sent in a real army of 70,000 - and with a real purpose. It wanted to bite off a chunk of Russia and to make it a Japanese imperial colony. Similarly, other countries sent in forces for their own advantage. But the Russians held on so that, by 1928 everybody else went home.

Stalin came to power in 1924. Now, Stalin was never one of my favourite people. But he would control Russia into and through the years to World War Two. He led a Russia that he had prepared for it. In fact, it wasn't us who beat Hitler. It was Stalin. Not only had he united the Russian people. He had made Russia an industrial giant that could produce weapons of high quality. Without Russia, we would have lost the war in Europe. (This is not just my idea. Scholars of the war largely recognize the decisive and essential role of Russia in defeating Hitler. Stalin had made Russia into a modern country.)

The country that has ravaged the world since the war is not Russia - or China. It's the U.S. that has been murdering women and children. It's the U.S. that has been a non-stop killer of millions for that last 70 years. (And the U.S. is the country that kills its own people by denying medical care to most of them. For the U.S., producing medicine and medical care is simply about enriching the very rich who own the health system.) 

You want to live a long time? Don't go to the U.S. Get born again in Argentina - or China.

The country that has been ravaging the world and deliberately killing women and children isn't Russia or China. It's the U.S. A pioneer of killing women and children was Winston Churchill in 1920 who bombed defenceless civilians in Kurd towns. He also pioneered the deliberate enforced starvation of millions of civilians in India during World War Two even though food supplies were easy to reach. Betcha your favourite news medium never told you about that.

The U.S. air force deliberately targets civilians - men, women and children. That became a policy after the bombing of Dresden in WW2, Pilots were directed to bomb civilian areas in Korea, Afghanistan, all over the middle east. In Guatemala, the American CIA  specialized in killing hundreds of thousands of Catholics, priests, nuns, and missionaries. Our news media have never even reported it.

Capitalism is extraordinarily cruel in a pattern going back thousands of years before capitalism when evil was the trademark of abusive kings, and other very rich people.

It was communism that led China out of the horrors of western colonialism. Capitalism and it's western bosses had horribly destroyed China for about 150 years. Through to the late 1940s, the capitalist west supported the murderous and corrupt Chiang Kai Shek who among other things, controlled and spread what must have been the biggest drug industry in the world. He also forced the people of China to live in poverty and filth while enriching himself and other capitalists.

When I was in China some 40 years ago, there were still signs of dreadful housing.When I see pictures of it now, it's marvelously improved. There are magnificent apartment buildings. Indeed, the Chinese have overbuilt them leaving a great many still empty.

My sympathies in that part of the world are with Hong Kong. But one cannot fail to notice China's progress.

Am I a believer in communism? No. I don't know nearly enough about it to make such a decision. And capitalism? No. I do understand enough about it. And I don't intend to let our news media tell me what to think.

  

Oct. 8: sometimes one gets pessimistic

 I'm still on "big series" of basic events that most of our new media don't tell us about. And this is an unpleasant one. But we have to face reality. Let's start with Trump's little red cap with the word 'MAGA' on it. "Make America Great Again."

What does "great" mean? It's a sort of code for world dominance by American capitalists though,  really, American capitalists have never dominated the world. Nor should they. But the great dream of 1945 was for the U.S. to conquer the whole world making it the greatest empire in history and all for the benefit of America's super rich.

Canadian capitalists and Canadian Liberals and Conservatives fell in love with it  right away. Britain was finished as a great power. So they dumped it, and went whimpering to the U.S. That's why the Liberal government of Louis St.Laurent sent Canadians to die in Korea 1949. That's why Britain and other capitalists joined in to fight that war.

You think we went to defend South Korea? Get real. South Korea was a murderous dictatorship ruled by those Korean traitors who had governed it for the Japanese during the war. And those people would remain in power as our good friends for many years after the Korean war.

But, really, the whole purpose of the Korean War was to ingratiate Canadian capitalists in the eyes of their American bretheren so that Canadian capitalists could share a piece of MAGA with the U.S. And so it is that we became a part of 'making America great'.

And we've been playing that game under the Liberals and Conservatives ever since in at least a dozen wars since World War Two.  I'll be talking about this further down.

The Canadian Legion, which was founded to look after our military, never said a word. Instead,  and as always, it played cheerleader for Canadians sent to die to improve the bottom line for the super wealthy and greedy.

The Korean war never really had anything to do with Canada or even with the South Koreans who had served the Japanese. The purpose of that war was to add China to the empire of American capitalism. And we lost. Ever since then, Canada has been a loyal servant of American capitalists. We've seen that in Latin America, and the Middle East in particular.

Oh, do you rememmber the Canadian role in Haiti, and how our news media dealt with it?

This was in 2014. The U.S. had just destroyed democracy in Haiti. It then asked (or told) Canada to send troops to 'stabilize' Haiti. Canada sent 800 troops and even more than that in police commanded by a senior RCMP| officer.

Our news media wet their pants with joy. Canada was playing a leading role in helping our American neighbours bring peace and joy to Haiti. I don't know of any Canadian news medium that told the real story.

Our army and the police were there to terrorize Haitians and keep them down. Our police, almost every day, raided the homes of the poor and arbitrarily imprisoned thousands on no known charges at all. In further help, the Canadian government gave the dictator 100 million dollars  to build more prisons  - your tax dollars at work. (That didn't make the news either.)

We destroyed an effective democracy in Haiti. We did it to please American super-rich. Did you see the story on that in our news media?

No. I didn't think so. On the contrary, we were told to be proud of our troops and our police. And Justin Trudeau follows exactly the same policies today. We are the bumboys for American thieves and killers.

And who was the Canadian prime minister who did this immoral and dirty job? Try the name of Stephen Harper.

Did any of our members of parliament intervene in this? They couldn't. The American, British, Canadian and many other governments. no longer vote on going to war. They haven't bothered with that since 1949. So we aren't told, and we aren't asked. Billionaires do all that thinking for us.

In 2011, I was shocked to see on TV. Canadian jets bombing Libya. Libya had done nothing to harm us. The ruler of Libya was an unpleasant person. But he enjoyed the support of the majority of Libyans. He hadn't invaded anybody and there was no reason to think he would.

But U.S. capitalists wanted him gone. They wanted the control of Libya, all of it. Of course, they wouldn't want democracy in Libya - just control. So they recruited members of a sect that hated Ghadaffi. They stabbed Ghadaffi to a horribly protracted death. (Not long after, the wife of President Clinton chuckled as she told a TV audience - "We came. We saw. He died.")

How many people did our bombers kill? Who knows - who cares? The important thing is that we had served our American capitalist masters. And that would give Canadian capitalists entree to American capitalist projects.

Oh - the prime minister who approved that?  That would be Stephen Harper.

As it turned out, the whole operation was a disaster. Ever since our bombing and the murder of Ghadaffi Libya has never recovered. It's now a land of pure chaos. But, hey, we pleased our American masters. Ha!Ha!

Neither Canada nor the U.S. is a democracy. Canada at least has a democratic party in the NDP. But we vote, every time, for the people who lie to us. Justin Trudeau is well known as a patsy for the very wealthy. So is the Conservative party.

Our news media lie to us.

And we are setting ourselves up for the final war. But don't worry. The very rich are fixing themselves up with massive shelters for them selves.

Incidentally, through all this turmoil suffering, Canadian and American capitalists are actually enjoying a period of very high profits. Of course. They don't have to pay taxes. They don't have to fight wars. We give them our taxes to fight their wars. The super rich are enjoying their biggest profits in years even as the rest of us are suffering the worst times since the dirty thirties.

That's reality.

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Oct. 7: An extra as I wait for repairs.

This is an extra because I feel guilty about my delays in getting back to normal.

For an opener, type Haaretz on your computer. It's an Israeli paper that now is running free visits for a little while. Haaretz is quite possibly the best newspaper in the world for honesty and courage. You'll see a picture of Israel that is quite different from that in the western press. This is what a newspaper of intelligence, honesty and courage looks like.

Meanwhile, I'll be offering for a little while the stories that my computer won't take. (I'm confident I'll have it fixed within days.)

For a start, don't waste your time with billionaires. They're kid stuff. The super rich  have trillions of dollars. Those trillions would save the hungry and homeless all over the world. Covid would become a side show. But the super rich, as always, are not lifting a finger to help even within their own nations. Their priority is taking even more of our money to fight their wars. 

(Yes. THEIR wars.)  In that last 70 or so years, they have been bombing quite innocent people - especially including civilians and children. For twenty years they have been murdering Afghanis, the people who did NOT attack New York on 9/11. It's illegal drone bombers every day kill people indiscriminately that the U.S. is not at war with, and has no right to attack.

The American money that could be used to employ the hungry and homeless now is used largely to give huge contracts to weapons manufacturers to supply most of the world in wars that are illegal. That's where the trillions of our dollars have gone.

That's the history of this world. Going back thousands of years ago, we developed a small class of greedy and horribly destructive rulers. Thus the Roman Empire that abused all including most of it's own people. Thus today's movement (to China)  of American troops for what may well be the last war of this planet.

What? The Chinese are evil? Maybe. But they're sweethearts compared to countries like the U.S. and Britain that are run to please killers and plunderers.

The British, with a little bit of American and German help, murdered Chinese on a huge scale (in numbers never revealed). They starved workers. They plundered everything in sight. I saw something of that in my time in Hong Kong. I saw miles of people, whole families, sleeping on the sidewalks. I saw elderly men sleeping in stacks of wire cages (no roofs) in the fields - and not big enough to sit up in. I got to know members of the British administration who were all in contempt of the ordinary people of Hong Kong.

China had slipped into civil war decades earlier. The Chinese leader that the west supported was Chiang Kai Shck, a murderous and thieving bastard if there ever was one. He held a monopoly on the thriving drug trade of China. He was for sale - to anybody.

Western leaders praised him as a Christian and happpily supported his drug trade. Thus the proliferation of Chinese drug houses in China as well as in European countries like Britain.

But Chiang was challenged by Mao Tse Tung, the communist leader. (I won't pretend I know exactly what communism is. I do know that Mao was honest - and successful. He also beat Chiang who fled to a small region called Taiwan.

That's why the U.S. and it's obedient followers went to war against Korea. It was to form a base in Korea for an invasion of China. And so it was that Canadians and Americans died to restore corruption in China. And we lost.

Betcha never read that in your daily paper.

And Mao was successful in reviving China. I already saw that in the time I spent in China. And as I look at pictures of China today, I'm astonished at the progress. Housing has hugely improved - even as Canadians and Americans sleep and go hungry on the streets.

I don't understand communism. But it's impossible not to be impressed by it's progress in China - even as we  look the decay of capitalism. But fear not, even as we live in a time of collapse and poverty and hunger, our capitalists are still running up huge profits into the trillions.

We were taught by our news media to hate China and to worship the capitalism that has been destroying us for at least 150 years. The super rich rob us blind and they murder lavishly in regions like the Middle East and Latin America, all in order to murder and plunder - and using our tax money to pay for their mass murder.

As I wrote above, I don't understand communism. I lean to socialism for it's potential in meeting human needs. Capitalism? It's just another version of the plundering and murdering that has plagued us since the birth of homo sapiens.

Capital is an evil that will destroy human life on this earth. The British people, most of them, got nothing from the British Empire. The American people and the Canadians are getting less and less from capitalism. For seventy years, (and allowing for value changes through those years), Canadians and Americans have been losing money - big time. The super rich of Canada and the U.S. have, even now, been getting massive profits. We are fools to allow that to happen.

Capitalism is worse than just greed. It's profoundly evil.

My politics? I despise Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are steeped in corruption, and owned by the super rich who are plundering the country. I feel the same way about Canada's Liberals and Conservatives. Both can fight and win campaigns because both get paid off by the super rich.

I don't understand communism enough to support it. The closest I come is a long way from communism. I support the NDP because I know it does not accept gifts from the super rich. I much preferred the old CCF (the party which is the reason why Canadians, unlike Americans, have access to medical care. (U.S. corruption is striking evil, and almost always ignored by U.S. news media.)

Alas, both American and Canadian news media are stunningly weak. Of course. The super rich own them.

We and, probably, this planet will not survive the greed and mass thievery by our very rich. This has been the pattern of our class system for thousands of years.

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By the way, ever notice that our news media always portray the other side as evil and us as good?

Yes, Hitler was evil. So were we.

Before the war and even into it, as Jews fled Europe to escape the horror before and after the start of the war, we sent them back. Our politicians knew exactly what we were sending them back to. Even before the war, we knew the horrors that were being afflicted. And we didn't give a damn.

During the war, our leaders knew about the death camps as soon as they opened. They pretended they didn't know. We were Hitler's willing helpers in murdering Jews.  We still wouldn't let them in immediately after the war, long after we knew about the death camps. When Britain allowed Jews to settle in what was then Palestine, that was not to help the Jews. It was to get rid of them from Britain and from Europe. And Britain, the U.S. and Canada approved of that.

Evil? We don't need lessons from anybody in being evil. But our news media never tell us about the evil that is our normal behaviour. The owners of our news media were - and are - as racist as they come.

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October 6: final days

The format of this blog today will be  directly from me to you because I am still wrestling and swearing at the way this computer works - and often doesn't.

The big story that the  the commercial news media including they have been ignoring for ten years now is Julian Assange.I earlier said The Guardian, too, had ignored him. They had been. But they're picking up the slack now.

Assange, an Australian, was the founder of Wikkileaks. Back in 2010 an American intelligence agency gave him a list of U.S. war crimes. Since then he has, in effect, beenn an overseas prisoner of the U.S. Most recently, he is in a British prison and in declining health after ten years of suffering. Britain, kissing up to the U.S, has put him on trial which, if he loses, will send him to the U.S. to spend the rest of his life in prison, probably in solitary. He is now and has been for some years in failing health because of his ordeal.

He should be in prison? No. It's the job of a reporter to tell the truth. It's called freedom of speech. But governments don't like freedom of speech - and owners of TV news and newspapers don't like freedom of speech.

Almost all of them don't permit freedom of speech, a condition that has become even worse since 1945. Almost all news media lie. In this case, they have lied to cover up war crimes. I've spent a good deal of time in news rooms - and I've heard a great deal of lying. Journalists, most of them, (almost all of them), are liars. In this case, they are lying to destroy the freedom of speech. And Britain is kissing American ass.

Of course the U.S. commits war crimes. It's been committing them ever since the landing of the Pilgrims, the mass murder of native peoples including children. under George Washington, the deliberate bombing of civilians in Dresden, the mass murder of priests,  missionaries and nuns in Guatemala in the 1950s and 60s, the deliberates starvation of  men, women and children in the middle east, the current starvation and homelessness in Canada and the U.S.... Every days roving drones bomb and murder civilians with a blind aim that murders adults and children.. Have you seen much news about that.

Have we had information about the stunning profits that the super rich are still making while millions starve.

It's the job of a reporter to tell us about this, to expose how savage our military leaders can be.  Instead, almost of them smother the real news. Yes. Savage.And we are not allowed to know exactly what horrors we pay our taxes to create.

As an aside, I think of the journalists in New Brunwick where I lived for some years. The Irving family has been robbing that province blind for almost a century. But not a word of that ever appears in the province's news. Of course. The Irvings own most of the news sources. Those news sources slobber all over the Irvings even as they grasp billions of dollars of taxpayers money for their own greed, and even as schools and  health services suffer.

And in the recent election, almost all the votes went to the  Liberal and Conservative parties, the two parties that are owned by the Irvings. The NDP,  which is honest and which has no billionaires behind it, got a low vote. Of course. The voters of New Brunswick, like those of most jurisdictions, are profoundly ignorant of the world they live in. (That's true in almost all "democracies".)

We allow ourselves to believe the lies of our news media. And we are going to pay one hell of a price for it. Soon. Our enemies are not Russia or China - though both have their own faults. No. What's destroying us is the greed of our super rich supported by our lying news media. Probably the most evil country in the world today is the U.S. And Canada and it's news media right up there with it.

This has been going on for all the thousands of years of human existence. And we are now dreadfully close to the final act.

(I had to rush this to get my computer to the shop for adjustments. So you may find mistakes. But don't tell me.)

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Oct. 1: Just this once - a change of pace.

 I missed a blog because I seriously overslept. That happens to us old folks. But  coming back to write this blog, I just got angrier at the whole, damn thing.

I'm going to try a different format for this, one time. It needs more comment because without knowing it the world has been fighting wars without a break since 1945. This is going to break the record set by the Hundred Years War. (Indeed, the U.S. has been fighting wars for several hundreds of years already, going back to George Washington's American holocaust of native peoples. Yes, of course that was a holocaust. It was even Hitler's model for his holocaust. You can read about that in Mein Kampf.)

And one would have to be very kind not to mention Canada's holocaust of it's native peoples.

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The Trump  and Biden show was even worse than it seemed.As well as the appalling behaviour of Trump, we had nothing of any value coming from the mouth of Joe Biden.

The reality is that, for all the U.S. babble about American values, it really doesn't have any. It has two parties. But neither has anything of merit to say. And both have deep pockets of hatreds, racism and indifference to the suffering of most American society.

I don't expect the Trump/Biden debate to make any great changes in American thinking. 

The reality of both parties is that neither has any great values for anything except serving the super rich. Neither party gives a damn about the American people - and very few of the American people have any sense of what a political party might be.

Americans don't realize that at all. But it is very clearly realized in Europe. The debate may not have much impact in the U.S. But overseas, especially in Europe, it is a disaster for the U.S.

Britain will cling to the U.S. because Britain is an outsider to Europe and, though the US has  created enormous damage to Britain since 1945,(like the theft of Britain's middle east oil fields) Britain has nobody else to kiss up to. Canada will cling to the U.S. because, well, it has a long and thin border with a U.S. that is not really a  friend at all.

(What damage did the U.S. do to Britain? Well, for a start it stole the British oil fields in the middle east. Note - I never said the British were nice in the first place.) In fact. Britain of 1800s and later was far worse than Hitler's Germany in murdering a plundering hundreds of millions.

And far the greatest damage of the last 75 years of unbroken warfare, plundering and mass murder of those years, has been caused not be those evil Chinese or Russians. The most evil people in this world today are American capitalists through their dupes - the elected members of Republican Party and the Democrat party.

And the Canadians holding on to the belts of American capitalists?Those are Canadian capitalists?

As I write this, I suspect much of my mail has not been getting through.  As soon as I finish this, I'm taking my computer to the repair shop to see whether I have attracted the attention of a hacker. In particular, I'm finding it impossible to attune my blogs to the web sites. I shall try for now to give the gist of the stories in my own words.

Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of our 100 years war. Oh, and make a list of American values....housing and feeding the poor? Providing medical care for the poor? Equal opportunities for the poor in education? (get real. American capitalists, like Canadian ones, don't give a damn about the poor. They are just cheap labour to be tossed aside. When I started teaching way back in the 1950s in Canada, the school board apologized for the class sizes, and said they were going to reduce them. And the reality is that in all these years,Candian and American class sizes haven't budged.

Is democracy an American value? Get real. Americans, like Canadians, are kept in ignorance of the real news, almost all of which is heavy on lies. And that's why Americans and Canadians vote Liberal, Conservative, Democrat and Republican.

That's why the people of New Brunswick vote only for the Liberals and Conservatives  of the province. Of course. The Irvings own and control all the newspapers of the province. They are also big funders to Liberals and Conservatives for their puppet political campaigns. And that sort of thing is common across Canada.

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Right now, the U.S. is crashing as a nation. I doubt whether the great debate or Trump's illness will change that. (In fact, it's quite possible there isn't going to be an election. Trump is crazy. Biden is weak). Anyway, it doesn't matter who the president is. The real government of the U.S. is the super rich class. It always has been.

The U.S.  (like most countries) is based on a myth that it has National (American) values. I have no idea what those values might be. It's wars are fought - and always have been fought - to make money for the super rich. Almost all of it's political leaders going back to George Washington have been the servants of the super rich. Another American value is starving it's own people, and plundering them to make the super rich even richer.

American democracy? That's bunk. The U.S. has always been a nation owned by the very rich. And it has been increasingly owned by them since 1950. Today, millions of the American poor live in tents or out in the open. And the super rich have been steadily getting much, much richer.

This is a country that does nothing for the average citizen. Medical care is the most expensive in the world, well beyond the reach of most Americans. The public schools are a disgrace. (But the super rich send their children to private schools supported heavily by government grants. And the universities? They are beyond the reach of the majority of Americans.)

American values? Well, it's biggest value has been war and killing. That began, really, with George Washington who set off a long history of mass murder of the native peoples in order to steal their land. (Canada did some of that, too.)

If you go through all the years of American government, you will find very few years of peace. There was the mass murder of native peoples - men, women and children and the theft of their land. For the last hundred and twenty years it has been stealing Latin American resources, reducing the people of Latin America to poverty, and sending even children into the mines. Oh - and killing and enslaving in the Phillipines.

Since 1945, American armies (that are not really armies for the benefit of the American people, but armies of the average person for the benefit of the super rich.)

And these armies are even more savage than most earlier wars with a concentration on mass murder of civilians, children, and starvation imposed all the way down to babies. American wars are so brutal and savage that large numbers of the soldiers suffer when they see what they have done - though more become threats of their own through their mass murder of civilians and children- perhaps within a few months - or less.

And we Canadians are next door. Are they likely to attack Canada? Very likely, especially to take over a province like Alberta.

And where will Canadian billionaires stand on this one? Right beside their American friends. Greed is all that the super-rich understand. The rise and the greed of capitalism is very close to the murderous behaviour we accused  the communism of Russia in the 1940s of. (On balance, capitalism is worse.

And Canadians, like Americans, are pretty limp in their politics.The Irving family  of New Brunswick has been robbing New Brunswick blind. Despite their ample profits, the Irvings has been demanding - and getting - billions of dollars from a province that is relatively poor. And the Irvings refuse to pay taxes - they just take, take, take....

The Irvings also own the province's nespapers. Guess who those wimpy newspapers don't ever criticize and always praise. (That sort of thing, of course, is common to most of our news media.) And so New Brunswickers have voted for the government that (Liberal or Conservative) has been lying and ripping off  the people of New Brunswick for close to a hundred years.

There's an NDP in New Brunswick. But in New Brunswick, as in most of Canada, people prefer to elect thieves.

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We live in a world dominated by it's greediest citizens. And people -  how can I put this? - are as always kissing the smelly toes of the greedy. who abuse and debase them.

Why do I think now of Conrad Black....?

Long, Long ago when the world and I were young, I was on CBC radio every week. With me in the waiting room to go air was a young Gwynne Dyer who I realized even then was a brilliant news analyst. And there was also a young Conrad Black.

When anyone spoke to Black, he would throw back his head and close his eyes to speak so he could listen to the glory of  his own words. He didn't care about the rest of us. He just wanted to roll in the ecstasy of his own voice. Often, even usually, what he said had nothing to do with the question. Even then, he had an ego that I have never seen matched. And this became the ghastly story of his own career with some of the worst newspapers this world has seen.

And he was a thief - for which Donald Trump forgave him.

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wars. (unless there's a nuclear war to spoil it all.)

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a

t

It is likely, very likely, that Europe will be looking for new alliances. And for a major  one of those, think Russia. This has been in the cards for some years. And now it is likely to happen.

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