The end of the American empire

I'm sorry to be late on this one. I suspect I'm closer to heaven or hell than I was just a few days ago. The latest U.S. polls show Trump slightly ahead of Biden in voter support. What can I say? There has been nothing wonderful about Biden. But the rise of Trump suggests there is also nothing wonderful about the American people. The U.S. (our nearest neighbour) has murdered uncounted millions all over the world. It claims the U.S. is fighting terrorism. In fact, since 1949 the US is the world's leading terrorist. In Afghanistan, guess the U.S. average days for air strikes. But don't waste your time checking for news reports because those news reports have NEVER appeared. The average has been some 46 airstrikes a day against a country with almost no air defences. And the victims of those air strikes? Mostly civilians - including children. We also know the U.S. operates torture camps all over the world and, yes, those kill people. There's one at Guantanamo, a fortress stolen over a hundred years ago from Cuba. Can you imagine the U.S. news media going crazy about world wide torture camps in, oh, just about any country? But, no, they have never said a word about them. The war in Afghanistan was monstrously expensive at something well over a trillion dollars, way beyond any reasonable cost. This is because war gave an excuse for massive spending by American war industries. And the greatest part of that money never got close to the war. It simply went to war industries owned by extremely wealthy Americans. When some Democrats advocated cutting back on wasteful war spending, other Democrats insisted on continuing this wasteful spending. And those warhappy Democrats got four times more donations from the weapons makers. In short, the U.S. was and still is awash in corruption. More recently, the U.S. has taken a tougher line with a nation it once destroyed - Haiti - (which it destroyed with Canadian help). The U.S. and Canada made it a crude and brutal dictatorship. Recently, Haitians suffered a savage earthquake - and the U.S (and Canada) wouldn't lift a finger. Over ten thousand fled their country from the horror it had become. They fled from the danger of even trying to survive in Haiti. But when they reached the U.S. border, they were met with guards on horses and swinging whips. President Biden said all this was terrible. But he wouldn't do a thing to help them. And now a glance at Canada. Conservative leader O'Toole, perhaps the dimmest political leader in Canadian history, criticizes China 31 times and Chinese in general 10 times in his election platform. In fact, his criticisms would be far more truthful if he had directed them at the U.S. Or he could have made a stronger criticism of Saudi Arabia and Israel for violence and murder (with weapons supplied to them by the U.S.). I have a lot of respect for Judaism (much more than I have for Christianity.) But Israel is violence against everything Judaism stands for. Sadly, Canada is a moral mess. The Roman Catholic Bishops have apologized to indigenous Canadians who were mutilated and killed in residential schools here in Canada. Many were as young as three when killed. 215 bodies have been found on the grounds of just one school. (No. These weren't even graves. They were pits to hide what the priests had done.) These were children stolen from their parents and never again permitted to see them. This happened all across Canada - so the real total is probably into the thousands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And the priests and nuns did this to them with the happy consent of Canadian governments. They all knew about it. So the so the church has said it's sorry. Hey! How about doing something for the survivors of those schools? (I've known some of them and, oh, they are bitter.) How about the Canadian government do something more than Trudeau standing around with his face hanging out? And surely the RC clergy should do more than say "oops". (No. They won't say more. I know of no groups less Christian than our Protestants, Catholics and Jesus Jumpers - you know, Evangelicals.) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Do you know of Julian Assange? He's an Australian journalist, and a very good one. His reporting and analysis were honest, well-informed - and perfectly legal. But oh, that's bad in our world. His most successful venture was Wikkileeks which was an outstanding news venture - honest and well informed. So, of course, he had to be killed. And that was planned by the CIA in cooperation with the American government. But they were too late. Assange had been moving his operations to Britain and (I think) Sweden. So he had to seek shelter. He did that for many very difficult years. Then Britain put him to live in isolation (never to leave) for some years in a government room. But the British government wanted to please it's American masters, so it put him in prison though he hadn't done anything wrong. There he has been in solitary ever since. And yes, all those years in isolation had a destructive effect on him as his body and his mind decayed. Eventually, the U.S. will get him, and in a mock trial it will kill him - for telling the truth with Wikkileeks. As it is, his mind is already in terrible shape. Could this happen to a Canadian journalist? No. There are no honest and intelligent journalists in any Canadian or American newspaper. Enjoy Canada's (and the US) papers. We've had nothing but stinkers from the earliest days of journalism. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ And the U.S.? The top 1% of the U.S. have taken up 50 trillion dollars for the last several decades. American workers were, once, paid well.American workers would be getting paycheques today twice as high as they really are if they had been allowed to keep pace. But they weren't. And the U.S. has made it worse with the 70 or so million unpaid and unsheltered people to live and die in the streets. (I'd love to get the Canadian figures - But Canadian governments and their puppet newspapers never discuss it.) What's obvious in the U.S. is that this is a nation that gives it's trillionaires whatever they want - and with virtually no taxes. Ordinary people, including children, millions of them, live in filth and hunger in the streets. We are back Two Thousand years ago to the streets of Rome where almost all of the people lived in hunger and filth, and whose bodies were simply dumped into a huge pit with thousands of other bodies. Canada's a little better off. But that won't last. This is the curse that our most ancient ancestors laid on us when they developed the concept - quite unnoticed, I think, - some people have a right to rule others. So far as I know, this is a concept found only in humans.And it worked in Ancient Rome where people of no particular brain power could become Caesars. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ And I have much more to say about all this. But I'll save it (and with a more Canadian slant) for my next blog.