Canada's very uncertain future.

This is a triple duty blog. It's to provide readers with some knowledge of where I find my sources. It's also to define the possibility we may have moved in a terrible direction since 1945. And it will probably make me some serious enemies. And it has a starting point that goes back to 1940 or 41. We lived in a district of extreme poverty and violence. Almost every day in winter, my father was up to shovel snow for the city. At the end of a work day that paid something less than four dollars a day, he would walk all the way to downtown Montreal and back to bring us a bag of charity food. (He couldn't afford the nickle trip on the tram cars.) These were the years of serious depression and hunger. Then, I think it was when I was in grade two, he came home with news. He had joined the navy. I remember how my mother took me and my sister to say goodbye to Chief Petty Officer Malcolm Decarie. He would be gone for five years. But he wrote to us often and affectionately, and often sent us wrapped gifts to be tucked away until he came home. There really was no choice. We had until then lived in the most wretched poverty. Now, oh splendour, we got a navy payment of - wow - I think it was 90 dollars a month. (I don't remember if that's accurate. It may have been less- but, oh, it was better than we ever had seen.) The only bad part was the next door neighbours on our balcony. They were small time Mafia thugs. With my father gone they made life hell for us - and once they broke in. Then - the war ended. We sent to the train station to greet my father. He came to us with the hammock (mick) that had been his bed in the navy. And, oh, he kept that for years. But he was furious when he heard about our Mafia neighbours. My father was a big man, and very strong. As soon as we got home and still in uniform, he stood at their door, arms folded. They never bothered us again. (I should add that the Mafia husband disappeared one day. Police discovered his body at the bottom of a shallow lake. He was wrapped in chains. We later learned that he had cheated on his Mafia friends.) Back from the navy, my father went to a meeting of the Legion. Big mistake. My father was a non-drinker, and he soon realized the Legion was nothing more than a booze club. He left early, and never went back to it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, let's take a look at the sources I use for information. For the most part, these are not newspapers. Most - almost all - newspapers are just lying propaganda. They almost all have been liars going way back into the late eighteenth century. Of course. Almost all owners of newspapers are propagandists. And that means almost all of their reporters lie. (And if they don't lie, they get fired.) However, the first newspaper I list is a big time paper. It's a British newspaper, The Manchester Guardian. It's not as daring as it should be. But it beats almost all other commercial newspapers. Just type this one and others at the top of your screen. Rabble.ca is a superb Canadian site. It's independent, just type Rabble.ca. Their leading figure was a parliamentary reporter in his employed days. When he retired he put together a first rate group of truth telling authorities. CBC on the web is pretty good. Gwynne Dyer is a brilliant analyst of world affairs. I knew him slightly when we shared space at CBC long ago. He's now an outstanding analyst based in England. The Nation is an American web magazine - and perhaps a little too much American. Consortium is worth a long read. CP Home is good. Breaking News is good Oh, and a superb site is Information Clearing house. It, like the sites above, would dearly love you to make contributions of a 10 or 20 dollars to them. But that's entirely up to you. I know that Information Clearing House site is a large and expensive operation. But that's up to you. Information Clearing House is run by a superb journalist who was, until recently, out of business because of the cost to him of preparing his site. I'm always amazed at the scale and depth of his reporting. The reality is our news media - radio, TV, print - are liars. I'm about to raise an issue on this which, since it criticizes our military, raises very serious questions about the U.S. military and how the Canadian military is marching into the U.S. model. That is going to make me some enemies.