(my pologies for nissing a day. I had computer problems. But I spoke sharply to it, so it is now working properly.)
Since, once again, the Moncton Times and Tribune has no serious news worth discussing, let's take a close look at a minor item because it takes up a lot of space on p.C1; and it tells us a lot about, well, about conspiracies. It's called "Conspiracy theories bad for democracy". It's a report on a book by a U. of Windsor Political Science prof.
Essentially, according to the report, the book says that conspiracy theories are bad for democracy because they can encourage violent ideologies as people become so caught up in conspiracy generated fears that they abandon democracy for violence. Conspiracy theories, according to the book, go back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
Now, I have not read the book. I don't know whether this is a really silly book or a biased report (Postmedia is notorious, even by North American standards, for its biased reporting.)
Some very doubtful points in the book probably can't be blamed on the reporting. Hiere are three examples. It says.....
1. that conspiracies theories go back to the early twentieth century
2.that a conspiracty theory is being cirulated that North American union is being negotiated by politicians, one in which all national identities will be destroyed
3. that the conspiracy theory that secret forces manipulate our politicians discourages democracy, Well,....
1. I have never heard of any period or region in world history in which conspiracy theories have not circulated. The idea that they began only a century ago is just plain silly. As well, they have often proven quite correct.
. My Scottish ancestors were right to believe that England was conspiring to conquer them. Native peoples were right to believe that Europeans were conspiring to take their lands. In 1812, Canadians were right to believe that Americans were conspiring to invade Canada. History of full of conspiracies that we usually call diplomacy. There was a British/American conspiracy to invade Iraq. The excuse for it was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. When nobody could find them, Bush and Blair developed a new conspiracy theory that he had hidden them in another country. Pharoah believed that Jews were conspiring to flee slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh was dead right. There is nothing recent about conspiracy theories. They are sometimes wrong and even invented. But they are also often qute right.
2. The conspiracy to create one country of all of North America existed long before the twentieth century - and it's not only true, but public knowledge. In the nineteenth century, it was a common political stance in the US that its "manifest destiny" was to control North American right to the North Pole. The US did invade Canada in 1812, and threatened to for most of the nineteenth century.
So far as Mexico is concerned the US long ago pushed its border way south to get to the Rio Grande. Ever wonder why so many places in Texas, Nevada, California and Arizona have names like Los Angeles and Las Vegas? That's because the US took one third of Mexico to create those states.
And some people are so silly as to believe there is a conspiracy to remove all borders and to create one, unified North America? Now where would they get such a silly idea? I know. Maybe it's by following the news - you know- stuff like US and Canadian police being allowed to operate in both countries, having unified border regulations and border patrols, Canadian and American troops being free to operate in either country... stuff like that.
3. Secret forces manipulate our politicians? What silly idea! Everybody knows that Jim Irving gives all his support to the Green Party and the NDP. The only reason he accepts tax rebates and cheap electricity is because the Green Party forces him to. Otherwise, he makes it a point never to interfere with government at all.
It's true that both major parties in the US get elected on donations of the extremely wealthy and from large corporations. But that's just because they love democracy, and want to see it work. Corporations also spend billions lobbying congressmen. But that's not a conspiracy. They do it because they're soft-hearted and want to protect the poor (now half of the US population) from the evils of medicare and lower taxes.
I have not read the book. I don't know whether this report from Postmedia is accurate. But I do know this.
If the book is really as reported, it is silly.
If the book had been about how conspiracies of the wealthy and influential are quite common - and are often quite true, Ppostmedia would never have circulated the story - and the Moncton Times and Tribune would never have printed it.
If the report is at all accurate,though, it raises a more chilling possibility - a conspiracy theory the book doesn't seem to mention.
As the universities become desperately short of money, they increasingly rely on donations from the very, very rich. But there's a price for all that money. The very, very rich want control over the universities. They want to make sure the "right" sort of professors get hired, professors who don't ever criticize the very, very rich, professors who do research useful to the very, very rich, and professors who give opinions for media that are the sort of opinions the very, very rich like to hear.
If you were to do that with politicians and universities, it would be called buying them and corrupting them. When the very, very rich do it, news media like Postmedia and The Moncton TandT call it philanthropy; and the universities give them honorary degrees. (The politicians just give them tax breaks and cheap electricty, stuff like that...)
This is a news story worth reading. It hints a lot about the mendacity of the Moncton TandT - and possibly about the moral decline of our universities.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Jan. 9: Why corporations don't give a damn about the damage they do...
In that variety of capitalism we like to call "free market" (because free is a nice word), there is no morality, no responsibility, no mercy. The corporation exists to make money. Nothing else. To make money whatever the cost to people or nature or the future.
Indeed, the only future that exists is three months. That's the time for the quarterly report - the test of the corporation's worth in the stock market, the test of CEOs for the bonuses they hope to make. The corporation will impoverish, poison, even kill for that profit.
Canadian railway builders worked Chinese labour to death because it was the cheapest way to get track laid/ For the same reason, they also used Chinese for the dangerous work of dynamiting. Until the the early nineteenth century, New France and Canada had slaves, both African and native. Few slaves lived beyond their twenties. But they were good for profits. George Washington was probably the biggest slave-holder and the wealthiest man in the United States.
Infant mortality is high in the US. that's because it's good for business. Without medicare, the infants of the US poor have the highest mortality rate in the developed world. But their sacrifice keeps taxes down, and boosts the profit margin.
Private business has often enough fought foreign wars for oil, for resources, and for cheap labout. It has killed millions in just the last fifty years. (It's never labelled as war for profit, of course. It's always to fight terrorism or spread democacy. Sometimes, we even bomb people for "humnitarian" reasons.)
As well, we support oppressive and corrupt governments in places like Haiti, Guatemala, all over Africa. We poison the land with our cost-saving mining pracrices; and we maintain poverty for profit. We do it to provide corporations with cheap resources and cheap labour.
That's not the way capitalism is supposed to work. But it's the way we have allowed it to work.
Anyone who reads the news even casually knows that. Captialism can work. So can cars. But both work properly only if we control them. If we don't control cars, they smash lives and, eventually, the cars themselves. Uncontrolled capitalism, the kind we live under, has the same destructive and suicidal tendencies.
In other countries, out capitalists impoverish and kill quite freely for the sake of profit. There is no reason to think we at home are exceptions to the rule. In the US, for example, one-half of the population is now officially classified as poor. That means hunger, homelessness, ill health, high infant death, early adult death. Meanwhile, the rich are actually getting richer at a record rate - and demanding ever more savage cuts to government spending on the poor. The rich are getting richer BECAUSE the poor are getting poorer Eventually, that will break down because concentration of wealth in the hands of the few will so far reduce purchasing as to make the system unworkable. But, of course, it only has to work for three months at a time.
Significantly, Harper is looking at cuts to medicare and social services and pensions while he spends record amounts to make huge profits for North American defence corporations. As American presidents have, he is working to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few which, inevitably, means less in the hands of everybody else.
But don't worry about the very rich. They will simply transfer their investments to other countries (as they already are doing). And then we become the land of cheap labour.
Now we can narrow the field to New Burnswick and to Moncton.
The New Brunswick budget is set by a cabinet minister who is (or was) an Irving executive. He is officially advised by a committee appointed by Irving and friends.
This is a good idea because they know about economics? Well, no.
What they know about is making profits for the quarterly report. The know all about getting money. Running a province is quite different. It's not about making profits in the short term. It's about serving people, the voters of the province and their families. To say that a corporate executive would be good to plan a provincial economy is like saying a holdup man would make a great bank manager.
New Brunswick is owned by a handful of corporations. That means, given the short-term thnking of corporations and their indifference to human needs, we're on a suicidal course. In this rush to disaster, corporations have the full cooperation of Brunswickmedia. For a sample of that cooperation, read the comments on the op ed page (AKA the dumbdown page) of today's Times and Transcript.
Craig Babstock thunders, "Crime that victimize the innocent are reprehensible" (So crimes that victimize the criminal - as in a gang war - are okay?) The people of Sussex are, I should think, generally a pretty innocent bunch. Was the crime of carrying out illegal shale gas exploration there reprehensible? I will eat my hat and the TandT the day Babstock ever says so.
(The other "duh" column is one by Allen Abel about a brave little horse that won a race. Some commentary. We really needed that story to be well informed.)
As for Moncton, why is it so big on attracting special shows? Who benefits from all the time and money we put into them? You and me? Not likely.
Conventions and spectacular events will bring in money; but much of it will go to hotels whose owners live far from Moncton. Most of the jobs for people who live here will be short term, low skill, and low paid.
Will a one or two hundred million dollar hockey rink make money for us? Not likely. Most of the jobs in it will be low paid; and it's possible, even likely, that the cost of it will never be recovered. But who cares?
The owner of the hockey team will get what he cares about - the use of a very expensive arena at a relatively modest price. He'll make it profit, three months at a time. If we lose money on the deal, that's our problem.
Of course, you need to stir the public up to sell it such a deal. You need emotion. You need an almost patriotic goal. So you talk about what a shame it is that Main Street is not what it used to be, and pretend that all this is about restoring a glory that, in fact, never existed.
Why would a city council buy such a silly scheme? Is it corrupt? Probably not. Commonly, most councillors are overawed by meeting with the rich and prominent. They want to agree with the rich and prominent as a mark of their own, new social status. You can see the same phenomenon with MNAs.
Besides, most MNAs and councillors don't know anything more about the world than anybody else does. And newspapers like the Moncton Times and Transcript make sure it stays that way.
The result is a western world that is in the grip of a perversion of capitalism that is short-sighted, indifferent to human needs and, ultimately, self-destructive. That is why we need to get democracy back. That is why we need journalism that informs us.
The alternative? You're watching it next door in the death throes of the last of the great Western empires.
Indeed, the only future that exists is three months. That's the time for the quarterly report - the test of the corporation's worth in the stock market, the test of CEOs for the bonuses they hope to make. The corporation will impoverish, poison, even kill for that profit.
Canadian railway builders worked Chinese labour to death because it was the cheapest way to get track laid/ For the same reason, they also used Chinese for the dangerous work of dynamiting. Until the the early nineteenth century, New France and Canada had slaves, both African and native. Few slaves lived beyond their twenties. But they were good for profits. George Washington was probably the biggest slave-holder and the wealthiest man in the United States.
Infant mortality is high in the US. that's because it's good for business. Without medicare, the infants of the US poor have the highest mortality rate in the developed world. But their sacrifice keeps taxes down, and boosts the profit margin.
Private business has often enough fought foreign wars for oil, for resources, and for cheap labout. It has killed millions in just the last fifty years. (It's never labelled as war for profit, of course. It's always to fight terrorism or spread democacy. Sometimes, we even bomb people for "humnitarian" reasons.)
As well, we support oppressive and corrupt governments in places like Haiti, Guatemala, all over Africa. We poison the land with our cost-saving mining pracrices; and we maintain poverty for profit. We do it to provide corporations with cheap resources and cheap labour.
That's not the way capitalism is supposed to work. But it's the way we have allowed it to work.
Anyone who reads the news even casually knows that. Captialism can work. So can cars. But both work properly only if we control them. If we don't control cars, they smash lives and, eventually, the cars themselves. Uncontrolled capitalism, the kind we live under, has the same destructive and suicidal tendencies.
In other countries, out capitalists impoverish and kill quite freely for the sake of profit. There is no reason to think we at home are exceptions to the rule. In the US, for example, one-half of the population is now officially classified as poor. That means hunger, homelessness, ill health, high infant death, early adult death. Meanwhile, the rich are actually getting richer at a record rate - and demanding ever more savage cuts to government spending on the poor. The rich are getting richer BECAUSE the poor are getting poorer Eventually, that will break down because concentration of wealth in the hands of the few will so far reduce purchasing as to make the system unworkable. But, of course, it only has to work for three months at a time.
Significantly, Harper is looking at cuts to medicare and social services and pensions while he spends record amounts to make huge profits for North American defence corporations. As American presidents have, he is working to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few which, inevitably, means less in the hands of everybody else.
But don't worry about the very rich. They will simply transfer their investments to other countries (as they already are doing). And then we become the land of cheap labour.
Now we can narrow the field to New Burnswick and to Moncton.
The New Brunswick budget is set by a cabinet minister who is (or was) an Irving executive. He is officially advised by a committee appointed by Irving and friends.
This is a good idea because they know about economics? Well, no.
What they know about is making profits for the quarterly report. The know all about getting money. Running a province is quite different. It's not about making profits in the short term. It's about serving people, the voters of the province and their families. To say that a corporate executive would be good to plan a provincial economy is like saying a holdup man would make a great bank manager.
New Brunswick is owned by a handful of corporations. That means, given the short-term thnking of corporations and their indifference to human needs, we're on a suicidal course. In this rush to disaster, corporations have the full cooperation of Brunswickmedia. For a sample of that cooperation, read the comments on the op ed page (AKA the dumbdown page) of today's Times and Transcript.
Craig Babstock thunders, "Crime that victimize the innocent are reprehensible" (So crimes that victimize the criminal - as in a gang war - are okay?) The people of Sussex are, I should think, generally a pretty innocent bunch. Was the crime of carrying out illegal shale gas exploration there reprehensible? I will eat my hat and the TandT the day Babstock ever says so.
(The other "duh" column is one by Allen Abel about a brave little horse that won a race. Some commentary. We really needed that story to be well informed.)
As for Moncton, why is it so big on attracting special shows? Who benefits from all the time and money we put into them? You and me? Not likely.
Conventions and spectacular events will bring in money; but much of it will go to hotels whose owners live far from Moncton. Most of the jobs for people who live here will be short term, low skill, and low paid.
Will a one or two hundred million dollar hockey rink make money for us? Not likely. Most of the jobs in it will be low paid; and it's possible, even likely, that the cost of it will never be recovered. But who cares?
The owner of the hockey team will get what he cares about - the use of a very expensive arena at a relatively modest price. He'll make it profit, three months at a time. If we lose money on the deal, that's our problem.
Of course, you need to stir the public up to sell it such a deal. You need emotion. You need an almost patriotic goal. So you talk about what a shame it is that Main Street is not what it used to be, and pretend that all this is about restoring a glory that, in fact, never existed.
Why would a city council buy such a silly scheme? Is it corrupt? Probably not. Commonly, most councillors are overawed by meeting with the rich and prominent. They want to agree with the rich and prominent as a mark of their own, new social status. You can see the same phenomenon with MNAs.
Besides, most MNAs and councillors don't know anything more about the world than anybody else does. And newspapers like the Moncton Times and Transcript make sure it stays that way.
The result is a western world that is in the grip of a perversion of capitalism that is short-sighted, indifferent to human needs and, ultimately, self-destructive. That is why we need to get democracy back. That is why we need journalism that informs us.
The alternative? You're watching it next door in the death throes of the last of the great Western empires.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Jan. 7: I awoke about seven.....
showered, dressed, and took the stairs down to the ground floor (I could have taken the elevator; but I wanted the exercise so I could become beautiful again); walked out the front door, hung a right for some ten metres, and turned into a supermarket to get some cereal and milk. Next door to it was my opitician's office and next to that my bank. If I had turned left I would have passed a clothing store, then a delightful boutique of toys for big boys with items like real, steam powered train sets. Like most streets in the city, it also had several restaurants.The whole street around me was as varied and handy as a shopping mall. Most streets in Hong Kong were like that, bustling with variety, interest and convenience.
I didn't notice any hockey arenas or convention centres. Most streets seemed to do very well without them. What made the "main streets" so vibrant was their density of population in high rise apartments. Few people owned or needed cars. (There were traffic jams on the roads, but not because people needed cars. Mass transportation was cheap and efficient. But those who could afford cars drove them for prestige; and in a densely populated city of eight million or so, it doesn't take a high proportion of car owners to make a traffic jam.)
For contrast, think of how far most people in Moncton would have to stroll to do any shopping. Block after block of single family houses, duplexes and triplexes make that pretty impossible. Even on a shopping street like Mountain Road, the large areas required to park cars make a winter stroll pretty unattractive.
Moncton, like virtually all North American cities, is designed for cars. Not for people.
Have you noticed how many recent wars have been fought in countries that have oil? Noticed the eagerness of oil companies to produce oil at ever greater risks - massive pollution in Alberta? High environmental risk areas like the seas and the Arctic? Fuel sources both expensive and dangerous like shale gas?
There will come a point when we cannot pollute enough, or pay enough, or war enough to support our reliance on fossil fuels. Moncton, like other cities, is built on a plan that, whatever we want or think, is going to break down. Next rush hour while you're idling your engine in traffic, think of fuel at two dollars a ltire - five dollars -more.
The private car, always monstrously expensive as a means of transporting people will soon be, quite simply, beyond our means. Think of that on your drive back from shopping as you pass kilometres of bungalows and lawns and parking lots. Think of walking those kilometres with your month's groceries.
Think of the expense of building and maintaining all those kilometres of sewers, water mains, sidewalks and roads. Think of a future - very soon - when we simply will not be able to afford this. It's coming. In fact, it's already beginning.
You figure we have 200 million to spare? And what we need most of all is a hockey rink? With a big parking lot? It won't work. It hasn't worked anywhere else; and it won't work here. But - spend a fraction of that on apartment housing and you'll give downtown Moncton what it needs to put shops and restaurants and move theatres on Main St. - people. You'll get people who want to use the shops and restaurants every day, people who will be happy to live on a street designed for people rather than cars.
Moncton will survive quite well without a new hockey rink. But survival will be much tougher in a city designed for cars.
I would not suggest super high-rise, egg box apartments. (I remember too well the one in Hong Kong that was reputed to be the most densely populated spot on earth.) But city council with imagination could tap into the ideas of apartment building pioneered at Expo 67, with small, private garden areas for each apartment, with community facilities, and (unlike the Expo 67 model) with ground floors designed for commerce.
Alas! Moncton's politicians and business leaders seem to be able think only of special events and a quck buck. Neither of those will solve either the problem of a sprawling city or the problem of a dying main street.
Why is their thinking so short term and so little related to the needs of the people who live here? We'll take a look at that on Monday.
I didn't notice any hockey arenas or convention centres. Most streets seemed to do very well without them. What made the "main streets" so vibrant was their density of population in high rise apartments. Few people owned or needed cars. (There were traffic jams on the roads, but not because people needed cars. Mass transportation was cheap and efficient. But those who could afford cars drove them for prestige; and in a densely populated city of eight million or so, it doesn't take a high proportion of car owners to make a traffic jam.)
For contrast, think of how far most people in Moncton would have to stroll to do any shopping. Block after block of single family houses, duplexes and triplexes make that pretty impossible. Even on a shopping street like Mountain Road, the large areas required to park cars make a winter stroll pretty unattractive.
Moncton, like virtually all North American cities, is designed for cars. Not for people.
Have you noticed how many recent wars have been fought in countries that have oil? Noticed the eagerness of oil companies to produce oil at ever greater risks - massive pollution in Alberta? High environmental risk areas like the seas and the Arctic? Fuel sources both expensive and dangerous like shale gas?
There will come a point when we cannot pollute enough, or pay enough, or war enough to support our reliance on fossil fuels. Moncton, like other cities, is built on a plan that, whatever we want or think, is going to break down. Next rush hour while you're idling your engine in traffic, think of fuel at two dollars a ltire - five dollars -more.
The private car, always monstrously expensive as a means of transporting people will soon be, quite simply, beyond our means. Think of that on your drive back from shopping as you pass kilometres of bungalows and lawns and parking lots. Think of walking those kilometres with your month's groceries.
Think of the expense of building and maintaining all those kilometres of sewers, water mains, sidewalks and roads. Think of a future - very soon - when we simply will not be able to afford this. It's coming. In fact, it's already beginning.
You figure we have 200 million to spare? And what we need most of all is a hockey rink? With a big parking lot? It won't work. It hasn't worked anywhere else; and it won't work here. But - spend a fraction of that on apartment housing and you'll give downtown Moncton what it needs to put shops and restaurants and move theatres on Main St. - people. You'll get people who want to use the shops and restaurants every day, people who will be happy to live on a street designed for people rather than cars.
Moncton will survive quite well without a new hockey rink. But survival will be much tougher in a city designed for cars.
I would not suggest super high-rise, egg box apartments. (I remember too well the one in Hong Kong that was reputed to be the most densely populated spot on earth.) But city council with imagination could tap into the ideas of apartment building pioneered at Expo 67, with small, private garden areas for each apartment, with community facilities, and (unlike the Expo 67 model) with ground floors designed for commerce.
Alas! Moncton's politicians and business leaders seem to be able think only of special events and a quck buck. Neither of those will solve either the problem of a sprawling city or the problem of a dying main street.
Why is their thinking so short term and so little related to the needs of the people who live here? We'll take a look at that on Monday.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Jan. 6: hockey, convention centres, and main street.
Ste. Catherine St. was the main shopping street of Montreal for most of the twentieth century. It was the street of the great department stores, the popular restaurants, the clubs, boutiques and, way at the end of all the shops and clubs stood The Forum, the legendary home of the Montreal Canadiens.
The Forum was packed for every game, and packed again for concerts, boxing, wrestling, and for all us kids, 17,000 at a time, when the circus came to town. It seemed to be always in use.
Funny thing, though. The restaurants, clubs and boutiques petered out blocks before The Forum. Its end of St. Catherine St., with a couple of seedy bars, and a second-hand store was always the dead end.
I stood across the street from The Forum one summer day to watch the parade from it to the news arena. Dickie Moore and Jean Beliveau, waving from a convertible, led the parade with loudspeakers blaring the decades of cheers recorded for Bill Durnan, Toe Blake, and The Rocket.
A few years later, I strolled by the new arena. I noticed that the only new business that had opened was a tiny, sandwich shop, mostly doing a lunch hour business for office workers.
So what's all this Times and Transcript pitch to spend hundreds of millions for a hockey arena/convention centre to revive Moncton's Main Street? Main St. started to die sixty years ago. Main streets have died all over North America. They were killed by the automobile and the shopping mall. Nor is there any evidence of hockey rinks and convention centres magically reviving them - not anywhere. They didn't do it before the auto and the mall. They aren't going to do it now.
Why are the Moncton City Council and the Times and Transcript pushing so hard for a scheme that will be ruinously expensive for ratepayers? Because it will make Moncton Main St. the hub of the hub of the smart set in the Maritimes? Come off it. If you put the whole Maritimes together, you stil have nothing like the population of Montreal - and there ain't no convenient subway to get here from Halifax - or even from Dieppe. And, at best, you will get a very tiny sandwich shop out of it, a sandwich shop that is going to have to slice a lot bread and ham to pay off $200,000,000.
The rink/convention centre would be a stunningly wasteful use of money. Worse, the very idea of reviving main street is a plan to restore the past - rather like spending a couple of hundred million to intall hitching posts and water troughs along the curbs with a livery stable on each block.
What Moncton needs is a design for the future. (Indeed, while Moncton has been planning for the past, the reality is that the future is already here; and we're going to suffer unless we make some big changes very, very soon.)
So, tomorrow, let's take a look at what the future requires.
Then we'll take a look at why The Moncton TandT and Moncton City Council, don't really give a damn about the future or about the people of Moncton..
The Forum was packed for every game, and packed again for concerts, boxing, wrestling, and for all us kids, 17,000 at a time, when the circus came to town. It seemed to be always in use.
Funny thing, though. The restaurants, clubs and boutiques petered out blocks before The Forum. Its end of St. Catherine St., with a couple of seedy bars, and a second-hand store was always the dead end.
I stood across the street from The Forum one summer day to watch the parade from it to the news arena. Dickie Moore and Jean Beliveau, waving from a convertible, led the parade with loudspeakers blaring the decades of cheers recorded for Bill Durnan, Toe Blake, and The Rocket.
A few years later, I strolled by the new arena. I noticed that the only new business that had opened was a tiny, sandwich shop, mostly doing a lunch hour business for office workers.
So what's all this Times and Transcript pitch to spend hundreds of millions for a hockey arena/convention centre to revive Moncton's Main Street? Main St. started to die sixty years ago. Main streets have died all over North America. They were killed by the automobile and the shopping mall. Nor is there any evidence of hockey rinks and convention centres magically reviving them - not anywhere. They didn't do it before the auto and the mall. They aren't going to do it now.
Why are the Moncton City Council and the Times and Transcript pushing so hard for a scheme that will be ruinously expensive for ratepayers? Because it will make Moncton Main St. the hub of the hub of the smart set in the Maritimes? Come off it. If you put the whole Maritimes together, you stil have nothing like the population of Montreal - and there ain't no convenient subway to get here from Halifax - or even from Dieppe. And, at best, you will get a very tiny sandwich shop out of it, a sandwich shop that is going to have to slice a lot bread and ham to pay off $200,000,000.
The rink/convention centre would be a stunningly wasteful use of money. Worse, the very idea of reviving main street is a plan to restore the past - rather like spending a couple of hundred million to intall hitching posts and water troughs along the curbs with a livery stable on each block.
What Moncton needs is a design for the future. (Indeed, while Moncton has been planning for the past, the reality is that the future is already here; and we're going to suffer unless we make some big changes very, very soon.)
So, tomorrow, let's take a look at what the future requires.
Then we'll take a look at why The Moncton TandT and Moncton City Council, don't really give a damn about the future or about the people of Moncton..
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Jan. 5: Sorry for today...
After weeks of packing, moving, and unpacking, I find I just can't write a coherent column today.
There's really nothing in the Moncton TandT on this Jan. 5, anyway except for excellent columns by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire.
As for news, the world (yes, including Moncton) is on the edge of a major war and and and even deeper economic crisis - but the big story in the TandT's international news is that Peter MacKay got married in Mexico. (It doesn't mention whether he went by helicopter.)
In any case, I want to change pace a little. I'd like to take a closer look at Moncton city council's determination to go into hock for a couple of hundred million or more to build a hockey rink/convention centre. I'd look to take a look at the motivation of the people behind this piece of idiocy, at why our corporate elite is so short-sighted in its planning, at how we have been pushed into big government and big debt not by the poor or the elderly or the sick, but by the rich and the influential.I's the coroporations who wanted and got a welfare state a state for them - a nanny state for the very rich.
It's not the leftists who destroyed capitalism. It's the people who call themselves capitalists who have twisted it into a perversion of what it was meant to be. The system can work. But, as it is now, it is taking the corporations - and us - on a suicidal course.
Moncton's proposed hockey rink and convention centre is a handy, bite-size piece to illustrate what is going terribly wrong and why.
Nor will I be speaking of dangers fifty years down the road. We don't have anything resembling fifty years in which to wake up. We don't have ten years. In fact, just look at the stream of traffic at rush hour on the Riverview causeway. Then think of the Strait of Hormuz being closed to oil transport. (No, Peter MacKay didn't get married there. But the Strait of Hormuz could have a pretty serious effect on your drive home. And it could be very soon.)
There's really nothing in the Moncton TandT on this Jan. 5, anyway except for excellent columns by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire.
As for news, the world (yes, including Moncton) is on the edge of a major war and and and even deeper economic crisis - but the big story in the TandT's international news is that Peter MacKay got married in Mexico. (It doesn't mention whether he went by helicopter.)
In any case, I want to change pace a little. I'd like to take a closer look at Moncton city council's determination to go into hock for a couple of hundred million or more to build a hockey rink/convention centre. I'd look to take a look at the motivation of the people behind this piece of idiocy, at why our corporate elite is so short-sighted in its planning, at how we have been pushed into big government and big debt not by the poor or the elderly or the sick, but by the rich and the influential.I's the coroporations who wanted and got a welfare state a state for them - a nanny state for the very rich.
It's not the leftists who destroyed capitalism. It's the people who call themselves capitalists who have twisted it into a perversion of what it was meant to be. The system can work. But, as it is now, it is taking the corporations - and us - on a suicidal course.
Moncton's proposed hockey rink and convention centre is a handy, bite-size piece to illustrate what is going terribly wrong and why.
Nor will I be speaking of dangers fifty years down the road. We don't have anything resembling fifty years in which to wake up. We don't have ten years. In fact, just look at the stream of traffic at rush hour on the Riverview causeway. Then think of the Strait of Hormuz being closed to oil transport. (No, Peter MacKay didn't get married there. But the Strait of Hormuz could have a pretty serious effect on your drive home. And it could be very soon.)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Jan. 4: The new year..
The banner headline of the Moncton Times and Trnascript for today is that the mayor of neighbouring Dieppe will not seek re-election. Wow!
The advice of Eric Lewis on the op ed page is that this is the year Moncton, teetering on the edge of the greatest financial crisis the world has seen, has to go over its head into debt to build a BIG hockey rink. And, wow, maybe we can get Bruce Springsteen to do a show this summer.
Never mind that within 20 years, probably much less, Moncton will be close to unlivable because of transportation costs and other problems arising from its aprawl. This is a city desiigned for 1900, modified in 1970 for 1950, and now being planned for nothing at all but making money for hockey team owners and hotels. Riverview, a throwback to the '50s' will certainly be unlivable in the near future. But, in the face of the huge changes this city needs, Eric Lewis and and the Moncton Times will go on beating the drum for a new hockey rink.
What a rink would really do is to make a quick profit for somebody at a long loss for everybody else. But that is what has happened as short term greed has triumphed over pressing needs in our society.
So far, there has been nothing in the paper about the real world, and what's going to happen in the coming year..
1. Premier Alward will plunge ahead with shale gas development. He will continue to spread false information and false comfort.
Why be polite about it? Alward is going to screw you. It's decided. If he ever does introduce strict regulations, he won't enforce them. He will, though, strictly enforce the law against anyone who objects as Irving and friends destroy and impoverish the province.
So much for democracy and an informed public in New Brunswick.
2. Harper will make it a big year for the British connection in Canada with a royal visit, pictures of the queen all over the place, and a year-long celebration of the British-Canadian victory over the US in the War of 1812.
And, as we all watch the dog and pony shows paid for with our tax dollars, Harper will be dissolving Canada itself into an American colony. The process is already well begun with the Canadian armed forces remodelled and re-equipped to fight American wars, and with Canadian and American police and military authorized to work on either side of the border.
3. Americans will start disappearing as the Obama government expands it power to arrest and detain without trial or charge anybody it chooses to. Most of the North American media will applaud this as a defence against moslem terrorism. In fact, it has nothing to do with moslems or terrorism.
Almost half of the American population lives below the poverty line. Uncounted millions are homeless. Assistance money is being cut off so Obama can divert even more spending to weapons and wars. There is a rage mounting at the suffering of the poor and the increasing wealth and power of the rich. The American empire, the last of the great, western empires, is in a rapid collapse.
Obama may have no principles; but he is not a fool. The danger of serious uprisings, even revolution, and very soon, is obvious. The power to arrest and detain (forever, if necessary) is not aimed at moslem terrorists. It's aimed at discontented Americans. The basic requirement of freedom and democracy, the right to legal process, has been erased. The corporations that pay for Obama's campaign funds have what they have long wanted - a thoroughly fascist and police state.
That's not just calling Obama and the corporations names. Check a dictionary. Look up fascist. Look up police state.
Obama is also gearing up for more and bigger wars. NATO (the colonial armies of the American Empire) is already heavily involved in events in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and, soon, Iraq again. He will also soon be looking at wars (both covert and open) in Latin America - as well as expanding through the Pacific to contain China.
These wars of a dying empire have been financial, military and political disasters for fifty years. But much of the western world, and especially the US, has been controlled for decades by a self-destructive perversion of capitalism. There are many definitions of capitalism. But none of them is based on the greed, short-sightendess, and contempt for humanity that we see in the very wealthy of the US and Canada. Read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations some day. Rich people who live off government welfare were not what Goldwin Smith defined as capitalists. Not at all.
We live in a perversion of capitalism that has created its own crisis of poverty and war. The crisis is not something that might happen. It is happening. Right now.
Most of us will refuse to believe that. It's very human. We refuse to see what we do not want to see.
So it was that Germans applauded Hitler and Russians applauded Stalin and Chinese applauded Mao even as these leaders imprisoned or murdered them (without charge or trial - just like Obama is now authorized to do.)
The churches, being run by humans, also refuse to believe what they see. In Germany, they largely accomodated themselves to the Naziis. In the US, few said a word about the slaughters in Cambodia and Vietnam and Guatemala. In Canada, our chaplains told the press that our troops in Afghanistan were doing an important job - though what that job was and what has been accomplished remain unclear. Nor have we we heard a clerical voice raised about the morality of bombing civlians in Libya. (Maybe the Moncton Baptists figure those Libyan civilians were all gay.)
Whether or not we recognize it, though, doesn't matter. We are facing a brutal year. We cannot escape the effects of the economic damage that has been done by bandit business. We cannot escape the wars that our political and economic leaders have committed us to. Our chldren cannot escape the world we are allowing to be created.
2012 may well be the most decisive year in well over 1500 years.
But don't worry about the Irvings of this world. Money can always be moved around.
Just think about the important things. The mayor of Dieppe will not be running for re-election. And how about those hockey Wildcats, eh?
I didn't comment on Norbert's column because, as a piece of logic, I would have failed it in a high school class. Besides, it's not enough to talk about the incompetence and the propaganda of The Moncton TandT. There's a reality out there. Thanks to the perversion of capitalism that our business world has become, we live in a corrupt and decaying society. Saving it will be neither quick nor easy.
Or we can build a new hockey rink to watch the Wildcats. (As I write that, I think of the great emptiness I felt as I walked through Coliseum in Rome. I think of how, so many years earlier, it was packed for the daily sport of killing even as the barbarians broke through the walls of the city.)
Moncton, if you don't wake up in 2012 then, by the time 2013 rolls around, it won't matter.
The advice of Eric Lewis on the op ed page is that this is the year Moncton, teetering on the edge of the greatest financial crisis the world has seen, has to go over its head into debt to build a BIG hockey rink. And, wow, maybe we can get Bruce Springsteen to do a show this summer.
Never mind that within 20 years, probably much less, Moncton will be close to unlivable because of transportation costs and other problems arising from its aprawl. This is a city desiigned for 1900, modified in 1970 for 1950, and now being planned for nothing at all but making money for hockey team owners and hotels. Riverview, a throwback to the '50s' will certainly be unlivable in the near future. But, in the face of the huge changes this city needs, Eric Lewis and and the Moncton Times will go on beating the drum for a new hockey rink.
What a rink would really do is to make a quick profit for somebody at a long loss for everybody else. But that is what has happened as short term greed has triumphed over pressing needs in our society.
So far, there has been nothing in the paper about the real world, and what's going to happen in the coming year..
1. Premier Alward will plunge ahead with shale gas development. He will continue to spread false information and false comfort.
Why be polite about it? Alward is going to screw you. It's decided. If he ever does introduce strict regulations, he won't enforce them. He will, though, strictly enforce the law against anyone who objects as Irving and friends destroy and impoverish the province.
So much for democracy and an informed public in New Brunswick.
2. Harper will make it a big year for the British connection in Canada with a royal visit, pictures of the queen all over the place, and a year-long celebration of the British-Canadian victory over the US in the War of 1812.
And, as we all watch the dog and pony shows paid for with our tax dollars, Harper will be dissolving Canada itself into an American colony. The process is already well begun with the Canadian armed forces remodelled and re-equipped to fight American wars, and with Canadian and American police and military authorized to work on either side of the border.
3. Americans will start disappearing as the Obama government expands it power to arrest and detain without trial or charge anybody it chooses to. Most of the North American media will applaud this as a defence against moslem terrorism. In fact, it has nothing to do with moslems or terrorism.
Almost half of the American population lives below the poverty line. Uncounted millions are homeless. Assistance money is being cut off so Obama can divert even more spending to weapons and wars. There is a rage mounting at the suffering of the poor and the increasing wealth and power of the rich. The American empire, the last of the great, western empires, is in a rapid collapse.
Obama may have no principles; but he is not a fool. The danger of serious uprisings, even revolution, and very soon, is obvious. The power to arrest and detain (forever, if necessary) is not aimed at moslem terrorists. It's aimed at discontented Americans. The basic requirement of freedom and democracy, the right to legal process, has been erased. The corporations that pay for Obama's campaign funds have what they have long wanted - a thoroughly fascist and police state.
That's not just calling Obama and the corporations names. Check a dictionary. Look up fascist. Look up police state.
Obama is also gearing up for more and bigger wars. NATO (the colonial armies of the American Empire) is already heavily involved in events in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and, soon, Iraq again. He will also soon be looking at wars (both covert and open) in Latin America - as well as expanding through the Pacific to contain China.
These wars of a dying empire have been financial, military and political disasters for fifty years. But much of the western world, and especially the US, has been controlled for decades by a self-destructive perversion of capitalism. There are many definitions of capitalism. But none of them is based on the greed, short-sightendess, and contempt for humanity that we see in the very wealthy of the US and Canada. Read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations some day. Rich people who live off government welfare were not what Goldwin Smith defined as capitalists. Not at all.
We live in a perversion of capitalism that has created its own crisis of poverty and war. The crisis is not something that might happen. It is happening. Right now.
Most of us will refuse to believe that. It's very human. We refuse to see what we do not want to see.
So it was that Germans applauded Hitler and Russians applauded Stalin and Chinese applauded Mao even as these leaders imprisoned or murdered them (without charge or trial - just like Obama is now authorized to do.)
The churches, being run by humans, also refuse to believe what they see. In Germany, they largely accomodated themselves to the Naziis. In the US, few said a word about the slaughters in Cambodia and Vietnam and Guatemala. In Canada, our chaplains told the press that our troops in Afghanistan were doing an important job - though what that job was and what has been accomplished remain unclear. Nor have we we heard a clerical voice raised about the morality of bombing civlians in Libya. (Maybe the Moncton Baptists figure those Libyan civilians were all gay.)
Whether or not we recognize it, though, doesn't matter. We are facing a brutal year. We cannot escape the effects of the economic damage that has been done by bandit business. We cannot escape the wars that our political and economic leaders have committed us to. Our chldren cannot escape the world we are allowing to be created.
2012 may well be the most decisive year in well over 1500 years.
But don't worry about the Irvings of this world. Money can always be moved around.
Just think about the important things. The mayor of Dieppe will not be running for re-election. And how about those hockey Wildcats, eh?
I didn't comment on Norbert's column because, as a piece of logic, I would have failed it in a high school class. Besides, it's not enough to talk about the incompetence and the propaganda of The Moncton TandT. There's a reality out there. Thanks to the perversion of capitalism that our business world has become, we live in a corrupt and decaying society. Saving it will be neither quick nor easy.
Or we can build a new hockey rink to watch the Wildcats. (As I write that, I think of the great emptiness I felt as I walked through Coliseum in Rome. I think of how, so many years earlier, it was packed for the daily sport of killing even as the barbarians broke through the walls of the city.)
Moncton, if you don't wake up in 2012 then, by the time 2013 rolls around, it won't matter.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Jan. 3: No news news
I didn't even attempt to write a blog on yesterday's Times and Transcript. There was simply nothing in it. The whole day after New Year's Day edition was about what happened in 1911. But we already knew that.
Today's, January 3, is almost as bad. The front page has a big story about a TV start who advises brides on what sort of wedding gown to buy, a story on how good Mayor Leblanc was in 2011 and he'll be even better in 2012 (from the horse's mouth), and a real "stop the presses" story on how you have to plan your new year's resultions.
Oh, and there's an assurance from Mr. Irving himself that he plants three trees for ever two he cuts down to make Majesta toilet paper. I've often wondered about that during reflective moments of solitude in the bathroom. It makes me proud to think I'm doing my bit to rebuild the forests of New Brunswick.
P. A2 announces the first meeting of the Moncton Knitting Club tonight at the library.. (Sure wish I could get them to announce my current events groups at the library. It`s tonight, too, at 7 pm.
Then, of course, we have two, big stories on how the mayors of Dieppe and Riverview had good years in 2011, and plan even gooder ones for 2012, just like Moncton.
In this whole paper, the only item worth reading is the column by Alec Bruce.
The Times and Transcript is deliberate trivia. And it works. It keeps us ignorant of the news by reporting only trivia. By doing so, it discourages any serious discussion of what`s going on, and focusses attention on meaningless prattle by politicians, and on issues that really count - like whether our liquor stores are selling enough booze.
It`s quite deliberate. The paper is owned Irving who also owns pretty much everything else in the province. That`s why we have newspapers that tell us which movie star is having a birthday today - but not how our government tries to manipulate us into agreeing to poison our land and water; and not how little Irving pays in taxes.
This is where a Norbert Cunningham comes in. Ì can never decide whether he is a willing dupe. I suspect, rather, he`s one of those people who truly believes, but will forever believe only what he wants to believe. I have a friend who genuinely believed that the torture at Guantanamo didn't hurt. It was love taps There are many people like that.
In today`s column, for example, Norbert makes a point that citizens have a responsibility to keep well informed so they can make responsible decisions when they vote. Hello, Norbert, are you (all) there?
Where are we supposed to get this information from? Certainly not from any Irving paper or from any privately-owned radio or TV station.
Norbert also says we should teach our children more history because that would make them less cynical about politics if they did. Yes, indeed, studying how John A. Macdonald dealt privately in real estate for the railways while he was prime minister, and how Mulroney took a suitcase full of money in a hotel room, and how K.C. Irving moved to Bermuda to avoid income tax would do a lot to build pride and interest in our political and economic system.
Norbert begins by saying we should guard against any attempts to weaken democracy. He particularly opposes legilation favouring special interests. Oh, Norbert, that's cute. And I'll even consider it possible you believe what you're saying - even though you have consistently worked for the good of special interests.
Yes, we citizens have a right to speak out, says Norbert. But if we do, then he has a paragraph ranting that we are irresonsible and anti-democratic. Indeed, if we complain about a threat to democracy, then we are attacking democracy itself. This 'spoiled brat syndrome' threatens democracy itself. Yes.
Oh, and there's a big threat to democracy that has come in the form of the net. The net has a sinister, dangerous side that endangers democracy. There is nothing worse than allowing individuals (spoiled brats) to criticize their social betters.
On the other hand, a monopoly of control by one newspaper owner is good for democracy.
Tomottow, Norbert will explain how the web is a threat to true democracy which can only work when governments and news media are owned by giant corporations. (That's what used to be called fascism. That's how the dictionary still defines it.)
So why doesn't Norbert say he's writing a column in defence of fascism? Because Norbert is one of those who sees only what he wants to see. He sees trivia, and calls it information essential to democracy. He sees a government (elected by a minority of the eligible voters), watches it pushing through a project that has massive public opposition - and says the majority has spoken. He sees government run by and for corporations and calls it democracy. This is a terminal case of seeing only what he wants to see.
In a quotation from Stanfield, Norbert concludes, "It is a very simplistic view that politicians are to blame for everthing.." Quite so.
The reality is that much of the blame has to be shared by corporate bosses who buy politicians, and by "journalists" who work as propaganda agents for the corporate bosses.
Today's, January 3, is almost as bad. The front page has a big story about a TV start who advises brides on what sort of wedding gown to buy, a story on how good Mayor Leblanc was in 2011 and he'll be even better in 2012 (from the horse's mouth), and a real "stop the presses" story on how you have to plan your new year's resultions.
Oh, and there's an assurance from Mr. Irving himself that he plants three trees for ever two he cuts down to make Majesta toilet paper. I've often wondered about that during reflective moments of solitude in the bathroom. It makes me proud to think I'm doing my bit to rebuild the forests of New Brunswick.
P. A2 announces the first meeting of the Moncton Knitting Club tonight at the library.. (Sure wish I could get them to announce my current events groups at the library. It`s tonight, too, at 7 pm.
Then, of course, we have two, big stories on how the mayors of Dieppe and Riverview had good years in 2011, and plan even gooder ones for 2012, just like Moncton.
In this whole paper, the only item worth reading is the column by Alec Bruce.
The Times and Transcript is deliberate trivia. And it works. It keeps us ignorant of the news by reporting only trivia. By doing so, it discourages any serious discussion of what`s going on, and focusses attention on meaningless prattle by politicians, and on issues that really count - like whether our liquor stores are selling enough booze.
It`s quite deliberate. The paper is owned Irving who also owns pretty much everything else in the province. That`s why we have newspapers that tell us which movie star is having a birthday today - but not how our government tries to manipulate us into agreeing to poison our land and water; and not how little Irving pays in taxes.
This is where a Norbert Cunningham comes in. Ì can never decide whether he is a willing dupe. I suspect, rather, he`s one of those people who truly believes, but will forever believe only what he wants to believe. I have a friend who genuinely believed that the torture at Guantanamo didn't hurt. It was love taps There are many people like that.
In today`s column, for example, Norbert makes a point that citizens have a responsibility to keep well informed so they can make responsible decisions when they vote. Hello, Norbert, are you (all) there?
Where are we supposed to get this information from? Certainly not from any Irving paper or from any privately-owned radio or TV station.
Norbert also says we should teach our children more history because that would make them less cynical about politics if they did. Yes, indeed, studying how John A. Macdonald dealt privately in real estate for the railways while he was prime minister, and how Mulroney took a suitcase full of money in a hotel room, and how K.C. Irving moved to Bermuda to avoid income tax would do a lot to build pride and interest in our political and economic system.
Norbert begins by saying we should guard against any attempts to weaken democracy. He particularly opposes legilation favouring special interests. Oh, Norbert, that's cute. And I'll even consider it possible you believe what you're saying - even though you have consistently worked for the good of special interests.
Yes, we citizens have a right to speak out, says Norbert. But if we do, then he has a paragraph ranting that we are irresonsible and anti-democratic. Indeed, if we complain about a threat to democracy, then we are attacking democracy itself. This 'spoiled brat syndrome' threatens democracy itself. Yes.
Oh, and there's a big threat to democracy that has come in the form of the net. The net has a sinister, dangerous side that endangers democracy. There is nothing worse than allowing individuals (spoiled brats) to criticize their social betters.
On the other hand, a monopoly of control by one newspaper owner is good for democracy.
Tomottow, Norbert will explain how the web is a threat to true democracy which can only work when governments and news media are owned by giant corporations. (That's what used to be called fascism. That's how the dictionary still defines it.)
So why doesn't Norbert say he's writing a column in defence of fascism? Because Norbert is one of those who sees only what he wants to see. He sees trivia, and calls it information essential to democracy. He sees a government (elected by a minority of the eligible voters), watches it pushing through a project that has massive public opposition - and says the majority has spoken. He sees government run by and for corporations and calls it democracy. This is a terminal case of seeing only what he wants to see.
In a quotation from Stanfield, Norbert concludes, "It is a very simplistic view that politicians are to blame for everthing.." Quite so.
The reality is that much of the blame has to be shared by corporate bosses who buy politicians, and by "journalists" who work as propaganda agents for the corporate bosses.
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