You have to read Norbert Cunningham's column today. It's a bombshell.
He writes about the Aral Sea, once a real, inland sea with its waters supporting a shipping trade, commercial fishing, and supplying water for an immense and rich agricultural region. That was just twenty years ago.
Today, what was a seabed is mostly desert. All its fish species are extinct. The lands around it are barren. All of t his was done by overuse, by chemical poisoning of land and water, a poisoning that the winds now carry, 70 million tonnes, of it a year to dump over the greater part of a continent.
This is a column you must read for yourself.
But there's a connection to be made which, unfortunately, Norbert does not make.
Think New Brunswick. Think fracking. Think of the arrogance, the willful shortsightedness of the politicians and business leaders, think of the greed, think of the human waste and suffering, think of the permanent damage that was done to the Aral Sea region in just twenty years. Think of Alward and his puppets. Think of out corporate aristocracy.
Alec Bruce has his usual, solid column, this time on Harper, MacKay, and the F-35. (MacKay, a man whose only talent seems to be patronizing a good barber, was once a contender for the Conservative leadership!) We're in serious trouble.We have a government of little and very regional national support, and one that displays both incompetence, and a contempt for democratic practice - and it has a long way to go.
You can give most of the rest of the paper a miss (though de Adder gas a pretty good editorial cartoon.)
Then we have Craig Babstock on the op ed page waxing eloquent about Canada's failure to support an N.B. farmer who was held in a Lebanese jail. I think his point is well taken - but...
Where was he when a Canadian boy of 15 was imprisoned by American troops (illegal), held in prison on no charge or tria l (illegal), transferred long term to a concentration camp (illegal), tortured (illegal), tried by the military (illegal) using information gained by torture (illegal).....?
Where were all the Craig Babstocks of Canadian journalism when that happened?
Where were they when Canadian officials themselves handed over Canadians for illegal torture by the US? Where were they when our own CSIS cooperated in the questioning?
Where were they when a Canadian citizen was arrested and hanged in Texas in a case marked by irregularities?
Canadian governments have historically stood by with their faces hanging out while Canadian citizens were treated improperly. But Canadian journalists have rarely given a damn - unless, of course, it's a New Brunswick journalist, and the victim is a New Brunswick potato farmer. And, the offending country is one of them there iggerant foreign places.
There's a curious news story on the front page. The province is looking for developers to put forward a plan for the current MHS building. It will be a plan that will "preserve heritage", "boost the economy", "preserve history".... In other words, it will be a giveaway to some friend of the government to do what he likes with it.
The City of Moncton's Heritage Preservation and Review Board will be consulted. Well, that inspires confidence. Hint - a heritage preservation and review board is supposed to be working with whoever is planning the future development of the city. They're not supposed to ask developers for a plan. They're supposed to have one.
The "news" story carries no hint of this. Nor does it indicate that any critic of the plan was interviewed by the reporter. This isn't a news story. It's just a press release.
The front page has another reportorial gem of the same sort on the front page. This is a big story about how seafood processing plants have to bring in workers from such places as Jamaica, The Phillipines and Mexico.
It seems that there are no workers available in this province with a high unemployment rate. Well, gee,if that's the problem, then the US is lot closer - and has a dreadfully high unemployment rate.
But - and this is reported with, presumably, a straight face, boiling and chopping up lobsters is hard work - and people from Jamaica, Mexico and The Phillipines are stronger than New Brunswickers. (Seriously. Top of p. A8.)
Again, we have a news report that asks no questions. The reporter simply wrote what he was told to write. There's a powerful smell to this story - and it's not fish.
Almost the only news in this paper is in the sports section. That is also the only section in which local reporters ask questions, and suggest some opinion. It is the section with the broadest and most intense coverage, with the fewest ads. There is no topic in The Moncton Times and Transcript so fully and professionally covered as sport.
That's good news for sports fans; not so good for a society that has to survive in the grownup world.
There's almost a full column on a hockey goon who just got his first point of the season by scoring into an empty net. Like most of the stories in the sports section, it doesn't really matter a damn one way or the other.
What we are facing is a US well into a social meltdown with, as byproducts, a return to the violent racial hatreds of a centurty ago, the rapid destruction of the rights and freedoms of the constitution, massive poverty, massive spying on ordinary citizens, complete control of every government by the wealthy. Canada is not far behind.
We are dangerously close to World War Three - and facing it with western armies which have not won a war of any size since 1945. (No. Don't kid yourself that Iraq was either a great or lasting victory.)
Here in New Brunswick, fracking is going to be rammed down our throats (literally). If they get away with it, the damage will be severe and permanent. And don't kid yourself there will be anything significant in it for us. That's not the way the bosses run New Brunswick.
Both Moncton and the province as a whole face devastating problems with fuel costs as well as fuel damage. Soon. Very soon. There is no evidence that any level of government has given any thought to it.
But we do know that the Utah basketball team has won 29 games this season.
The emperors of Rome had it right. Keep the people excited about watching games. That way, they won't even notice that you're ripping them off.
I thought of that on a Spring day in Rome as I sat in the ruins of the Colosseum. Within earshot was a part of the wall of ancient Rome. On the day the barbarians stormed the city, the Romans sitting where I was could have heard the shouts and the screams of those wounded and dying on the walls.
But nobody noticed. They saw and heard only the games.
The Moncton Times and Tribune is our Colosseum.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
April 7:...Staring at the pages....wondering....
what can I say?..there is nothing in this paper. The lead story is that municipal labour costs have gone up. But so have revenues and values, so it makes no never mind. Duh - then why is this a news story?
Brent Mazerolle reports, for anybody who can't read the for sale signs, that churches are in decline. But, we are assured, people still believe in God.
Well, for openers, very large numbers of people throughout history have not gone to church. The poor, for example, have been weak in attendance since the beginning. In fact, for centuries most church-goers had no idea what was going on in the service becaue they couldn't understand Latin. Bored congregations make so much noise that a screen had to be built so the priest and monks could conduct their service in peace.
Just take a look at some of those huge, stone churches in Moncton - and you know they weren't built by or for the poor.
And, if so many people believe in some kind of God, I see little sign of it in our political or economic lives.
In fact, in the US, where church attendance is higher and where even the filthiest comedian ends his act with "May God bless you all", they are cutting off food and health care to the poor so they can give tax breaks to the rich, and still spend half the national budget on killing. God bless America.
But there is almost no news worth reading in all of The Moncton Times and Transcript. From Reuters, we hear about how terrible the Syrian government is. Reuters admits that it gets it news from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a rebel propaganda front.
In reality, the government is brutal. So are the rebels - who are paid for and supplied by western powers, Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates...Few on either side give a damn about democracy.
What is the real local and world news?
1. We're not running out of oil or other fossil fuels. We're running out of the capacity of our planet to aborb the damage they do. We are also running out of the easy and cheap sources; so we're going for the really dangerous stuff - offshore drilling, Arctic, oil sands, shale gas....
The risks aren't risks. They're sure things. And people in the energy industries don't give a damn.
Why not?
At root, it's because business does not think long term. It needs profit. It needs it now. It thinks from quarterly report to quarterly report.
Government needs to plan long term. That's why business is incompetent to run a government. That's why New Brunswickers have been damn fools to let business run their governments.
2, Governments are supposed to think long term and, unlike business, to think of the whole society. New Brunswick governments don't. That's because they're controlled by a few corporations.
You find the same thing on a smaller scale within Moncton. City council should have a plan for a world with very expensive and dangerous energy. That plan has implications for the whole shape and size the city will need within a generation - if that long.
You think it's a pain to rely on you car with gas in $1.40s? What do you think it will be like in five years? In five months?
3. Nationally, the situation is much as it is locally. Business has always had a powerful voice in most western governments I can think of over the past 500 or so years. It has used that power to create wealth the easy way, by using government power to exploit the poor and to fight wars of pillage (always blessing them up with Godly reasons and sending off chaplains with the troops. The British general Gordon, who specialized in training native peoples to kill each other for the greater glory of British business, actually believed he was doing God's work. He used to preach on street corners in London while in full military dress.)
4.The change of the last fifty years, is that big business and the wealthy are coming out of the closet. They are now actually replacing the government. Most western banks, for example, no longer even pretend they have to obey regulations. They break the law, destroy the lives of millions, and then actually get the tax payers to reimburse them.
Mr. Irving has actually announced that he is a member of the government. He said he had formed a coalition with it. That is what coalition means - that he is a member of the government. This comes straight from the fascist textbook of Benito Mussolini.
We are also, across the western world, cutting back on freedoms, and building up the apparatus of state control - demestic spying, for example. And keep an eye on the US department of Homeland Security. It classes even environmentalists as suspected terrorists; and it's stocking up on weapons and ammunition for use in the US. In short, we're in the early 1930s mode of western Europe.
5. Internationally, we're into a world in which corporations have no national boundaries - or obligations. Those in the US and its NATO allies are following an international US lead to establish world domination - for business purposes. The first objective is to nail down Africa Thus the many wars we hear about - and the ones we don't hear about - to "change regimes". The rebellions are frequently started and paid for by the west, often with a few, wealthy arab states like Saudi Arabia chipping in. Few of the rebels have any interest in democracy. There are no good guys, usually not on either side.
At the same time, the west has to limit China's growth. That's why the US has recently expanded its Asian bases and its Australian links. It also has to re-establish its power in South America - so there are a few more democracies to be disposed of.
To these ends, the US, Britain, Israel - to some degree France - carry out propaganda, buy off individuals, even operate special ops assassins and terrorists and drone strike aircraft in so many countries that nobody has a count.
This is bad news - even for those who think it's a good idea. Western armies have been largely ineffective ever since World War Two. When the US couldn't defeat a Vietnam that was one-tenth its size, it broke American military morale. We're repearting the experience in Afghanistan. The war in Libya has created nothing but chaos. Even Iraq will probably not remain conquered.
The US and Canada have gone from being the most admired countries in the world to being the most hated. (At the most recent Olympics, Canadian athletes were warned not to wear their team jackets in public. In over a century of Olympics, such a thing had never happened to Canadians.)
Many years ago, when I was travelling in Europe, I made it a point to have a maple leaf symbol on my pack. Friends have told me that is no longer a good idea.
But you won't find any of this in The Moncton Times and Transcript. Instead, you get only the news that Mr. Irving wants you to know.
On of the biggest stories in today's paper is that a man named Couples is leading the the Masters for golf.
Wow! makes y' stop and think. Don't it?
Brent Mazerolle reports, for anybody who can't read the for sale signs, that churches are in decline. But, we are assured, people still believe in God.
Well, for openers, very large numbers of people throughout history have not gone to church. The poor, for example, have been weak in attendance since the beginning. In fact, for centuries most church-goers had no idea what was going on in the service becaue they couldn't understand Latin. Bored congregations make so much noise that a screen had to be built so the priest and monks could conduct their service in peace.
Just take a look at some of those huge, stone churches in Moncton - and you know they weren't built by or for the poor.
And, if so many people believe in some kind of God, I see little sign of it in our political or economic lives.
In fact, in the US, where church attendance is higher and where even the filthiest comedian ends his act with "May God bless you all", they are cutting off food and health care to the poor so they can give tax breaks to the rich, and still spend half the national budget on killing. God bless America.
But there is almost no news worth reading in all of The Moncton Times and Transcript. From Reuters, we hear about how terrible the Syrian government is. Reuters admits that it gets it news from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a rebel propaganda front.
In reality, the government is brutal. So are the rebels - who are paid for and supplied by western powers, Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates...Few on either side give a damn about democracy.
What is the real local and world news?
1. We're not running out of oil or other fossil fuels. We're running out of the capacity of our planet to aborb the damage they do. We are also running out of the easy and cheap sources; so we're going for the really dangerous stuff - offshore drilling, Arctic, oil sands, shale gas....
The risks aren't risks. They're sure things. And people in the energy industries don't give a damn.
Why not?
At root, it's because business does not think long term. It needs profit. It needs it now. It thinks from quarterly report to quarterly report.
Government needs to plan long term. That's why business is incompetent to run a government. That's why New Brunswickers have been damn fools to let business run their governments.
2, Governments are supposed to think long term and, unlike business, to think of the whole society. New Brunswick governments don't. That's because they're controlled by a few corporations.
You find the same thing on a smaller scale within Moncton. City council should have a plan for a world with very expensive and dangerous energy. That plan has implications for the whole shape and size the city will need within a generation - if that long.
You think it's a pain to rely on you car with gas in $1.40s? What do you think it will be like in five years? In five months?
3. Nationally, the situation is much as it is locally. Business has always had a powerful voice in most western governments I can think of over the past 500 or so years. It has used that power to create wealth the easy way, by using government power to exploit the poor and to fight wars of pillage (always blessing them up with Godly reasons and sending off chaplains with the troops. The British general Gordon, who specialized in training native peoples to kill each other for the greater glory of British business, actually believed he was doing God's work. He used to preach on street corners in London while in full military dress.)
4.The change of the last fifty years, is that big business and the wealthy are coming out of the closet. They are now actually replacing the government. Most western banks, for example, no longer even pretend they have to obey regulations. They break the law, destroy the lives of millions, and then actually get the tax payers to reimburse them.
Mr. Irving has actually announced that he is a member of the government. He said he had formed a coalition with it. That is what coalition means - that he is a member of the government. This comes straight from the fascist textbook of Benito Mussolini.
We are also, across the western world, cutting back on freedoms, and building up the apparatus of state control - demestic spying, for example. And keep an eye on the US department of Homeland Security. It classes even environmentalists as suspected terrorists; and it's stocking up on weapons and ammunition for use in the US. In short, we're in the early 1930s mode of western Europe.
5. Internationally, we're into a world in which corporations have no national boundaries - or obligations. Those in the US and its NATO allies are following an international US lead to establish world domination - for business purposes. The first objective is to nail down Africa Thus the many wars we hear about - and the ones we don't hear about - to "change regimes". The rebellions are frequently started and paid for by the west, often with a few, wealthy arab states like Saudi Arabia chipping in. Few of the rebels have any interest in democracy. There are no good guys, usually not on either side.
At the same time, the west has to limit China's growth. That's why the US has recently expanded its Asian bases and its Australian links. It also has to re-establish its power in South America - so there are a few more democracies to be disposed of.
To these ends, the US, Britain, Israel - to some degree France - carry out propaganda, buy off individuals, even operate special ops assassins and terrorists and drone strike aircraft in so many countries that nobody has a count.
This is bad news - even for those who think it's a good idea. Western armies have been largely ineffective ever since World War Two. When the US couldn't defeat a Vietnam that was one-tenth its size, it broke American military morale. We're repearting the experience in Afghanistan. The war in Libya has created nothing but chaos. Even Iraq will probably not remain conquered.
The US and Canada have gone from being the most admired countries in the world to being the most hated. (At the most recent Olympics, Canadian athletes were warned not to wear their team jackets in public. In over a century of Olympics, such a thing had never happened to Canadians.)
Many years ago, when I was travelling in Europe, I made it a point to have a maple leaf symbol on my pack. Friends have told me that is no longer a good idea.
But you won't find any of this in The Moncton Times and Transcript. Instead, you get only the news that Mr. Irving wants you to know.
On of the biggest stories in today's paper is that a man named Couples is leading the the Masters for golf.
Wow! makes y' stop and think. Don't it?
Friday, April 6, 2012
April 6: ...three letters to the editor....
...three letters to the editor...each disputing furiously with the other - though each is really on a different topic. One is about the democratic nature of a sign law. One is about favoritism shown to francophones. One is about how francophones and anglophones shouldn't really be words at all. That's what happens when you look to law as a cure-all..
You get a dozen views stirred up, none of them connected to any of the others, all attracting their own followerss, and all building hysteria with nobody on any side listening to anybody on any other side.
I favour bilingual signs all over Moncton. I favour business people who have the wit and courtesy to recognize the need for them.But I have never known a case where such a law on commercial signs has satsified either side - and has not generated hatred and hysteria. If you know of an example, I would be delighted to hear about it.
Today's editorial is really a sermon. Indeed, I suspect it may have been written by a clergyman, the type of clergyman who is full of the pious abstractions I listen to when I just cannot get to sleep any other way.
Notice the final paragraph. "True faith is found in action and how we live our lives as well as in words or holy texts.......Those who meet the challenges of and standards set by Christ know how much better the world could be."
I quite agree.
But can you imagine the irony of writing such a declaration in a column usually devoted to demeaning people like teachers and civil servants and minimum wage earners? To preaching hatred.? To telling bus drivers they aren't worth an extra buck or two an hour? To defending the behaviour of businessmen and politicians who spread poison, hog wealth, and ignore the needs of the rest of
us?
There are reasons why church attendance is dropping . And the blah piety reflected in that editorial is a major one of them.
If you want a religious message, you will find it more useful to go to Lynda MacGibbon, who understands that religion is a practical matter.She's on the op ed page.
The Moncton Times and Transcript and its owners and all the corporations who dominate this province and most of its politicians show no moral qualities of any religion I have ever heard of. That makes this sort of pious cant exceptionally distasteful in an editorial on Good Friday.
Louis Leger has a column in which he asks why we don't try downtown parking. The answer is we did try it for a long time - until fifty years ago. It didn't work. That's why we now have malls. I suppose the next op ed piece will be on why we don't try converting main street to a dirt road for horses only.
The only important story is on C1, the report that the federal government knew about the escalating costs of the F-35 fighter even before the election - and that cabinet ministers and the prime minister withheld the information from the public - AND LIED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ABOUT IT.
There was a tradition, not long ago, that a parliamentarian (including a prime minister) who lied to the house was honour-bound to resign.
But that was then. This is now. Honour is out of style. Now, a prime minister can lie, rig elections - and not even have to blush. And he certainly won't have to worry about being attacked in the editorial columns of the TandT. Not unless he decides to become a bus driver.
And the Moncton Times and Transcript can run pious hypocrisy in its editorial column.
On a note more in keeping with the true meaning of Easter in our society, a friend of mine tipped me off on the real identity of the Easter Bunny. He's chicken in disguise.
Well, it makes sense. Chickens have to deliver eggs. But who wants to look like a chicken with Easter dinner coming up?
You get a dozen views stirred up, none of them connected to any of the others, all attracting their own followerss, and all building hysteria with nobody on any side listening to anybody on any other side.
I favour bilingual signs all over Moncton. I favour business people who have the wit and courtesy to recognize the need for them.But I have never known a case where such a law on commercial signs has satsified either side - and has not generated hatred and hysteria. If you know of an example, I would be delighted to hear about it.
Today's editorial is really a sermon. Indeed, I suspect it may have been written by a clergyman, the type of clergyman who is full of the pious abstractions I listen to when I just cannot get to sleep any other way.
Notice the final paragraph. "True faith is found in action and how we live our lives as well as in words or holy texts.......Those who meet the challenges of and standards set by Christ know how much better the world could be."
I quite agree.
But can you imagine the irony of writing such a declaration in a column usually devoted to demeaning people like teachers and civil servants and minimum wage earners? To preaching hatred.? To telling bus drivers they aren't worth an extra buck or two an hour? To defending the behaviour of businessmen and politicians who spread poison, hog wealth, and ignore the needs of the rest of
us?
There are reasons why church attendance is dropping . And the blah piety reflected in that editorial is a major one of them.
If you want a religious message, you will find it more useful to go to Lynda MacGibbon, who understands that religion is a practical matter.She's on the op ed page.
The Moncton Times and Transcript and its owners and all the corporations who dominate this province and most of its politicians show no moral qualities of any religion I have ever heard of. That makes this sort of pious cant exceptionally distasteful in an editorial on Good Friday.
Louis Leger has a column in which he asks why we don't try downtown parking. The answer is we did try it for a long time - until fifty years ago. It didn't work. That's why we now have malls. I suppose the next op ed piece will be on why we don't try converting main street to a dirt road for horses only.
The only important story is on C1, the report that the federal government knew about the escalating costs of the F-35 fighter even before the election - and that cabinet ministers and the prime minister withheld the information from the public - AND LIED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ABOUT IT.
There was a tradition, not long ago, that a parliamentarian (including a prime minister) who lied to the house was honour-bound to resign.
But that was then. This is now. Honour is out of style. Now, a prime minister can lie, rig elections - and not even have to blush. And he certainly won't have to worry about being attacked in the editorial columns of the TandT. Not unless he decides to become a bus driver.
And the Moncton Times and Transcript can run pious hypocrisy in its editorial column.
On a note more in keeping with the true meaning of Easter in our society, a friend of mine tipped me off on the real identity of the Easter Bunny. He's chicken in disguise.
Well, it makes sense. Chickens have to deliver eggs. But who wants to look like a chicken with Easter dinner coming up?
Thursday, April 5, 2012
April 5: What's a human life worth?
Well, it depends. Doesn't it?
In Haiti, some human lives are worth five dollars a day or less - if their ownders can find a job. They aren't worth the cost of education or health care, of course. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living under scraps of canvas with no clean water, no sewage, and one portable toilet for every hundred or so. Their lives aren't worth anything at all.
Here in New Brunswick, Here in New Brunswick, a life is worth much more. For those with jobs, life can be worth 80 times as much as a person in Haiti. I mean you'ld think they'ld be satisfied.
But no, there are some who always want more. Take the bus drivers of Moncton, for example. Why,
they want to get all the way up to 55,000 a year. And all they have to do, says the editorial writer of the TandT is to get people safely from place to place. What a worthless, greedy bunch!
Now, if you talk to people like - oh, say, Jim Irving - greed can be good. Greed and self-interest are what make capitalism work. (No. I am not being sarcastic, and I am not making this up. There are plenty of sources for that philosophy.Try reading, for example, the gospel of the saint of the rich, Ayn Rand.) Greed is good. Greed encourages ambition and growth.
But greed only works for people who are already rich. That makes it bad for bus drivers.
Why, says the editorial writer, we can't pay bus drivers salaries that are up in the stratosphere. And well said. The Irving and Ganongs and McCains need and deserve all the sratosphere for themselves. They need so much money - we can't imagine. I mean, for a start, they have to pay high salaries to editorial writers who crunch out contemptible crap like the editorial in today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
No. Bus drivers aren't worth it. And who gives a damn if their passengers don't get delivered safely? Their passengers are pretty worthless, too. I mean, if they weren't worthless, they'ld be going places in chaufeurred limos like you-know-who.
Anyway, not to worry. If bus drivers or their families ever need help, worthless as they are, there are worthy people who will help them. I read that Mr Irving is a great philanthropist. (or does that just mean he collects stamps?)
Sadly, I note that the letters to the editor page has two letters of the sort I was afraid would soon appear. One is titled Bilingualism goes both ways. The other is Language laws running amok. Just what we need. Language hysteria.
Norbert has a column in which he points out that a person working at ten dollars a minute for 24 hours a day would have to work over 2,000 years to earn ten billion dollars. Wow! Good thing our billionaires earn more than ten dollars a minute. Much more. (Norbert doesn't say how many years it would take a bus driver to earn ten billion.)
There's a lesson in editorials and columns like these. Whatever our laws and constitutions might say, we do not have equal rights. We and our children do not have equal opportunities. We don't, as individual voters, have equal power. The dominant rights of our society are not the rights of individuals. They never have been. As St . Ayn Rand shows in her writing, the dominant rights have always been those of wealth.
In keeping with that philosophy, there is, as usual, no news worth reading in today's Times and Transcript. After all, why would anyone waste information on people who are both powerless and worthless?
There are, by oversight I'm sure, just two items worth reading in today's paper. One is Alec Bruce, who begins gently but has lots of dynamite in his third column. The other is Jody Dallaire, who makes a point that is subtle, but worth thinking about.
I'll take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Easter. Christianity can be a worthy religion if you don't get sidetracked by all that unworthy blather about love, peace, sharing..... That's the kind of nonsense that makes us waste money on bus drivers. Instead, concentrate on the important parts of the Easter message - bunnies and chocolate eggs.
Give the empty bottles and wrappers to your favourite charity, like the big philanthropists do.
In Haiti, some human lives are worth five dollars a day or less - if their ownders can find a job. They aren't worth the cost of education or health care, of course. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living under scraps of canvas with no clean water, no sewage, and one portable toilet for every hundred or so. Their lives aren't worth anything at all.
Here in New Brunswick, Here in New Brunswick, a life is worth much more. For those with jobs, life can be worth 80 times as much as a person in Haiti. I mean you'ld think they'ld be satisfied.
But no, there are some who always want more. Take the bus drivers of Moncton, for example. Why,
they want to get all the way up to 55,000 a year. And all they have to do, says the editorial writer of the TandT is to get people safely from place to place. What a worthless, greedy bunch!
Now, if you talk to people like - oh, say, Jim Irving - greed can be good. Greed and self-interest are what make capitalism work. (No. I am not being sarcastic, and I am not making this up. There are plenty of sources for that philosophy.Try reading, for example, the gospel of the saint of the rich, Ayn Rand.) Greed is good. Greed encourages ambition and growth.
But greed only works for people who are already rich. That makes it bad for bus drivers.
Why, says the editorial writer, we can't pay bus drivers salaries that are up in the stratosphere. And well said. The Irving and Ganongs and McCains need and deserve all the sratosphere for themselves. They need so much money - we can't imagine. I mean, for a start, they have to pay high salaries to editorial writers who crunch out contemptible crap like the editorial in today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
No. Bus drivers aren't worth it. And who gives a damn if their passengers don't get delivered safely? Their passengers are pretty worthless, too. I mean, if they weren't worthless, they'ld be going places in chaufeurred limos like you-know-who.
Anyway, not to worry. If bus drivers or their families ever need help, worthless as they are, there are worthy people who will help them. I read that Mr Irving is a great philanthropist. (or does that just mean he collects stamps?)
Sadly, I note that the letters to the editor page has two letters of the sort I was afraid would soon appear. One is titled Bilingualism goes both ways. The other is Language laws running amok. Just what we need. Language hysteria.
Norbert has a column in which he points out that a person working at ten dollars a minute for 24 hours a day would have to work over 2,000 years to earn ten billion dollars. Wow! Good thing our billionaires earn more than ten dollars a minute. Much more. (Norbert doesn't say how many years it would take a bus driver to earn ten billion.)
There's a lesson in editorials and columns like these. Whatever our laws and constitutions might say, we do not have equal rights. We and our children do not have equal opportunities. We don't, as individual voters, have equal power. The dominant rights of our society are not the rights of individuals. They never have been. As St . Ayn Rand shows in her writing, the dominant rights have always been those of wealth.
In keeping with that philosophy, there is, as usual, no news worth reading in today's Times and Transcript. After all, why would anyone waste information on people who are both powerless and worthless?
There are, by oversight I'm sure, just two items worth reading in today's paper. One is Alec Bruce, who begins gently but has lots of dynamite in his third column. The other is Jody Dallaire, who makes a point that is subtle, but worth thinking about.
I'll take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Easter. Christianity can be a worthy religion if you don't get sidetracked by all that unworthy blather about love, peace, sharing..... That's the kind of nonsense that makes us waste money on bus drivers. Instead, concentrate on the important parts of the Easter message - bunnies and chocolate eggs.
Give the empty bottles and wrappers to your favourite charity, like the big philanthropists do.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
April 4: The Moncton Times and Transcript is changing....
.....it's getting more boring.
Up until two years ago, the TandT was a vicious, ranting paper - rather like Norber on a bad hair day. I remember, in particular, its vicious (and ignorant) attacks on the public school system. Since then, it has simmered down. Unforturnately, the result is not an improvement. In human terms, the paper has gone from being a violent sociopath to be being a body in a coma.
In the old days, it was ill-informed, biased, coarse - a bully on a rampage. Now, it's just irrelevant and boring.
I don't know now many stories and columns we've seen on the end of the penny. Even Alec Bruce went for it today. So did Norbert.
Then we had the usual irrelevant columns by Eric Lewis and Brian Cormier on the op ed page. In most newspapers all (or at least most) of this page is given over to serious analysis and opinion.
But, here, Lewis talks about main street parking - though he knows so little about the issue, he can't drag a whole column out of it - and he has to switch to five paragraphs of geegollygoshI'msoexcitedIcoulddieI couldjustdie about his favourite pop star.
Brian Cormier, lights up the sky with the revelation that politicians are human. Thanks, Brian. We were really wondering about that.
To be fair - and for the first time in my memory, the editorial and op ed pages were saved by an editorial that was worth reading. It's about parking on Main Street. It was the automobile that destroyed Main Streets all over the world. If curbside parking were healthy for Main Steet, we wouldn't now be discussing reviving Main St. becaue it wouldn't have died in the first place. And we're going to revive it by bringing more cars back?
Have you checked gas prices lately? Have you checked the increasingly desperate efforts to get gas at whatever cost, and whatever risk to the environment? If Moncton council has the plan for the future that it claims to have, is it seriously basing that plan on the automobile?
Just about every other city in the world is looking at mass transit. The ideal for big cities seems to be the subway. For a city the size of Moncton, it would probably be the electric tram. Subways and trans build up business whereever they go. You don't start with places to go. You start with mass transit. Build that, and the places to go will spring up without you borrowing a hundred million or more.
The shopping mall did not begin with stores Stores have been around for centuries. So had specialized shopping areas.What created the mall was a new form of mass transit, the automobile. What was new about the mall was not the stores. It was the parking area.
But that sort of individualized mass transit is enormously expensive and environmentally damaging. It's days are numbered. The city should be looking at mass transit as the starting point for a vision of Moncton fifty years from now. It obviously hasn't done so.
The same lack of any plan shows up in the discussion of the sale of Castle Manor. The Times and Transcript seems to be in favour of peserving buildings of historical interest. Agreed. I ithink such buildings should be saved.
But where is the plan to decide what to do with them? If we just preserve them, then they become an economic burden, nothing more than that. So how do we plan to integrate them into the new city? And how do we plan uses for them that keep them alive and contributing to the life of the city?
If we don't plan that, then all you have is a chunk of dead history, the litter of another time - rather like the bodies of Lenin and Mao preserved in their glass tombs.
It's obvious that city council hasn't answered these questions - and that the TandT hasn't asked them. The result is that these is no plan, and the development of Moncton, as always, is really at the mercy of the most recent fast-buck artist who can sell the government on where to put a school. Or a hockey rink.
Similarly, the big question at the provincial level is shale gas development. But where is all the news about it? In recent months, we've seen passionate reporting about the use of the boot on parked cars. Scarcely a word on shale gas.
Mr. Hogan - may I call you Al? Look, Al. there is no news in your paper. Except for those few who lives have been crushed by the cancellation of the penny and those who lust to use parking meters on Main St., there is nothing to read in your paper. On balance, when I open my front door in the morning, rather than see The Times and Transcript on my gallery, I'd be happier to see Mr. Alward doing a sriptease to the tune of Mary had a little lamb......
....well.....lemme think about that....lemme take another look at what Norbert has to say about pennies.....
Up until two years ago, the TandT was a vicious, ranting paper - rather like Norber on a bad hair day. I remember, in particular, its vicious (and ignorant) attacks on the public school system. Since then, it has simmered down. Unforturnately, the result is not an improvement. In human terms, the paper has gone from being a violent sociopath to be being a body in a coma.
In the old days, it was ill-informed, biased, coarse - a bully on a rampage. Now, it's just irrelevant and boring.
I don't know now many stories and columns we've seen on the end of the penny. Even Alec Bruce went for it today. So did Norbert.
Then we had the usual irrelevant columns by Eric Lewis and Brian Cormier on the op ed page. In most newspapers all (or at least most) of this page is given over to serious analysis and opinion.
But, here, Lewis talks about main street parking - though he knows so little about the issue, he can't drag a whole column out of it - and he has to switch to five paragraphs of geegollygoshI'msoexcitedIcoulddieI couldjustdie about his favourite pop star.
Brian Cormier, lights up the sky with the revelation that politicians are human. Thanks, Brian. We were really wondering about that.
To be fair - and for the first time in my memory, the editorial and op ed pages were saved by an editorial that was worth reading. It's about parking on Main Street. It was the automobile that destroyed Main Streets all over the world. If curbside parking were healthy for Main Steet, we wouldn't now be discussing reviving Main St. becaue it wouldn't have died in the first place. And we're going to revive it by bringing more cars back?
Have you checked gas prices lately? Have you checked the increasingly desperate efforts to get gas at whatever cost, and whatever risk to the environment? If Moncton council has the plan for the future that it claims to have, is it seriously basing that plan on the automobile?
Just about every other city in the world is looking at mass transit. The ideal for big cities seems to be the subway. For a city the size of Moncton, it would probably be the electric tram. Subways and trans build up business whereever they go. You don't start with places to go. You start with mass transit. Build that, and the places to go will spring up without you borrowing a hundred million or more.
The shopping mall did not begin with stores Stores have been around for centuries. So had specialized shopping areas.What created the mall was a new form of mass transit, the automobile. What was new about the mall was not the stores. It was the parking area.
But that sort of individualized mass transit is enormously expensive and environmentally damaging. It's days are numbered. The city should be looking at mass transit as the starting point for a vision of Moncton fifty years from now. It obviously hasn't done so.
The same lack of any plan shows up in the discussion of the sale of Castle Manor. The Times and Transcript seems to be in favour of peserving buildings of historical interest. Agreed. I ithink such buildings should be saved.
But where is the plan to decide what to do with them? If we just preserve them, then they become an economic burden, nothing more than that. So how do we plan to integrate them into the new city? And how do we plan uses for them that keep them alive and contributing to the life of the city?
If we don't plan that, then all you have is a chunk of dead history, the litter of another time - rather like the bodies of Lenin and Mao preserved in their glass tombs.
It's obvious that city council hasn't answered these questions - and that the TandT hasn't asked them. The result is that these is no plan, and the development of Moncton, as always, is really at the mercy of the most recent fast-buck artist who can sell the government on where to put a school. Or a hockey rink.
Similarly, the big question at the provincial level is shale gas development. But where is all the news about it? In recent months, we've seen passionate reporting about the use of the boot on parked cars. Scarcely a word on shale gas.
Mr. Hogan - may I call you Al? Look, Al. there is no news in your paper. Except for those few who lives have been crushed by the cancellation of the penny and those who lust to use parking meters on Main St., there is nothing to read in your paper. On balance, when I open my front door in the morning, rather than see The Times and Transcript on my gallery, I'd be happier to see Mr. Alward doing a sriptease to the tune of Mary had a little lamb......
....well.....lemme think about that....lemme take another look at what Norbert has to say about pennies.....
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
April 3: Well done, Times and Transcript
On p. D9 is a story that is actually worth reading. "Energy industry fought Ottawa over greenhouse gas regulations." The gist of the story is that the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers got more than the usual consultation with the the federal government while the latter was preparing the regulations - and a strong suggestion that government frequently caved in to industry demands.
In fact, the industry runs a very wide and sophisticated campaign to influence voters and governments.
It has the Heartland Roundation in the US, and the International Climate Science Coalition in Canada, for example. This has been going for a long time. It was back in the 70s that I was approached (as an academic and journalist) to take part in a campaign to help Canadians understand that the petroleum industry, despite its reputation, was really a sweetheart. (We never got as far as discussing a price.)
Now, a question for the TandT. Is it possible that the industry in New Brunswick has excessive influence over the provincial government? And that the government frequently caves in? Now, that would be a story worth labelling "Special Report".
Then there's the front page story that Council is going to try Main St. parking for cars. (We'll pass lightly over the obvious idiocy of this.) My question on this is for an alert editor or, failing that, a live one.
Council was choosing between two absolutely contradictory policies. One was to allow parking on Main St. The other was to ban cars from parking on Main or even to travel along it in summer. Okay, one must presume that the parking option was chosen because it fits into the Master Plan for the future of Moncton.
Now, precisely how does it fit into that Master Plan? It must be a brilliant and unusual plan, because almost all other cities in the world are going in the opposite direction. All eyes, indeed, will be on Moncton. So could we have a "Special Report" on this, too?
Now - to continue on uesterday's topic - the language of commercial signs in Dieppe.
To pass a law demanding French on commercial signs will be perceived as an attack on English. Yes, I know it isn't an attack on English. I know it's reasonable to expect biligual commercial signs as a matter of courtesy. But reality doesn't matter. Perceptions do matter. And the perception of some English is that this will be an attack.
So we have Acadians being injected with a fear that their language is under threat - and anglos with a fear that their's is. Result - a match to the tinder that is already in place. And a lanugage war that New Brunswick cannot afford. And that neither side can win.
A francophone victory, of sorts, was possible in Quebec because the anglos were hopelessly outnumbered, and it was easy just to leave. Besides, the rest of Canada obviously couldn't care less about the anglos of Quebec. It is not likely that any of this would hold true in New Brunswick.
Nor will such a law make Acadians feel more secure. Quite the contrary. Thirty years after Bill 101, after the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of anglos, after thousands of visits by language police, after getting rid of English signs, after cleaning anglos out of the civil service, after losing all of its national head offices, French Quebec still lives in fear that its language is threatened. And the working class French, those who supposedly suffered because of the English, are no better off.
A language of commercial signs law will be of no value to anybody. What it will do is lead to silliness, cruelty, and anger.
Silliness? Quebec employs uncounted numbers of language police to inspect not only commercial signs, but any English at all in any office. Recently, they visited a company which had English employees, all of whom normally spoke French at work. All correspondence was in French. All signs, even on washrooms, were in French.
The language police lodged a complaint. During an inspection, they had looked even through the lunch room fridge, took pictures, compiled a report, and the company was notified of its crime.
One of the employees was named Ben. On that day, he had brought in a piece of cake for his lunch. He put it in the fridge with a note on it. It said "Ben's cake".
And it can and does take uglier turns.
A French family took their dying mother to an English hospital (which, of course, provided her with medical care in French.) But at one point the mother overheard two nurses speaking to each other in English. The enraged family took the hospital to court. Their mother had suffered the indignity of dying in English. And they won.
As it happens, I later took my dying mother to a French hospital.I noticed the nurses spoke to her only in French, though they must have realized she could not understand them. (She knew some French, but was hopelessly confused by the stroke she had suffered.) So I explained to them, in French, what the situation was. (I knew most of the nurses were bilingual.)
They simply would not do it. The law in Quebec was that French was the only official language.
In the case of Dieppe, it is annoying that business has not shown the courtesy (and good business sense) to post bilingual signs. But using the law to civilize business will do more damage than good to New Brunswick.
Meanwhile, we should all stop using history to justify anger. Yes, Acadians were badly treated historically in New Brunswick. They also did a good deal of dirty work, themselves - including the infamous Deerfield Raid. My French ancestors in Quebec treated the British colonists to the south in much the same way. In doing research I came across a few Decaries who raided British settlements, murdered, raped, took slaves, torched houses.... (I recognized the family resemblance.)
Cruel behaviour has nothing to do with language. I would have hated to be of African descent through most of the history of any part of Canada, including both French and Acadian New Brunswick, until recent years.
It's one thing to study and remember your history, all of it. It's quite a another to study only your grievances, and call that your heritage.
Is this language of signs issue being manipulated? Quite possibly. If I were a Quebec nationalist, I would be very happy to stir up a language war in New Brunswick, looking forward to the day when a Quebec nation would include, say, half of New Brunswick. Always beware of issues that exploit your emotions.
New Brunswick is now the most bilingual province in Canada.There's more to be done. But passing laws isn't the way to make progress. And the hatreds and emotions stirred up by laws take our attention away from dealing with profoundly serious issues among both French and English - problems of illiteracy, fear of open discussion, political passivity, lack of cultural life, rural isolation.... New Brunswick is a province wide open to exploitation and abuse. Passing a law on signs won't change any of that.
My sense of the province is that both anglos and Acadians are very decent people with, as always, the usual allotment of bigots and dummies on each side. After, admittedly, a late start and after an effort that largely came from the Acadians, it is now far the best example of bilingualism in Canada.
There's certainly more to do. But there's also more to do in a lot of other areas, too. Fighting over a law on signs means that we will get nothing done on language, nothing on all the other needs, and will probably cause us to slip backwards.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if The Times and Transcript were do some research on those companies resisting bilingual signs? To publish a list of them? and to do a story on what there reasons are? And maybe then to write an (intelligent) editorial?
In fact, the industry runs a very wide and sophisticated campaign to influence voters and governments.
It has the Heartland Roundation in the US, and the International Climate Science Coalition in Canada, for example. This has been going for a long time. It was back in the 70s that I was approached (as an academic and journalist) to take part in a campaign to help Canadians understand that the petroleum industry, despite its reputation, was really a sweetheart. (We never got as far as discussing a price.)
Now, a question for the TandT. Is it possible that the industry in New Brunswick has excessive influence over the provincial government? And that the government frequently caves in? Now, that would be a story worth labelling "Special Report".
Then there's the front page story that Council is going to try Main St. parking for cars. (We'll pass lightly over the obvious idiocy of this.) My question on this is for an alert editor or, failing that, a live one.
Council was choosing between two absolutely contradictory policies. One was to allow parking on Main St. The other was to ban cars from parking on Main or even to travel along it in summer. Okay, one must presume that the parking option was chosen because it fits into the Master Plan for the future of Moncton.
Now, precisely how does it fit into that Master Plan? It must be a brilliant and unusual plan, because almost all other cities in the world are going in the opposite direction. All eyes, indeed, will be on Moncton. So could we have a "Special Report" on this, too?
Now - to continue on uesterday's topic - the language of commercial signs in Dieppe.
To pass a law demanding French on commercial signs will be perceived as an attack on English. Yes, I know it isn't an attack on English. I know it's reasonable to expect biligual commercial signs as a matter of courtesy. But reality doesn't matter. Perceptions do matter. And the perception of some English is that this will be an attack.
So we have Acadians being injected with a fear that their language is under threat - and anglos with a fear that their's is. Result - a match to the tinder that is already in place. And a lanugage war that New Brunswick cannot afford. And that neither side can win.
A francophone victory, of sorts, was possible in Quebec because the anglos were hopelessly outnumbered, and it was easy just to leave. Besides, the rest of Canada obviously couldn't care less about the anglos of Quebec. It is not likely that any of this would hold true in New Brunswick.
Nor will such a law make Acadians feel more secure. Quite the contrary. Thirty years after Bill 101, after the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of anglos, after thousands of visits by language police, after getting rid of English signs, after cleaning anglos out of the civil service, after losing all of its national head offices, French Quebec still lives in fear that its language is threatened. And the working class French, those who supposedly suffered because of the English, are no better off.
A language of commercial signs law will be of no value to anybody. What it will do is lead to silliness, cruelty, and anger.
Silliness? Quebec employs uncounted numbers of language police to inspect not only commercial signs, but any English at all in any office. Recently, they visited a company which had English employees, all of whom normally spoke French at work. All correspondence was in French. All signs, even on washrooms, were in French.
The language police lodged a complaint. During an inspection, they had looked even through the lunch room fridge, took pictures, compiled a report, and the company was notified of its crime.
One of the employees was named Ben. On that day, he had brought in a piece of cake for his lunch. He put it in the fridge with a note on it. It said "Ben's cake".
And it can and does take uglier turns.
A French family took their dying mother to an English hospital (which, of course, provided her with medical care in French.) But at one point the mother overheard two nurses speaking to each other in English. The enraged family took the hospital to court. Their mother had suffered the indignity of dying in English. And they won.
As it happens, I later took my dying mother to a French hospital.I noticed the nurses spoke to her only in French, though they must have realized she could not understand them. (She knew some French, but was hopelessly confused by the stroke she had suffered.) So I explained to them, in French, what the situation was. (I knew most of the nurses were bilingual.)
They simply would not do it. The law in Quebec was that French was the only official language.
In the case of Dieppe, it is annoying that business has not shown the courtesy (and good business sense) to post bilingual signs. But using the law to civilize business will do more damage than good to New Brunswick.
Meanwhile, we should all stop using history to justify anger. Yes, Acadians were badly treated historically in New Brunswick. They also did a good deal of dirty work, themselves - including the infamous Deerfield Raid. My French ancestors in Quebec treated the British colonists to the south in much the same way. In doing research I came across a few Decaries who raided British settlements, murdered, raped, took slaves, torched houses.... (I recognized the family resemblance.)
Cruel behaviour has nothing to do with language. I would have hated to be of African descent through most of the history of any part of Canada, including both French and Acadian New Brunswick, until recent years.
It's one thing to study and remember your history, all of it. It's quite a another to study only your grievances, and call that your heritage.
Is this language of signs issue being manipulated? Quite possibly. If I were a Quebec nationalist, I would be very happy to stir up a language war in New Brunswick, looking forward to the day when a Quebec nation would include, say, half of New Brunswick. Always beware of issues that exploit your emotions.
New Brunswick is now the most bilingual province in Canada.There's more to be done. But passing laws isn't the way to make progress. And the hatreds and emotions stirred up by laws take our attention away from dealing with profoundly serious issues among both French and English - problems of illiteracy, fear of open discussion, political passivity, lack of cultural life, rural isolation.... New Brunswick is a province wide open to exploitation and abuse. Passing a law on signs won't change any of that.
My sense of the province is that both anglos and Acadians are very decent people with, as always, the usual allotment of bigots and dummies on each side. After, admittedly, a late start and after an effort that largely came from the Acadians, it is now far the best example of bilingualism in Canada.
There's certainly more to do. But there's also more to do in a lot of other areas, too. Fighting over a law on signs means that we will get nothing done on language, nothing on all the other needs, and will probably cause us to slip backwards.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if The Times and Transcript were do some research on those companies resisting bilingual signs? To publish a list of them? and to do a story on what there reasons are? And maybe then to write an (intelligent) editorial?
Monday, April 2, 2012
April 2: The hell with it....
I'll comment on just a couple of points because there's almost nothing worth talking about in this miserable sheet. It has whole pages dedicated to pictures of our social betters smiling at a party. Who could possibly give a damn?
It has another whole page of pictures of people on ski-doos.
In a quiet display of the bias that runs through our news, we are told that a New Brunswicker was held in a "vile" Lebanese prison. I don't doubt it was vile. Very few prisons are spas.But I have not seen most of our press use the word vile too describe Guantanamo Bay or the CIA torture prisons that exist around the world.
But them there Lebanese? Why, they's jes' iggerant.
The other item concerns city council. They are to decide tonight whether the great plan is to close Main Street to traffic for the summer - or to allow more curbside parking. Is this the result of all their years of study and planning for the shape of Moncton's future? The whole world is desperately replanning the shape and nature of the city, planning in a race against the forces that are changing us, like it or not.
Would it be possible for the TandT to assign a reporter with brains to report on exactly what our plan is? And what other cities are doing? And could they perhaps fill us in on where the various candidates stand on the question of city planning? I mean - would it kill the editors to do some serious reporting, and spare us the pictures of people we don't know attending a party we weren't invited to?
As it is all we get is sloppy trivia to fill up the spaces between ads.
So, instead of the usual, I'll talk, probably for a coule of blogs about the language of signs issue in Dieppe. But, first, let me tell you where I'm coming from.
I've lived most of my life as a member of a minority. I was English-speaking (of French and Scottish ancestry) growing up in one of Montreal's poorest areas. (Contrary to the myth, the majority of English in Montreal were not rich. Quite the contrary. They were the lowest level of the working class, with francophones dominating the skilled working class.)
The English situation improved beginning in the 1950s with postwar prosperity. But that had nothing to do with getting any favours. English schools in Quebec were designed to prepare their students for high school completion - and perhaps university. Not many of my generation did complete high school. (Nobody in my grade one class, including me, finished high school.) But it was possible and, as better paying office jobs expanded in the 1960s and on, the English public schools could produce graduates to fill them. The French public school couldn't.
The wealthier French (yes, there was a large class of wealthy French) sent their children to private schools where they received excellent education which opened the doors to university and the professions. The French public schools were run on the cheap ( to keep taxes down for the wealthy French who also controlled the school boards and the provincial government.)
Under that system, most French got an education that normally ended in grade nine, and consisted largely of catechism, and of history that was largely propaganda.
That nationalist movement in Quebec was led by the minority of French who were wealthy and who wanted to displace another minority group, the wealthy English.
I came to understand this, partly as a professor of Canadian History, and also in long years as a member of the provincial English rights group, Alliance Quebec, of which I became vice-president and then chairman.
The hatred was built up over generations by a mythical history on both sides. French kids were taught that the English were all rich, and had stolen their money from the French. (Though ours was probably the poorest family on a very poor block, the French kids called us les riches anglaises.) In grade 4 of my English public school, I was taught that we English were rich because we had superior business minds.
I looked around at my classmates, all wearing hand-me-downs, and all eager for a chance to get one of the bottles of free milk at recess. And I wondered. If we had such great business minds, how come we were living in the same district as all those poor French people?
We were raised to hate the French as they were raised to hate us. Curiously, we all loved the same things, Les Canadiens, Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau. We all hated Toronto. (I still do. Really. Even though I'm not quite sure why.)
And we poor English, as much as the French did, hated the rich English. They were snobbish. We had and wanted nothing in common with them. Years later, as chairman of the English rights group, I would meet a great many of the rich English. Some of them I came to like. But not many.
I saw the years of nationalist struggle as a campaign led to by the rich of both sides who stirred up the fears and hatred of the poor for their own benefit. I saw my community destroyed by it.
When I retired, I decided I'd had enough of a Quebec that would only get worse. Fear and hatred, once begun, build on themselves. French Quebec is as fearful now as it was forty years ago, despite all its protective legislation. And I had children that I didn't want to grow up in the hatred I had known. That was part of the reason I chose to move to New Brunswick.
I wanted to live in a bilingual province. As well, French society here seemed very different from what I had known in Quebec. And the English seemed to be cooperative.After Quebec, New Brunswick seemed to me to be civilized.
Well, I did exaggerate a bit on both sides. There are, among Acadians, lingering resentments and fears. There are, among some anglos, attitudes that remind me painfully of Quebec. We don't have a fire. But we do have the fuel. All we need is a match. And it doesn't take very many people to strike a match.
I don't see the issues from the viewpoint of either a francophone or an anglophone. My whole life has been spent as a member of a minority. My viewpoint is the viewpoint of a minority. In the process of being in a minority, I've learned not to hate the other side (except in the case of Toronto). I've learned that hate is used against us - to benefit somebody else.
New Brunswick still has progress to make as a bilingual society. But a wrong move could wreck the chance of any progress, and set us all back generations. All it takes is one, damn fool and a match.
And the match here is language of commercial signs. That plays right into the hands of damn fools on both sides.
More on this tomorrow.
It has another whole page of pictures of people on ski-doos.
In a quiet display of the bias that runs through our news, we are told that a New Brunswicker was held in a "vile" Lebanese prison. I don't doubt it was vile. Very few prisons are spas.But I have not seen most of our press use the word vile too describe Guantanamo Bay or the CIA torture prisons that exist around the world.
But them there Lebanese? Why, they's jes' iggerant.
The other item concerns city council. They are to decide tonight whether the great plan is to close Main Street to traffic for the summer - or to allow more curbside parking. Is this the result of all their years of study and planning for the shape of Moncton's future? The whole world is desperately replanning the shape and nature of the city, planning in a race against the forces that are changing us, like it or not.
Would it be possible for the TandT to assign a reporter with brains to report on exactly what our plan is? And what other cities are doing? And could they perhaps fill us in on where the various candidates stand on the question of city planning? I mean - would it kill the editors to do some serious reporting, and spare us the pictures of people we don't know attending a party we weren't invited to?
As it is all we get is sloppy trivia to fill up the spaces between ads.
So, instead of the usual, I'll talk, probably for a coule of blogs about the language of signs issue in Dieppe. But, first, let me tell you where I'm coming from.
I've lived most of my life as a member of a minority. I was English-speaking (of French and Scottish ancestry) growing up in one of Montreal's poorest areas. (Contrary to the myth, the majority of English in Montreal were not rich. Quite the contrary. They were the lowest level of the working class, with francophones dominating the skilled working class.)
The English situation improved beginning in the 1950s with postwar prosperity. But that had nothing to do with getting any favours. English schools in Quebec were designed to prepare their students for high school completion - and perhaps university. Not many of my generation did complete high school. (Nobody in my grade one class, including me, finished high school.) But it was possible and, as better paying office jobs expanded in the 1960s and on, the English public schools could produce graduates to fill them. The French public school couldn't.
The wealthier French (yes, there was a large class of wealthy French) sent their children to private schools where they received excellent education which opened the doors to university and the professions. The French public schools were run on the cheap ( to keep taxes down for the wealthy French who also controlled the school boards and the provincial government.)
Under that system, most French got an education that normally ended in grade nine, and consisted largely of catechism, and of history that was largely propaganda.
That nationalist movement in Quebec was led by the minority of French who were wealthy and who wanted to displace another minority group, the wealthy English.
I came to understand this, partly as a professor of Canadian History, and also in long years as a member of the provincial English rights group, Alliance Quebec, of which I became vice-president and then chairman.
The hatred was built up over generations by a mythical history on both sides. French kids were taught that the English were all rich, and had stolen their money from the French. (Though ours was probably the poorest family on a very poor block, the French kids called us les riches anglaises.) In grade 4 of my English public school, I was taught that we English were rich because we had superior business minds.
I looked around at my classmates, all wearing hand-me-downs, and all eager for a chance to get one of the bottles of free milk at recess. And I wondered. If we had such great business minds, how come we were living in the same district as all those poor French people?
We were raised to hate the French as they were raised to hate us. Curiously, we all loved the same things, Les Canadiens, Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau. We all hated Toronto. (I still do. Really. Even though I'm not quite sure why.)
And we poor English, as much as the French did, hated the rich English. They were snobbish. We had and wanted nothing in common with them. Years later, as chairman of the English rights group, I would meet a great many of the rich English. Some of them I came to like. But not many.
I saw the years of nationalist struggle as a campaign led to by the rich of both sides who stirred up the fears and hatred of the poor for their own benefit. I saw my community destroyed by it.
When I retired, I decided I'd had enough of a Quebec that would only get worse. Fear and hatred, once begun, build on themselves. French Quebec is as fearful now as it was forty years ago, despite all its protective legislation. And I had children that I didn't want to grow up in the hatred I had known. That was part of the reason I chose to move to New Brunswick.
I wanted to live in a bilingual province. As well, French society here seemed very different from what I had known in Quebec. And the English seemed to be cooperative.After Quebec, New Brunswick seemed to me to be civilized.
Well, I did exaggerate a bit on both sides. There are, among Acadians, lingering resentments and fears. There are, among some anglos, attitudes that remind me painfully of Quebec. We don't have a fire. But we do have the fuel. All we need is a match. And it doesn't take very many people to strike a match.
I don't see the issues from the viewpoint of either a francophone or an anglophone. My whole life has been spent as a member of a minority. My viewpoint is the viewpoint of a minority. In the process of being in a minority, I've learned not to hate the other side (except in the case of Toronto). I've learned that hate is used against us - to benefit somebody else.
New Brunswick still has progress to make as a bilingual society. But a wrong move could wreck the chance of any progress, and set us all back generations. All it takes is one, damn fool and a match.
And the match here is language of commercial signs. That plays right into the hands of damn fools on both sides.
More on this tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)