Adam Huras of the Legislature Bureau is the reporter. First, it's on shale gas, a topic the Moncton Times should have been reporting on about a thousand times more than it has. Nice to see a reporter take a look at it.
Secondly, Huras reports both sides of the story - and does it without evident bias or loaded language.
Yes, I would have liked a little more. For example, while we are told the number of inspectors we have to police shale gas drilling, we get no idea of what an adequate number is. We have only Mr. Northrup's word for that. Nor do we have any idea of what training inspectors need - and what training ours have.
Nor do we know whether the government will enforce its inspectors' ruling. And the record here is not promising.
More questions would have been helpful. But here. at least, we have the TandT getting the bssics right. I would give this a C. (After all, we expect professional reporters to get the basics right.)
Generally, there's nothing much in NewsToday. (I would have been surprised if there were.) The big news is of a plane crash in Pakistan that killed 127).
But so what? Quite seriously, so what? How does this affect us in any way? What does it call on us to do? Plane crashes or bus crashes, sometime ferry sinkings, in remote parts of the world usually get a big spread. Why?
They're terrible, yes. But far, far more people are killed every day by starvation, lack of medical help, brutal working conditions, drones.... These are things we can do something about. But they rarely make the news.
As well, news reports of foreign affairs seldom give us any useful information. For openeners, foreign correspondents are commonly liars. They're propaganda agents for our side. For example, they have been reporting from the start how well we are doing in Afghanistan. In fact, it has been a major disaster. The only reason Canadian troops are still there, risking their lives, is so that Harper will not look like a fool (to put it kindly) for having sent them in a combat role in the first place.
The story on the Congolese man in Fredericton who has ended is hunger strike tells us almost nothing of what it's about. The story of Congo ever since the European powers handed it over to the King of Belgium well over a century ago is one of the most horrible stories of slavery, torture, brutality, stavation, mass murder and pillage in history, a story that still goes on today. Nobody knows how many millions have been murdered. (The King of Belgium was given Congo to introduce it to Christianity and modern ways. He sure did.)
Canadian business has played a major role in this. And the failure of Harper (and his predecessors) to recognize that is beneath contempt. In all the reports of the hunger strike we have seen, there is no sense of that. In fact, at least one deep thinker at the TandT has dismissed the hunger strike as a waste of time.
There is really no point to the TandT having news stories on foreign affairs. It is far easier to get foreign news on radio and TV. (Not better, just easier.)
What would be far more useful for readers would be for the TandT to buy commentators like Gwynn Dyer who are superb at what they do, and who can give us the analysis we need to understand the news.
(Television tries to do news analysis; but it's a terrible medium for that purpose. TV is passive, mostly just sitting back and looking at flickering colours and changing camera angles. If you're a fan of hairdos, watch TV. If you want serious understanding, the best medium for it is print.)
In short, there is no point to reading most newspapers for news. You can get the bare news (plane crashes, Moncton floods, Kate and what's-his-name break up) quicker and more easily on TV.
If you want understanding, you need print - but you need it by people who are honest and who know what they are talking about.
In other 'news', Ken Marshall, Atlantic Regional President (roll of drums) for Rogers packs some wallop with the Times and Transcript. Yesterday we had a front page article apologizing for some story that went around about the parking lot at Rogers. It's one of those issues that I find it hard to give a damn about. But, apparently, Ken Marshall (drum roll) really has his knickers in a twist about it.
Yesterday, it was a front page, down on all fours, whining and slobbering apology by Brent Mazerolle. Today, it's a slobbering editorial, no less.
How different, how very different from the way the editorialist can treat bus drivers, and the way the cartoonist can make fun of people on welfare.
Norbert is, well, Norbert. In today's column, he proves he doesn't know what Soviet communism was. (Hint, it wasn't communism. It was a form of capitalism.)
On environment, he says it is misguided to put much faith in governments (way to speak up for democracy, Norbert.) He says many businesses have been way ahead of the politicians. Yeah. Like oilsands and the shale gas industry.
By the way, Norbert mentions the serious deterioration of our oceans. So how come the TandT hasn't been reporting on it? Too busy kissing up to Ken Marshall? (drum roll). Yesterday, but not in the TandT, the big story was the extent of damage caused the the Gulf of Mexico by an oil rig disaster. Remember that one? It's yet to make the Times and Transcript.
As an example of where commentary is more useful than news, take a look at Bill Belliveau's column on Harper's decision to close certain prisons while, at the same time, creating more prisoners.
I spent some time in one of those prisons - as a day visitor, working with violent prisoners. Most people can have no idea of how vile our prisons are, and how they take in extraordinarily dangerous people to make them worse. (When Belliveaus mentions double-bunking, think of it a moment. Rape in prisons is already common and vicious. What will double-bunking do to produce people who a gentler view of the human species?)
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
April 20: May I lick your boots, Mr. Rogers?
The second editorial dumps all over the bus drivers of Moncton who have the nerve to ask, like Oliver Twist, for more. I have never, in the years I have read the Irving press, never, ever seen a comment in favour of any union on any issue. They will kiss the rear ends of people who earn $25000 and more an hour, who make more in that hour than thousands of harder-working people make in a year (and who pay a higher percentage in tax. More than that, they will demand we give those people billions in loans, resources, tax breaks, gifts - and then refer to those who rip us off as philanthropists.
But bus-drivers who would like to earn one-thousandth much as our masters are dumped on.
Even the most hick of billionaires gets paid more than all the world's political leaders put together (except for the most corrupt ones.) Is it tougher or more important to run a shipyard than to govern hundreds of millions of people?
Now, switch to page one to read Brent Mazerolle's column on the Rogers parking lot. (Be careful not to touch it. It's soaked in slobber.) It seems the president of Rogers Communications for the Atlantic region (Wow! I bet he gets more than $25 an hour). Anwyay, it seems this worthy is hurt by reporting about the parking lot of the company he loves. Yes, that's the heart-rending word - loves.
I shall not raise the obvious queston about his mating habits. But read the column that falls all over itself apologizing to the important one.
Meanwhile, who gives a damn whether bus drivers can support a family on $25.00 an hour - especially when they have to pay high taxes to make up for those wealthy people who don't?
There's nothing else in section A, unless you really, really care that the Rexton village office is going to move across the street.
The next big story is in section D. Blake and Ryan are looking for a house in Connecticutt. There's even a picture of them standing there. Looking. At something.
Norbert Cunningham writes an incoherent column on David Suzuki as an ideologue. Norbert, pick up a good dictionary. There are at least three, quite different, meanings to 'ideologue'. Moreover, there is probably not one person in a thousand who knows any of those meanings. (Even you, apparently, only know one of them.)
And, contrary to what you seem to think, it is quite common for a scholar to be an ideologue in one or all of the senses. Even you, Norman, are an ideologue - and in the most negative sense of the word. That's the meaning you list under the heading IDEOLOGY in your column. (You're also wrong - or at least misleading - in your bit about the concept of the "noble savage". I have taught on this topic. Would you like me to drop off some of my notes?)
Norbert also claims he is a real environmentalist. Oh? Care to make a book of your columns critical of fracking? or of the foresting practices of your owner? Or of the air pollution problems around the refinery in St. John?
Tell you what, Norbert. Come to my current events group at the Moncton Library - May 1 at 7 pm. I'll give you all the time you like to tell people why you're right, and I'm wrong.
I hope I misunderstand the point of the de adder cartoon. If I do understand it, it is actually loathsome in its bad taste - and I would dare him to draw a similar cartoon about anybody named Irving or Ganong or McCain.
Unlike the story about the Rogers parking lot, this cartoon is an item that deserves a front page apology - with lots of slobber.
The only important story in NewsToday is about the disaster that Harper is shaping up in our penal system.
Well, there is a story that NB will partake in a hydro-fracking study. But that is scarcely a confidence-building statement. Worse, it's being led by the federal government. (Yes, the same government that is cutting review times to let environmentally damaging projects go ahead as quickly as possible.)
Almost the only foreign news is the usual propaganda from Reuters.
Alec Bruce has a column to take very seriously. There are some very ugly and scary changes occuring in the ways we conduct war. (We means the whole world, not just our side.) One of them concerns computers. China is way ahead of us on this; and we are not likely to catch up.
We are facing yet another brick wall. War no longer works. It never worked well. Now, it hasn't worked at all for almost seventy years. Trying to make it work has so disordered spending in the US, that it now has to starve its poor (cutting off foodstamps, medical care, education) to pay for robot weapons and mercenaries because its own citizens in the 'land of the brave' won't service in the military. At that, it still can't beat even small and poor countries.
And we threw away all those years from 1945 to now when we could have built some alternative.
The consequence is the US is heading for a social breakdown - and the only response any American government has shown has been to deny basic rights, to spy on everyone, to arbitrarily arrest and imprison, to build police forces of combat strength, to encourage hysteria. The constitution is close to being a dead letter.
Expect violence, and don't expect the results to be pretty no matter who wins. (Or, just read the news pages of the Irving Press, and you won't even know it's happening.)
Good column by David Suzuki who doesn't seem to realize he's a dissillusioned ideologue.
Two, excellent letters to the editor, 'Cheap food bought with hidden cost' and 'Hunger striker deserves support'.
There is also a self-serving piece of propaganda on the events centre. It, of course, gets the place of honour among letters to the editor - with a border around it.
But bus-drivers who would like to earn one-thousandth much as our masters are dumped on.
Even the most hick of billionaires gets paid more than all the world's political leaders put together (except for the most corrupt ones.) Is it tougher or more important to run a shipyard than to govern hundreds of millions of people?
Now, switch to page one to read Brent Mazerolle's column on the Rogers parking lot. (Be careful not to touch it. It's soaked in slobber.) It seems the president of Rogers Communications for the Atlantic region (Wow! I bet he gets more than $25 an hour). Anwyay, it seems this worthy is hurt by reporting about the parking lot of the company he loves. Yes, that's the heart-rending word - loves.
I shall not raise the obvious queston about his mating habits. But read the column that falls all over itself apologizing to the important one.
Meanwhile, who gives a damn whether bus drivers can support a family on $25.00 an hour - especially when they have to pay high taxes to make up for those wealthy people who don't?
There's nothing else in section A, unless you really, really care that the Rexton village office is going to move across the street.
The next big story is in section D. Blake and Ryan are looking for a house in Connecticutt. There's even a picture of them standing there. Looking. At something.
Norbert Cunningham writes an incoherent column on David Suzuki as an ideologue. Norbert, pick up a good dictionary. There are at least three, quite different, meanings to 'ideologue'. Moreover, there is probably not one person in a thousand who knows any of those meanings. (Even you, apparently, only know one of them.)
And, contrary to what you seem to think, it is quite common for a scholar to be an ideologue in one or all of the senses. Even you, Norman, are an ideologue - and in the most negative sense of the word. That's the meaning you list under the heading IDEOLOGY in your column. (You're also wrong - or at least misleading - in your bit about the concept of the "noble savage". I have taught on this topic. Would you like me to drop off some of my notes?)
Norbert also claims he is a real environmentalist. Oh? Care to make a book of your columns critical of fracking? or of the foresting practices of your owner? Or of the air pollution problems around the refinery in St. John?
Tell you what, Norbert. Come to my current events group at the Moncton Library - May 1 at 7 pm. I'll give you all the time you like to tell people why you're right, and I'm wrong.
I hope I misunderstand the point of the de adder cartoon. If I do understand it, it is actually loathsome in its bad taste - and I would dare him to draw a similar cartoon about anybody named Irving or Ganong or McCain.
Unlike the story about the Rogers parking lot, this cartoon is an item that deserves a front page apology - with lots of slobber.
The only important story in NewsToday is about the disaster that Harper is shaping up in our penal system.
Well, there is a story that NB will partake in a hydro-fracking study. But that is scarcely a confidence-building statement. Worse, it's being led by the federal government. (Yes, the same government that is cutting review times to let environmentally damaging projects go ahead as quickly as possible.)
Almost the only foreign news is the usual propaganda from Reuters.
Alec Bruce has a column to take very seriously. There are some very ugly and scary changes occuring in the ways we conduct war. (We means the whole world, not just our side.) One of them concerns computers. China is way ahead of us on this; and we are not likely to catch up.
We are facing yet another brick wall. War no longer works. It never worked well. Now, it hasn't worked at all for almost seventy years. Trying to make it work has so disordered spending in the US, that it now has to starve its poor (cutting off foodstamps, medical care, education) to pay for robot weapons and mercenaries because its own citizens in the 'land of the brave' won't service in the military. At that, it still can't beat even small and poor countries.
And we threw away all those years from 1945 to now when we could have built some alternative.
The consequence is the US is heading for a social breakdown - and the only response any American government has shown has been to deny basic rights, to spy on everyone, to arbitrarily arrest and imprison, to build police forces of combat strength, to encourage hysteria. The constitution is close to being a dead letter.
Expect violence, and don't expect the results to be pretty no matter who wins. (Or, just read the news pages of the Irving Press, and you won't even know it's happening.)
Good column by David Suzuki who doesn't seem to realize he's a dissillusioned ideologue.
Two, excellent letters to the editor, 'Cheap food bought with hidden cost' and 'Hunger striker deserves support'.
There is also a self-serving piece of propaganda on the events centre. It, of course, gets the place of honour among letters to the editor - with a border around it.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
April 19: Today is a big day (for me)....
When I began this blog site some 16 months ago, a dozen viewers was a good day. Now, it reaches 150 to 200 a day. It was a long and slow start; but today, perhaps even as a I write this, it will reach a grand total of 30,000 hits.
Curiously, a large number, sometimes as much as 20% of the total has come from the United States. That percentage has been consistent from the start. Why Americans are interested in The Moncton Times, I have no idea.
More surprising has been the recent growth in Russian readers, actually surpassing American readership for the past week.
Of course, most of that could be spy agencies on both sides.
Nothing much in the TandT today. There are a couple of curious articles on fracking. (A10 and A12) It seems the federal government (always picking on corporations) is going to conduct a massive study to see if fracking causes earthquakes - since earthquakes often occur after fracking is carried out.
American studies show that they do. But, says the article, it may not be the fracking that does it. It could be the disposal of the wastewater from fracking.
Isn't that like saying that junk food doesn't cause obesity; it's eating it that causes obesity?
The other one is Alward's announcement that there will be public discussion of the new shale gas regulations once they are published.
????Why does public discussion require his permission? Aren't all government measures open to public discussion?
And why does he tell us a cabinet minister will set the terms for the discussion? In a democracy, isn't it up to us to set those terms?
Young David also has quite an unexpected sense of humour. He says we don't really need much discussion because he says there has "...already been a full blown discussion of shale gas in the news media..."
Actually, the fact that the TandT would actually print such a statement suggests it has a sense of humour, too. Alward and the editorial staff of The Times and Transcript could have the makings of a great comedy team.
NewsToday is the usual blowoff. It's major foreign news, coming from Reuters as usual, gives the impression it is mainly Syrian government troops
that are breaking the ceasefire. Most other sources I have seen, ones that are more reliable than Reuters, have a different opinion - and a wider one. Not only are they saying the rebel forces are ignoring the ceasfire, but they are also chasing any rebels who want democracy out of the country.
Many things are possible in Syria. Democracy is not one of them. Remember Libya? Heard much about the joy of democracy there? Egypt? That's the place where ten candidates, two of them major contenders for the presidency, have been told they're not allowed to run. The African rebellions are not about democracy. And the last thing the US wants to see in Africa is democracy.
On editorial and op ed pages, I have minor quibbles with Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire - in the only two items in the whole paper worth reading.
For Alec, he underestimates the importance of the War of 1812 to the US. But his general point is dead on. The War of 1812 celebration is a political spin game; and any historian who is associated with it should be ashamed. And, as he says, the Canadian charter of our rights is far superior to anything in the US - or in most other ocuntries. (An American historian of some note once confided to me that no country has ever followed the American model. The idea that the whole world wants American-style democracy is pure myth. Always has been.)
Similarly, I think Jody Dallaire is quite right. I just would not separate morality from human rights as she suggests. I think that morality is fundamental to human rights. Human rights are given because (or if) we love our neighbour, we refuse to kill, or slander, or covet or steal.
The problem is that some people (large numbers of them Christian) think that morality means pointing a self-righteous finger at whatever they disapprove of. Unlike the impression given by some Moncton preachers, there is no commandment that says "That shalt scorn sinners, and pat thyselves on thy backs for being righteous, and shalt get, without need for a security search, a ticket to heaven."
Morality has nothing to do with being vindictive or goody-goody. It is the foundation of any civilized order. I criticize some of our economic leaders not simply because I happen to disagree with their actions and think they are harmful - I disagree because they harmful BECAUSE they are immoral.
For those patient (or lonely)enough to be still reading, I'll try to answer a question from anonymous. It appears in yesterday's comments section and asks re nuclear and missile testing, what the hell is going on in North Korea>
Well, it's one of those simple things that's complicated.
At one level, what North Korea is doing is quite simple and no threat to anybody.
Big countries beat up little ones, steal their resources, and impoverish their people. That's because big ones have better armies. Now - if you were a small country - but could get just one nuclear bomb....
....you wouldn't shoot it at somebody because that would be suicidal. The big ones also have lots more nuclear weapons to shoot back with . But.....
...if you have one or just a few, the risk of retaliation might, just might, make them decide that the winning wouldn't be worth the cost.
The threats to world peace are not the small players in the nuclear game. It's the big ones, starting with the US, then Russia, China, India, Israel (yes. it's big time). They are the ones that, in a pinch, might start a nuclear war. Those are the ones to worry about - not Britain or France or North Korea - or Iran, (even if it had one or twenty.)
The motivation for North Korea was probably not to threaten anybody. It was to deter. But... But, then there's level 2.
The rulers of North Korea are, you know, people. And, like the people who rule the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, they can be prone to do foolish, selfish, and short-sighted things.
That's why we're in a world in which capitalism is being destroyed by our leading capitalists, why in the US democracy has been destroyed by American economic and political leaders who benefited from it.
North Korea, like all countries, is like that. Only more so. It is a country that does not exist for any reason other than to serve the vanities and whims of the familiy that rules it. Now, families like that can produce some very odd progeny. You can check the emperors of Rome, for example - or the later generations of wealthy families.
At level 1, what North Korea is doing is very sensible in the context of these insane times. At level 2 - I am damned if I know what is happening.
Curiously, a large number, sometimes as much as 20% of the total has come from the United States. That percentage has been consistent from the start. Why Americans are interested in The Moncton Times, I have no idea.
More surprising has been the recent growth in Russian readers, actually surpassing American readership for the past week.
Of course, most of that could be spy agencies on both sides.
Nothing much in the TandT today. There are a couple of curious articles on fracking. (A10 and A12) It seems the federal government (always picking on corporations) is going to conduct a massive study to see if fracking causes earthquakes - since earthquakes often occur after fracking is carried out.
American studies show that they do. But, says the article, it may not be the fracking that does it. It could be the disposal of the wastewater from fracking.
Isn't that like saying that junk food doesn't cause obesity; it's eating it that causes obesity?
The other one is Alward's announcement that there will be public discussion of the new shale gas regulations once they are published.
????Why does public discussion require his permission? Aren't all government measures open to public discussion?
And why does he tell us a cabinet minister will set the terms for the discussion? In a democracy, isn't it up to us to set those terms?
Young David also has quite an unexpected sense of humour. He says we don't really need much discussion because he says there has "...already been a full blown discussion of shale gas in the news media..."
Actually, the fact that the TandT would actually print such a statement suggests it has a sense of humour, too. Alward and the editorial staff of The Times and Transcript could have the makings of a great comedy team.
NewsToday is the usual blowoff. It's major foreign news, coming from Reuters as usual, gives the impression it is mainly Syrian government troops
that are breaking the ceasefire. Most other sources I have seen, ones that are more reliable than Reuters, have a different opinion - and a wider one. Not only are they saying the rebel forces are ignoring the ceasfire, but they are also chasing any rebels who want democracy out of the country.
Many things are possible in Syria. Democracy is not one of them. Remember Libya? Heard much about the joy of democracy there? Egypt? That's the place where ten candidates, two of them major contenders for the presidency, have been told they're not allowed to run. The African rebellions are not about democracy. And the last thing the US wants to see in Africa is democracy.
On editorial and op ed pages, I have minor quibbles with Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire - in the only two items in the whole paper worth reading.
For Alec, he underestimates the importance of the War of 1812 to the US. But his general point is dead on. The War of 1812 celebration is a political spin game; and any historian who is associated with it should be ashamed. And, as he says, the Canadian charter of our rights is far superior to anything in the US - or in most other ocuntries. (An American historian of some note once confided to me that no country has ever followed the American model. The idea that the whole world wants American-style democracy is pure myth. Always has been.)
Similarly, I think Jody Dallaire is quite right. I just would not separate morality from human rights as she suggests. I think that morality is fundamental to human rights. Human rights are given because (or if) we love our neighbour, we refuse to kill, or slander, or covet or steal.
The problem is that some people (large numbers of them Christian) think that morality means pointing a self-righteous finger at whatever they disapprove of. Unlike the impression given by some Moncton preachers, there is no commandment that says "That shalt scorn sinners, and pat thyselves on thy backs for being righteous, and shalt get, without need for a security search, a ticket to heaven."
Morality has nothing to do with being vindictive or goody-goody. It is the foundation of any civilized order. I criticize some of our economic leaders not simply because I happen to disagree with their actions and think they are harmful - I disagree because they harmful BECAUSE they are immoral.
For those patient (or lonely)enough to be still reading, I'll try to answer a question from anonymous. It appears in yesterday's comments section and asks re nuclear and missile testing, what the hell is going on in North Korea>
Well, it's one of those simple things that's complicated.
At one level, what North Korea is doing is quite simple and no threat to anybody.
Big countries beat up little ones, steal their resources, and impoverish their people. That's because big ones have better armies. Now - if you were a small country - but could get just one nuclear bomb....
....you wouldn't shoot it at somebody because that would be suicidal. The big ones also have lots more nuclear weapons to shoot back with . But.....
...if you have one or just a few, the risk of retaliation might, just might, make them decide that the winning wouldn't be worth the cost.
The threats to world peace are not the small players in the nuclear game. It's the big ones, starting with the US, then Russia, China, India, Israel (yes. it's big time). They are the ones that, in a pinch, might start a nuclear war. Those are the ones to worry about - not Britain or France or North Korea - or Iran, (even if it had one or twenty.)
The motivation for North Korea was probably not to threaten anybody. It was to deter. But... But, then there's level 2.
The rulers of North Korea are, you know, people. And, like the people who rule the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, they can be prone to do foolish, selfish, and short-sighted things.
That's why we're in a world in which capitalism is being destroyed by our leading capitalists, why in the US democracy has been destroyed by American economic and political leaders who benefited from it.
North Korea, like all countries, is like that. Only more so. It is a country that does not exist for any reason other than to serve the vanities and whims of the familiy that rules it. Now, families like that can produce some very odd progeny. You can check the emperors of Rome, for example - or the later generations of wealthy families.
At level 1, what North Korea is doing is very sensible in the context of these insane times. At level 2 - I am damned if I know what is happening.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
April 18: Prime Minister escapes death!!
Just yesterday, the big, foreign news story was that Harper was walking on a beach with his pants rolled up. Today, a nation sighs with relief and church bells are ringing at the news he was not killed in an earthquake in Chile.
We know he survived because reporters asked me if he was alive. And he nodded.
Well, that's not sure proof. But it's encouraging.
In fact, nobody was killed in the earthquake. Nobody was injured. And there seems to have been no damage.
That is the big, foreign news story of the day in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Why was he in Chile? Who cares? Nobody asked. Canada is facing an economic wall. We have large investments in South America. Those investments flourished in a South America dominated by the US. Now,in their round of meetings with Couth American leaders, Obama and Harper have been told to get stuffed. That suggests a tough future. But not in the pages of the TandT.
Any evidence of shale gas problems (earthquakes, poisoned land and water, escaping methane, illnesses)? Not in the pages of the Times and Transcript - though you will find them in other papers all over the world.
Windsor has had it lease renewed despite having broken regulations and drilling without local permission. They and the others intend to come in, do what they want, push us around, destroy the environment, rip off most of the money to be made while paying the least they can, then leave us with a ruined province and an expensive and impossible bill for the cleanup. All with the full cooperation of the Irving papers. (You know them. They're the ones owed by that great philanthropist.)
Eric Lewis longs for a day when the East Coast Music Awards will be held every day year-round in Moncton. Heavy thinking. Heavy. Somebody give him a yo-yo, and send him out to play.
The only item in the whole paper worth reading is Alec Bruce on David Suzuki. It's sad column about Suzuki and environmentalism; and it mourns what it sees as an anger that has replaced the hope in Suzuki.
I can add just a little to that from my contact with Japanese-Canadians. When the Canadian government , in World War Two, gave Japanese-Canadians in BC twenty minutes to pack whatever they could carry, then took them off first to a cattle barn then to detention camps - and confiscated everything else they owned - they humiliated these Canadian citizens with a humiliation that is as profound today as when it was first inflicted. I have known and worked closely with many of them. They rarely show their anger and humiliation but, oh, it is there and all the more because it is repressed.
Suzuki worked for a oause that could only worsen his feelings toward those who control this country. Corporations, blinded by greed and by short term thinking, and supported by the news media they own, are destroying us. In the longer term, not much longer, they are also destroying themselves. But they are too self-centred and too short-sighted to understand that.
The callousness and stupidity of those who controlled Canada 70 years ago is matched and more than matched by the callousness of stupidity of those who control it tody, assisted by their legions of bootlickers and sell-outs in politics and the news media.
That's why Suzuki might feel angered and discouraged. It's all those 'philanthropists' he has seen in our lives.
As for real news the TandT missed, well....
When I was a kid, I read all about the British Empire and how it spread civilization and Christianity and, oh, did just wonderful things.
Well, when the Empire was collapsing in the fifties, The British government decided it would be wise to burn certain files - tens of thousands of them. It feared they might be misunderstood - you know, stuff about widespread use of torture camps, of beatings, of killing of civlians (quite innocent people..) of plunder, of exploitation. (One of those beaten and damaged for life was a young man in Kenya who simply wanted his country to be free. He was arrested on no charge, and thoroughly beaten by police so that he was crippled. His name was Obama. His grandson later became famous in American politics.
However, it seems some of the files, thousands of them - enough to fill 200 metres of shelves, were not burned, but hidden. And they've just been discovered. And by law, they have to be opened to the public. Interesting. But not interesting enough for the TandT which feels the real issue of the day is we need more music award shows, more poison in our earth and water,and more hockey arenas.
I often wonder whether our economic and political leaders understand the scale of the disaster they are creating for us and for themselves. They are destroying democracy. History suggests that any replacement for democracy will be a horror.
Money and power do not indicate either brains or ability. Kings, emperors and Tsars learned that the hard way - hard for themselves and hard for the people they ruled. We are very close to the edge. Close to the edge across the western world, and beyond it.
And, in New Brunswick, fracking is the issue that may be the last push.
That's why the Times and Transcript seldom mentions it.
We know he survived because reporters asked me if he was alive. And he nodded.
Well, that's not sure proof. But it's encouraging.
In fact, nobody was killed in the earthquake. Nobody was injured. And there seems to have been no damage.
That is the big, foreign news story of the day in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Why was he in Chile? Who cares? Nobody asked. Canada is facing an economic wall. We have large investments in South America. Those investments flourished in a South America dominated by the US. Now,in their round of meetings with Couth American leaders, Obama and Harper have been told to get stuffed. That suggests a tough future. But not in the pages of the TandT.
Any evidence of shale gas problems (earthquakes, poisoned land and water, escaping methane, illnesses)? Not in the pages of the Times and Transcript - though you will find them in other papers all over the world.
Windsor has had it lease renewed despite having broken regulations and drilling without local permission. They and the others intend to come in, do what they want, push us around, destroy the environment, rip off most of the money to be made while paying the least they can, then leave us with a ruined province and an expensive and impossible bill for the cleanup. All with the full cooperation of the Irving papers. (You know them. They're the ones owed by that great philanthropist.)
Eric Lewis longs for a day when the East Coast Music Awards will be held every day year-round in Moncton. Heavy thinking. Heavy. Somebody give him a yo-yo, and send him out to play.
The only item in the whole paper worth reading is Alec Bruce on David Suzuki. It's sad column about Suzuki and environmentalism; and it mourns what it sees as an anger that has replaced the hope in Suzuki.
I can add just a little to that from my contact with Japanese-Canadians. When the Canadian government , in World War Two, gave Japanese-Canadians in BC twenty minutes to pack whatever they could carry, then took them off first to a cattle barn then to detention camps - and confiscated everything else they owned - they humiliated these Canadian citizens with a humiliation that is as profound today as when it was first inflicted. I have known and worked closely with many of them. They rarely show their anger and humiliation but, oh, it is there and all the more because it is repressed.
Suzuki worked for a oause that could only worsen his feelings toward those who control this country. Corporations, blinded by greed and by short term thinking, and supported by the news media they own, are destroying us. In the longer term, not much longer, they are also destroying themselves. But they are too self-centred and too short-sighted to understand that.
The callousness and stupidity of those who controlled Canada 70 years ago is matched and more than matched by the callousness of stupidity of those who control it tody, assisted by their legions of bootlickers and sell-outs in politics and the news media.
That's why Suzuki might feel angered and discouraged. It's all those 'philanthropists' he has seen in our lives.
As for real news the TandT missed, well....
When I was a kid, I read all about the British Empire and how it spread civilization and Christianity and, oh, did just wonderful things.
Well, when the Empire was collapsing in the fifties, The British government decided it would be wise to burn certain files - tens of thousands of them. It feared they might be misunderstood - you know, stuff about widespread use of torture camps, of beatings, of killing of civlians (quite innocent people..) of plunder, of exploitation. (One of those beaten and damaged for life was a young man in Kenya who simply wanted his country to be free. He was arrested on no charge, and thoroughly beaten by police so that he was crippled. His name was Obama. His grandson later became famous in American politics.
However, it seems some of the files, thousands of them - enough to fill 200 metres of shelves, were not burned, but hidden. And they've just been discovered. And by law, they have to be opened to the public. Interesting. But not interesting enough for the TandT which feels the real issue of the day is we need more music award shows, more poison in our earth and water,and more hockey arenas.
I often wonder whether our economic and political leaders understand the scale of the disaster they are creating for us and for themselves. They are destroying democracy. History suggests that any replacement for democracy will be a horror.
Money and power do not indicate either brains or ability. Kings, emperors and Tsars learned that the hard way - hard for themselves and hard for the people they ruled. We are very close to the edge. Close to the edge across the western world, and beyond it.
And, in New Brunswick, fracking is the issue that may be the last push.
That's why the Times and Transcript seldom mentions it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
April17: The debate that ran off the rails....
It was bound to happen. The letters to the editor section has a letter that not only jumps the rails on the lanugage of signs train, but fizzes off into a swamp.
We are told in the letter that the language of signs law is an attack on the freedom that our forefathers (but presumably not foremothers) built - and that our young men (but not women) gave their lives for. The letter also demands that a mayor who supports such a law should stay away from Remembrance Day services which commememorate those who died for freedomm of expression.
Some days, I despair of Canadian's lack of knowledge of the history of this country, and of its wars.
Canada, since 1867, has fought in some half-dozen wars - depending on what you count as a war. Our freedom of expression was not at stake in any of them. In fact, Canadian freedom of expression has suffered more from Canadian leaders than it has from any external enemy this country has encountered. The War Measures Act was not imposed on us by Germany. It was done by our elected government (elected by our forefathers since our foremothers didn't have the vote at the time.) Harper is doing more damage to freedom of expression than Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito could even imagine doing.
We fought in the Boer War because British millionaires wanted us to help them plunder South Africa. We fought in World Wars One and Two because Britain wanted us to (ever wonder why it took the US so long to get into both of those wars? Does that mean Americans were opposed to freedom of expression?)
We fought in the Russian revolution - for reasons that had nothing to do with freedom of expression. Ditto for Korea and Afghanistan. (I taught military history - if anybody cares to debate these points).
I also taught Canadian history. Our forefathers were pretty lax in demanding freeedom of expression. In fact, our foremothers did better than their mates did when they won the vote for women.)
Cool the rhetoric. This is a good example of how things can go haywire, and illustrates how anglo businessmen in Dieppe with brains should have acted more sensibly.
The editorial, "New life for an old school" is the usual, mindless stuff.
It advocates that MHS be preserved as a centre for the performing arts because we can make a lot of money out of it. Do the editorial writers know what a plan for the future is?
In a future that looks like one of continued American decline and increased cost of travel, does it make sense to invest tens of millions (at least) in a tourist draw which may not be in for good days?
And it will be a cultural icon? What culture? This is a city that doesn't think it's culture unless beer is served in plastic cups. What will the city and province do to encoourage culture other than (what Alan Cochrane, in his column) refers to as a kitchen party.
This editorial is an idea for the future that comes right out of the blue, has no reference to any plan, and no sense of what the future might be like. Planning in this city means coming up with almost any idea, then looking for a justification for it.
Most of the rest of the paper just has nothing. Stephen Harper has been in South America on a visit which has illustrated how steeply our influence (and, even more so, US influence) is going down the toilet in this important market. And what is the TandT report? A picture and story about Harper walking on the beach with his pants rolled up.
A full page is given over to speeches by the Liberal leadership contenders, neither of whom have anything of substance to say. They're almost down to the the Alward level when that worthy was blathering about how the real issue to have a government that would listen to us.
These aren't news reports. They're press release, campaign ads. What about other parties besides the conservative liberals and the liberal conservatives? What are their views? Aren't we allowed to know? Doesn't Mr. Irving want the other parties to get public attention? Boy! Talk about freedom of speech...
Meanwhile, there's little to say about this paper because so little of substance is in it. For example, as a result of pressure from corporations and Atlantic Insitute for Market Studies, we have forced on us an education system made expensive by excessive testing, made damaging to the students by all the testing, damaging to teachers and schools because of an absurdly unscientific system of ranking schools - but demanded by corporate bosses who know nothing whatever about education (but everything about arrogance). And who want to get more control over it so they can line their pockets with tax dollars.
The best public school system in the world is Finland's which has only one, standardized test - in grade eleven - and few exams of any sort. It has little in the way of national curriculum, leaving teachers free to do what they are trained to do.
Finns are probably the best educated people in the world. So New Brunswick would be - if we could get the corporate bosses and their political flunkies out of the way. But we're never seen a word about it.
More missing news? Well, they could have carried the story about the phenomenal rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects (children with no arms or legs, divided brains, etc.) and infant mortality in Iraq as the result of American use of "sophisticated" weapons. Some, like depleted uranium, will be toxic for as long as the planet will last.
There are two items worth reading. Alec Bruce asks questions about the Titanic foofaraw. Richard Gwynne has a very sensible column about the Falklands. (Of course, to understand it, you'll have to get a real newspaper with the story of what's going on in the Falklands.)
We are told in the letter that the language of signs law is an attack on the freedom that our forefathers (but presumably not foremothers) built - and that our young men (but not women) gave their lives for. The letter also demands that a mayor who supports such a law should stay away from Remembrance Day services which commememorate those who died for freedomm of expression.
Some days, I despair of Canadian's lack of knowledge of the history of this country, and of its wars.
Canada, since 1867, has fought in some half-dozen wars - depending on what you count as a war. Our freedom of expression was not at stake in any of them. In fact, Canadian freedom of expression has suffered more from Canadian leaders than it has from any external enemy this country has encountered. The War Measures Act was not imposed on us by Germany. It was done by our elected government (elected by our forefathers since our foremothers didn't have the vote at the time.) Harper is doing more damage to freedom of expression than Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito could even imagine doing.
We fought in the Boer War because British millionaires wanted us to help them plunder South Africa. We fought in World Wars One and Two because Britain wanted us to (ever wonder why it took the US so long to get into both of those wars? Does that mean Americans were opposed to freedom of expression?)
We fought in the Russian revolution - for reasons that had nothing to do with freedom of expression. Ditto for Korea and Afghanistan. (I taught military history - if anybody cares to debate these points).
I also taught Canadian history. Our forefathers were pretty lax in demanding freeedom of expression. In fact, our foremothers did better than their mates did when they won the vote for women.)
Cool the rhetoric. This is a good example of how things can go haywire, and illustrates how anglo businessmen in Dieppe with brains should have acted more sensibly.
The editorial, "New life for an old school" is the usual, mindless stuff.
It advocates that MHS be preserved as a centre for the performing arts because we can make a lot of money out of it. Do the editorial writers know what a plan for the future is?
In a future that looks like one of continued American decline and increased cost of travel, does it make sense to invest tens of millions (at least) in a tourist draw which may not be in for good days?
And it will be a cultural icon? What culture? This is a city that doesn't think it's culture unless beer is served in plastic cups. What will the city and province do to encoourage culture other than (what Alan Cochrane, in his column) refers to as a kitchen party.
This editorial is an idea for the future that comes right out of the blue, has no reference to any plan, and no sense of what the future might be like. Planning in this city means coming up with almost any idea, then looking for a justification for it.
Most of the rest of the paper just has nothing. Stephen Harper has been in South America on a visit which has illustrated how steeply our influence (and, even more so, US influence) is going down the toilet in this important market. And what is the TandT report? A picture and story about Harper walking on the beach with his pants rolled up.
A full page is given over to speeches by the Liberal leadership contenders, neither of whom have anything of substance to say. They're almost down to the the Alward level when that worthy was blathering about how the real issue to have a government that would listen to us.
These aren't news reports. They're press release, campaign ads. What about other parties besides the conservative liberals and the liberal conservatives? What are their views? Aren't we allowed to know? Doesn't Mr. Irving want the other parties to get public attention? Boy! Talk about freedom of speech...
Meanwhile, there's little to say about this paper because so little of substance is in it. For example, as a result of pressure from corporations and Atlantic Insitute for Market Studies, we have forced on us an education system made expensive by excessive testing, made damaging to the students by all the testing, damaging to teachers and schools because of an absurdly unscientific system of ranking schools - but demanded by corporate bosses who know nothing whatever about education (but everything about arrogance). And who want to get more control over it so they can line their pockets with tax dollars.
The best public school system in the world is Finland's which has only one, standardized test - in grade eleven - and few exams of any sort. It has little in the way of national curriculum, leaving teachers free to do what they are trained to do.
Finns are probably the best educated people in the world. So New Brunswick would be - if we could get the corporate bosses and their political flunkies out of the way. But we're never seen a word about it.
More missing news? Well, they could have carried the story about the phenomenal rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects (children with no arms or legs, divided brains, etc.) and infant mortality in Iraq as the result of American use of "sophisticated" weapons. Some, like depleted uranium, will be toxic for as long as the planet will last.
There are two items worth reading. Alec Bruce asks questions about the Titanic foofaraw. Richard Gwynne has a very sensible column about the Falklands. (Of course, to understand it, you'll have to get a real newspaper with the story of what's going on in the Falklands.)
Monday, April 16, 2012
Nov. 16: Northern polar lakes are home to........
....giant monster fish.
Yes. That's a real headline of the lead story of Section C "News Today" in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Imagine, a giant monster. That's so much more interesting than a midget monster.
Turns out that a researcher caught a big trout up north. But then we are told that people of up north catch them all the time, and have been catching them for centuries.
Oh. So what's the story? Well, there is none. And that pretty well sums up the whole paper for Nov. 16, the one I paid a buck fifty for because the copy I subscribe to rarely gets delivered on time.
Look - if you have an e reader, you can get the best English newspaper in the world for $1.99 a copy. You can get it for a month for under $20.00. It will be there, the instant you wake up. You don't have to creep out barefoot through the snow for it. If you want something edgier, there's The Independent. French? Le Monde is a good paper. You can get them from every continent, in every language. And delivery is easier and more reliable than the Moncton Times and Transcript.
True, they don't usually carry Moncton local news.But, then, neither does the TandT. What it has for local news is small town boosterism, propaganda, and the mandatory photo of four people you've never seen before smiling and holding up a giant cheque from some fast food dealer to the Committee against Obesity.
Today's editorial calls on all Monctonians to turn out and vote in the civic and schools elections, to make their opinons known. How the hell are they supposed to form opinions? The Moncton Times and Transcript doesn't give them any information.
Exactly what is the plan for the City's future? What is it based on? Gas at a dollar thirty for ever and ever? The layout of Moncton now is essentially that of a 1920s village - but with shopping malls. Will that be practical in twenty years? In ten years? Is it practical now?
We need to improve our bus service? Why? Will a bus service be practical in ten years?
In short, you start a plan for the future - not by building a crushingly expensive hockey rink (or convention centre or anything else). You start with an informed evaluation of what real life is going to be like in the future.
That evaluation does not seem to have happened. What we're getting is overexcited councillors snapping up whatever proposal the latest fast buck artist is pushing.
Before we even start planning, we need a capable evaluation of what we're planning for. And a SPECIAL REPORT by Brent Mazerolle does not count as a capable evaluation. The Times and Transcript has told us nothing of what the issues are. It has peddled propaganda for a man who wants us to pay for his hockey rink. And more propganda to move a school to a remote development where it will help a promoter sell houses - when it's probably not a very bright idea for a housing development to be there in the first place.
Every decision in this city - and this province - is spur of the moment, quick buck, lots of hoopla and no thought - and the Moncton Times is a key reason why it happens that way.
The most important world news? Well,the sinking of the Titanic. Ceremonies in Halifax, it seems, brought closure to hundreds of grief-stricken families. Lord love a duck!
Hundreds of families are still grief stricken a century later? Grieving over relatives they never saw and who died decades before they were even born? And a candlelight procession in Halifax brought them closure? That is surely pure slobber. And that's the TandT's idea of news of the day. There's more important news in Miss Manners' column.
Craig Babstock gets his britches in a tangle because a man is going on a hunger strike to move people like us to react to the slaughter, torture, brutalization, robbery that has gone on for almost a hundred and fifty years - with Canadian businessmen right in the middle of it. Millions have died, and are still dying in Congo.It has been one of the most savage episodes in history.
The hunger striker should choose some other method of protesting? Right. Maybe he could appeal to the Craig Babstocks and the Times and Tribunes of this world to tell us about what has been happening in Congo. Good luck on that one.
Babstock ends his self-righteous posturing with a note that he means no disrespect to Ghandi whose hunger strike of 1940s tried to bring peace to India. He means no disrespect to Ghandi? Then what the hell does he mean?
I enjoyed Alec Bruce's column. It's lighter than his usual one, but still a good read.
To my amazement, Allen Abel produced a gritty and chilling column. Read it.
Read also the three letters to the editor on language. Do you think there is the slightest chance that any of those writers changed anybody's opinion?
That's what happens when you have to turn to law to address social problems. I wish the English business people of Dieppe had the brains to realize that. New Brunswick doesn't need a language war. English and French should not be fighting each other. They should be fighting those English business people. That's a war we can win.
Is there any news today's TandT missed? Well...
1.There's the US army Lt. Colonel - born-again, evangelical Christian, super-patriot, proud of the army, three combat tours, highly regarded as a military authority, sent by congress to report on the Afghanistan war. So he did, getting wounded in the process.
His report showed that the US generals have been lying about progress in Afghanistan for years, that the foreign correspondents of the news media (like Reuters) have been peddling those lies without question, that the truth is the war was lost a long time ago. The Afghanistan army and police we are training hate us and NATO and the US far more than they hate the Taliban, that not only will no government survive, but it is likely that Afghanistan has been reduced to such a state of povery and destruction that no society at all will survive, that the people of AFghanistan, even in the cities, are dying of starvation and cold, that hundred of billions have been squandered in corruption both in Afghanistan and the US, and tens of thousands of lives have been squandered.
Congress promptly hid the report. The colonel - remember, he's a seriously evangelical Christian and a patriot, felt honour-bound to put the story out.
So it appeared two days ago in The Guardian. But not in the Moncton Times and Transcript.
2. If you check a site called International Clearing House for last Saturday, you will find a list of over 20 American corporations that paid no income tax whatever - despite each having billions of dollars of profit.
Both Obama and Mitt Romney, very high in income, paid tax at a rate similar to that of someone earning $35,000 a year. How come those stenographers who call themselves reporters at the TandT don't dig up figures for the profits made by Irving industries - and the real tax rate they pay?
That's a private matter? No, it's not. Irving comes to us often enough for gifts and contracts and favours. How much is this outfit costing us? What share of taxes does it pay?
Besides, Obama and Romney both made public their incomes and their taxes. They did it because they were in politics. So is Mr. Irving. He told us that himself over a year ago when he said he was in coalition with the government.
I'm sorry so much of this is not about the Times and Transcript. The trouble is there's really almost nothing in it to talk about. Think about that e reader. And, if you must have the local news, drop into a coffee shop that has free copies of the TandT.
Yes. That's a real headline of the lead story of Section C "News Today" in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Imagine, a giant monster. That's so much more interesting than a midget monster.
Turns out that a researcher caught a big trout up north. But then we are told that people of up north catch them all the time, and have been catching them for centuries.
Oh. So what's the story? Well, there is none. And that pretty well sums up the whole paper for Nov. 16, the one I paid a buck fifty for because the copy I subscribe to rarely gets delivered on time.
Look - if you have an e reader, you can get the best English newspaper in the world for $1.99 a copy. You can get it for a month for under $20.00. It will be there, the instant you wake up. You don't have to creep out barefoot through the snow for it. If you want something edgier, there's The Independent. French? Le Monde is a good paper. You can get them from every continent, in every language. And delivery is easier and more reliable than the Moncton Times and Transcript.
True, they don't usually carry Moncton local news.But, then, neither does the TandT. What it has for local news is small town boosterism, propaganda, and the mandatory photo of four people you've never seen before smiling and holding up a giant cheque from some fast food dealer to the Committee against Obesity.
Today's editorial calls on all Monctonians to turn out and vote in the civic and schools elections, to make their opinons known. How the hell are they supposed to form opinions? The Moncton Times and Transcript doesn't give them any information.
Exactly what is the plan for the City's future? What is it based on? Gas at a dollar thirty for ever and ever? The layout of Moncton now is essentially that of a 1920s village - but with shopping malls. Will that be practical in twenty years? In ten years? Is it practical now?
We need to improve our bus service? Why? Will a bus service be practical in ten years?
In short, you start a plan for the future - not by building a crushingly expensive hockey rink (or convention centre or anything else). You start with an informed evaluation of what real life is going to be like in the future.
That evaluation does not seem to have happened. What we're getting is overexcited councillors snapping up whatever proposal the latest fast buck artist is pushing.
Before we even start planning, we need a capable evaluation of what we're planning for. And a SPECIAL REPORT by Brent Mazerolle does not count as a capable evaluation. The Times and Transcript has told us nothing of what the issues are. It has peddled propaganda for a man who wants us to pay for his hockey rink. And more propganda to move a school to a remote development where it will help a promoter sell houses - when it's probably not a very bright idea for a housing development to be there in the first place.
Every decision in this city - and this province - is spur of the moment, quick buck, lots of hoopla and no thought - and the Moncton Times is a key reason why it happens that way.
The most important world news? Well,the sinking of the Titanic. Ceremonies in Halifax, it seems, brought closure to hundreds of grief-stricken families. Lord love a duck!
Hundreds of families are still grief stricken a century later? Grieving over relatives they never saw and who died decades before they were even born? And a candlelight procession in Halifax brought them closure? That is surely pure slobber. And that's the TandT's idea of news of the day. There's more important news in Miss Manners' column.
Craig Babstock gets his britches in a tangle because a man is going on a hunger strike to move people like us to react to the slaughter, torture, brutalization, robbery that has gone on for almost a hundred and fifty years - with Canadian businessmen right in the middle of it. Millions have died, and are still dying in Congo.It has been one of the most savage episodes in history.
The hunger striker should choose some other method of protesting? Right. Maybe he could appeal to the Craig Babstocks and the Times and Tribunes of this world to tell us about what has been happening in Congo. Good luck on that one.
Babstock ends his self-righteous posturing with a note that he means no disrespect to Ghandi whose hunger strike of 1940s tried to bring peace to India. He means no disrespect to Ghandi? Then what the hell does he mean?
I enjoyed Alec Bruce's column. It's lighter than his usual one, but still a good read.
To my amazement, Allen Abel produced a gritty and chilling column. Read it.
Read also the three letters to the editor on language. Do you think there is the slightest chance that any of those writers changed anybody's opinion?
That's what happens when you have to turn to law to address social problems. I wish the English business people of Dieppe had the brains to realize that. New Brunswick doesn't need a language war. English and French should not be fighting each other. They should be fighting those English business people. That's a war we can win.
Is there any news today's TandT missed? Well...
1.There's the US army Lt. Colonel - born-again, evangelical Christian, super-patriot, proud of the army, three combat tours, highly regarded as a military authority, sent by congress to report on the Afghanistan war. So he did, getting wounded in the process.
His report showed that the US generals have been lying about progress in Afghanistan for years, that the foreign correspondents of the news media (like Reuters) have been peddling those lies without question, that the truth is the war was lost a long time ago. The Afghanistan army and police we are training hate us and NATO and the US far more than they hate the Taliban, that not only will no government survive, but it is likely that Afghanistan has been reduced to such a state of povery and destruction that no society at all will survive, that the people of AFghanistan, even in the cities, are dying of starvation and cold, that hundred of billions have been squandered in corruption both in Afghanistan and the US, and tens of thousands of lives have been squandered.
Congress promptly hid the report. The colonel - remember, he's a seriously evangelical Christian and a patriot, felt honour-bound to put the story out.
So it appeared two days ago in The Guardian. But not in the Moncton Times and Transcript.
2. If you check a site called International Clearing House for last Saturday, you will find a list of over 20 American corporations that paid no income tax whatever - despite each having billions of dollars of profit.
Both Obama and Mitt Romney, very high in income, paid tax at a rate similar to that of someone earning $35,000 a year. How come those stenographers who call themselves reporters at the TandT don't dig up figures for the profits made by Irving industries - and the real tax rate they pay?
That's a private matter? No, it's not. Irving comes to us often enough for gifts and contracts and favours. How much is this outfit costing us? What share of taxes does it pay?
Besides, Obama and Romney both made public their incomes and their taxes. They did it because they were in politics. So is Mr. Irving. He told us that himself over a year ago when he said he was in coalition with the government.
I'm sorry so much of this is not about the Times and Transcript. The trouble is there's really almost nothing in it to talk about. Think about that e reader. And, if you must have the local news, drop into a coffee shop that has free copies of the TandT.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
starting late on a Saturday night....(okay. completed this time.)
There are a couple of stray thoughts that keep coming to mind in recent months. It begins with something I've realized for some time, now. There are certain words that have become so terrible to us that they can no longer be used. Well, they can be used when talking history, when it happened. But you can't use them in any discussion of the world today. Two of those words are fascist and nazi.
It's understood. nazi can be used to describe only a man with a funny moustache and hair combed down over his forehead. a man who worked, starved, gassed innocent people by the million, a little man who shot himself in the mouth some 67 years ago.
Fascist? Well, I think it gets tangled with the little man who shot himself in the mouth - though it's not necessarily the same.
The other stray thought is that I wonder how a highly advanced and educated, fairly religious, sophisticated country like Germany could so easily drift under the control of a crackpot mass-murderer of no special education, a man who had never held a steady job in his life or ever done much of anything.
I mean - that couldn't happen to us.
Could it?
Well, of course not. We were against Hitler from the start. We saw right through him. We even went to war to end his evil rule. Yes.
Actually, that's not true. We did not see right through either Hitler or Mussolini in the 1930s. Nor did we go to war to end his evil rule. It's important to remember that when you read or hear today's news.
Our world is going in the same direction it went in the 1930s. Despite our common beliefs, we did not do see it happening then, we did not condemn it then. And, for the most part, we do not see it or condemn it now.
From 1919 on, Hitler devoted his life to the National Socialist Party. Think of that. A young man without a job or any significant job skill was able to live, to travel, to hire staff, to equip party members with uniforms and weapons, build up the whole apparatus of a national party - without ever holding a job.
Where did the money come from? And why?
Hint. The Russiam revolution had just happened. Fighting was still going on. German corporations were worried, with good reason, that communism that the revolution might spread to Germany. Nor were they the only ones.
American and Canadian business leaders were shaken by the Russian revolution, as well as events closer to home like the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.
The financial support that made Hitler and his National Socialist Party a force came from business leaders all over the western world. (They knew that, despite its name, there was nothing socialist about it.)
Some, many, of the business leaders were also almost insanely anti-semitic. Henry Ford was the most infamous of these. He gave so much financial and political support to Hitler that Hitler kept a huge protrait of Ford in his office.
Prominent political parties in the western world, perhaps taking the lead from their own party paymasters, publicly admired Hiter. Canadian leader Mackenzie King wrote in his diary that when he gazed into Hitler's eyes, he saw the spirit of Joan of Arc.
Hitler never actually won an election. (He got more popular vote than Harper - but not much.) But, much like Harper, it was enough to build power to create what he needed to become a dictator - he needed to create fear. He had to find a common enemy for all, good Germans. The country was disillusioned with democracy - but not yet ready to accept a dictator. That's where the creation of fear and a common enemy came in.
In the paragraph above, change the word Hitler to Bush or Obama or Harper or Blair or Cameron.... Change the words common enemy to moslem extremist. Stir in orange alert, plot, Iran, FBI sting operaton....
And in earlier paragraphs, whereever I use the name of a corporation, you can still use it in the same way - with a few new ones added.
Canada and the US, with the general approval of their people, refused to allow German-Jewish refugees to get into Canada. In fact, they were still refusing them several years AFTER 1945. Canada, when it accepted British child refugees early in the war, made it clear to Britain it would not accept any British children who were Jewish. The man who made that message clear was our High Commissioner to Britain, that incredible snob and anti-democract, Vincent Massey).
However, despite the silence and even the slobbering praise of our politicians and economic leaders, the Canadian and American people knew well what was going on. They knew about the imprisonment of Jews. They knew about the ghettoes. They knew about the state-sponsored murders and brunings and thefts. They knew about Hitler's plans for conquest.
It was so well known that Charlie Chaplin made a brilliantly successful film about it. (The wealthy and politically powerful of the US would hound him for that for the rest of his life.)
When it was obvious that Hitler planned to use the 1936 Olympics as a propaganda stage for Naziism and dictatorship, enough people understood that well enough to mount a campaign to cancel the year's Olympics.
But the Olympic Committee was (and is) a toy for the world's super rich. Led by a wealthy American named Avery Brundage, it got its puppets in journalism and politics to whitewash Hitler's Germany. So the games went on.
Canada did not declare war on Germany in 1939 because it was Nazi. Though they weren't much interested in joining Nazi or fascist parties in Canada, many of us, and certainly most of our political and business leaders thought Hitler and Mussolini were good for Europe. (And our anti-semitism was not all that far behind Germany's). Canada declared war because Britsin did. No other reason.
Britain declared war not because it saw anything wrong with Nazi behaviour or ideology. It declared because British business knew it could not compete in world markets in Hitler were to unite Europe under his control.
The US did not declare war in 1839 because 1.it didn't give a damn what Hitler did. He was in no position to threaten the US - and he was protecting private business against all them them there socialists. 2. Anyway, the American focus was on getting control of Asian markets.3.The US had no objection to Hitler's racism.
In fact, when war came for the US almost three years later, it was not the US that declared war on Germany. It was the other way around. Germany declared war on the US - at the end of December, 1941, three weeks after Pearl Harbour. Until that time (and some say a little later), American corporations were a valuable part of the the Nazi war effort.
So what created a Hitler and a Mussolini?
1. Disillusionment with democracy.
2. The greed of the wealthy who resisted taxes and needed social programmes so they could amass their private wealth.
3. Political parties that were pretty well owned by the rich.
4. The creation of fear to justify the destruction of the freedoms and rights of a democracy.
5. The identification of a common enemy (untermensch - subhumans) for people to fear and to blame all their problems on.
6. The use of fear and that common enemy to camouflage the real reasons for military aggression and plundering.
That's what happened in 1932. That's how Hitler and fascism became bad words that we're not allowed to use any more.
Now, let's look around us in 2012. How will we name what we are watching?
Do you still wonder how an educated and civilized Germany slipped into such horror? Then what is it you think we're doing?
I think I'll still use the old words for what is happening now.
It's understood. nazi can be used to describe only a man with a funny moustache and hair combed down over his forehead. a man who worked, starved, gassed innocent people by the million, a little man who shot himself in the mouth some 67 years ago.
Fascist? Well, I think it gets tangled with the little man who shot himself in the mouth - though it's not necessarily the same.
The other stray thought is that I wonder how a highly advanced and educated, fairly religious, sophisticated country like Germany could so easily drift under the control of a crackpot mass-murderer of no special education, a man who had never held a steady job in his life or ever done much of anything.
I mean - that couldn't happen to us.
Could it?
Well, of course not. We were against Hitler from the start. We saw right through him. We even went to war to end his evil rule. Yes.
Actually, that's not true. We did not see right through either Hitler or Mussolini in the 1930s. Nor did we go to war to end his evil rule. It's important to remember that when you read or hear today's news.
Our world is going in the same direction it went in the 1930s. Despite our common beliefs, we did not do see it happening then, we did not condemn it then. And, for the most part, we do not see it or condemn it now.
From 1919 on, Hitler devoted his life to the National Socialist Party. Think of that. A young man without a job or any significant job skill was able to live, to travel, to hire staff, to equip party members with uniforms and weapons, build up the whole apparatus of a national party - without ever holding a job.
Where did the money come from? And why?
Hint. The Russiam revolution had just happened. Fighting was still going on. German corporations were worried, with good reason, that communism that the revolution might spread to Germany. Nor were they the only ones.
American and Canadian business leaders were shaken by the Russian revolution, as well as events closer to home like the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.
The financial support that made Hitler and his National Socialist Party a force came from business leaders all over the western world. (They knew that, despite its name, there was nothing socialist about it.)
Some, many, of the business leaders were also almost insanely anti-semitic. Henry Ford was the most infamous of these. He gave so much financial and political support to Hitler that Hitler kept a huge protrait of Ford in his office.
Prominent political parties in the western world, perhaps taking the lead from their own party paymasters, publicly admired Hiter. Canadian leader Mackenzie King wrote in his diary that when he gazed into Hitler's eyes, he saw the spirit of Joan of Arc.
Hitler never actually won an election. (He got more popular vote than Harper - but not much.) But, much like Harper, it was enough to build power to create what he needed to become a dictator - he needed to create fear. He had to find a common enemy for all, good Germans. The country was disillusioned with democracy - but not yet ready to accept a dictator. That's where the creation of fear and a common enemy came in.
In the paragraph above, change the word Hitler to Bush or Obama or Harper or Blair or Cameron.... Change the words common enemy to moslem extremist. Stir in orange alert, plot, Iran, FBI sting operaton....
And in earlier paragraphs, whereever I use the name of a corporation, you can still use it in the same way - with a few new ones added.
Canada and the US, with the general approval of their people, refused to allow German-Jewish refugees to get into Canada. In fact, they were still refusing them several years AFTER 1945. Canada, when it accepted British child refugees early in the war, made it clear to Britain it would not accept any British children who were Jewish. The man who made that message clear was our High Commissioner to Britain, that incredible snob and anti-democract, Vincent Massey).
However, despite the silence and even the slobbering praise of our politicians and economic leaders, the Canadian and American people knew well what was going on. They knew about the imprisonment of Jews. They knew about the ghettoes. They knew about the state-sponsored murders and brunings and thefts. They knew about Hitler's plans for conquest.
It was so well known that Charlie Chaplin made a brilliantly successful film about it. (The wealthy and politically powerful of the US would hound him for that for the rest of his life.)
When it was obvious that Hitler planned to use the 1936 Olympics as a propaganda stage for Naziism and dictatorship, enough people understood that well enough to mount a campaign to cancel the year's Olympics.
But the Olympic Committee was (and is) a toy for the world's super rich. Led by a wealthy American named Avery Brundage, it got its puppets in journalism and politics to whitewash Hitler's Germany. So the games went on.
Canada did not declare war on Germany in 1939 because it was Nazi. Though they weren't much interested in joining Nazi or fascist parties in Canada, many of us, and certainly most of our political and business leaders thought Hitler and Mussolini were good for Europe. (And our anti-semitism was not all that far behind Germany's). Canada declared war because Britsin did. No other reason.
Britain declared war not because it saw anything wrong with Nazi behaviour or ideology. It declared because British business knew it could not compete in world markets in Hitler were to unite Europe under his control.
The US did not declare war in 1839 because 1.it didn't give a damn what Hitler did. He was in no position to threaten the US - and he was protecting private business against all them them there socialists. 2. Anyway, the American focus was on getting control of Asian markets.3.The US had no objection to Hitler's racism.
In fact, when war came for the US almost three years later, it was not the US that declared war on Germany. It was the other way around. Germany declared war on the US - at the end of December, 1941, three weeks after Pearl Harbour. Until that time (and some say a little later), American corporations were a valuable part of the the Nazi war effort.
So what created a Hitler and a Mussolini?
1. Disillusionment with democracy.
2. The greed of the wealthy who resisted taxes and needed social programmes so they could amass their private wealth.
3. Political parties that were pretty well owned by the rich.
4. The creation of fear to justify the destruction of the freedoms and rights of a democracy.
5. The identification of a common enemy (untermensch - subhumans) for people to fear and to blame all their problems on.
6. The use of fear and that common enemy to camouflage the real reasons for military aggression and plundering.
That's what happened in 1932. That's how Hitler and fascism became bad words that we're not allowed to use any more.
Now, let's look around us in 2012. How will we name what we are watching?
Do you still wonder how an educated and civilized Germany slipped into such horror? Then what is it you think we're doing?
I think I'll still use the old words for what is happening now.
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