April 7: Sunday musings....

The member of parliament (Conservative) for St. John, New Brunswick, is fascinating study in how much civilization has progressed in the last century. In the bad, old days, people like him would
have been locked in the basement immediately after birth so the neighbours would never see them. Now, we elect them members of parliament.

 

He first came to my attention when his government killed the long gun registry. A jubilant John Williamson leaped to his feet in the House of Commons and, said, "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God, we are free at last."

 

The words came, of course, from Martin Luther King as he struggled to free African-Americans
from discrimination. I was glad to see that Mr. Williamson was literate enough to be aware of the term.

 

But junking a gun registry is hardly in the same category as struggling for freedom from oppression. Some people disliked the registery. But they were scarcely living in chains and slavery. Indeed, for him to use the term in the context o registering guns could well be seen as an insult and a trivialization of Reverend King and all African Americans.

 

That may be why Hansard (the parliamentary record) toned down his words a bit. But it seems that
 he insisted on his original words going down in history. So I just dismissed him as a lout. But then
 a reader sent the site below to me.

 

http://www.fiertemonctonpride.ca/media_ressources/press_en/25-pr22032013-1.html

 

It's a flier distributed in Williamson's name with his smiling face at the top. And it's the most disgraceful political pamphlet that's been produced in this country since the heyday of the Nazi
party in the Canada of the 1930s.
 

 The pamphlet says ( and I translate it here into words that better match its intellecual level), "Them dirty redskins, now, they ain't civilized like us white folks. They's iggerant and lazy and they steal.So us konservatifs, we's goin' to slap 'em good. We's gonna find out how they spend their money, and how much their iggerant chiefs run off with."

 

This completely overlooks the realities of poverty and government neglect and government dishonesty and government failure to keep its promises for some two centuries. And it does so in a way that makes New Brunswick sound like the American deep south of a century ago.

 

The flyer encourages ignorance, bigotry, hatred...and racism. If he had written it about Jews,
he might well be facing a court right now on charges of promoting hatred. And if he had written it about the wealthy of Canada, Stephen Harper would have spanked his little bum so hard that the
 very idea of "sittiing" in parliament would make him squirm.

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 The irony of it is that this appeal for openess and frankness and real democracy comes from the member of a party that is the most secretive in Canadian history. In fact, Mr. Williamson has publicly complained that his own leader had denied him the right speak in the House on a subject Mr. Williamson thought important.  Google John Williams M.P. and read his own words on the censorship of MPs.

Harper has also refused to tell us how much money is lost by tax evasion each year - though he now has the amount, and the names of who's been doing it.

He makes it from hard to impossible for scientists, especially those concerned with the environment, to make their studies public.

He demands that even the librarians at the National Library pledge allegiance - not to Canada, but to  his government. And he has been extremely uncooperative with legal efforts to examine the robocalls case.

This is also the man who destroyed some 90% of environmental protection for our lakes and streams - and hid it in a massive "budget" bill so nobody would notice.

But, boy, he and Williamson will sure make them there injuns 'fess up and be transparent like a democracy should be.
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On a related topic, Harper has yet to make it clear how much it is going to cost us to cancel the order for a wildly overpriced jet fighter that we foolishly contracted to buy before it had even been test flown. It will certainly cost us thousands of jobs since some of the work on the new fighter was being done here - and it won't be nowo that we've cancelled.

Nor is it at all clear why we need such a sophisticated (even if it doesn't work yet) fighter plane. Our whole military seems to be designed to fight as part of a western alliance to fight overseas wars against highly advanced countries. But that is unlikely to happen - and if it did, it would be nuclear war within days. So it wouldn't matter who won.

Mr. Harper and our military should take time to sit down together, and try to re-establish contact with the real world. The only success for a highly sophisticated, expensively equipped military in the last sixty years was the American invasion  of Grenada by a giant aircraft carrier and thousands of troops. Grenada had no navy or airforce, and its army of part-time soldiers numbered in the hundreds.

The American military is designed for massive conquest of distant nations. It's probably not possible; it's an economic disaster; it almost certainly will lead to military disaster.  But it goes on because it is good for a stunningly corrupt defence industry.

Why is Mr. Harper playing cheerleader for this idiocy?
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Still, Harper is in no great danger so long as the best the Liberals can come up with is Justin Trudeau, a man whose only qualification seems to be his family name.

My. What a sour Sunday!




 

April 6: ?????????

Early yesterday, the story of the year broke. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has cracked the files of offshore banks which act as tax havens for the very rich and for corporations all over the world who want to hide their money from the taxman. These banks maintain the highest possible security. But the ICIJ got around the security. It has the record of every transaction, and it has names, all of them.

Yes sir, we have among us a very high class of bums and thieves.

CBC carried the story yesterday. Early yesterday. But there's not a word in the Times and Transcript. Any newspaper that could miss a story as big as that, and miss it long after it has been made public, is deliberately withholding information.

There are hundreds of Canadians with billions of dollars hidden away to escape taxes. But the Times and Transcript sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil. Of course, we know that none of these high-class thieves would be New Brunswickers. But still, well, it takes a pretty incompetent and/or lying newspaper to miss such a story.

Has Harper not commented? Isn't this the Harper who was about to introduce a snitch bill to reward people who report such cases? Well, now he has all the names and all the transactions handed to him on a platter. And will he act?

Dream on. He'll act on a few to impress us. But not on the biggies.
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Brent Mazerolle, in his column on the op ed, shrugs his shoulders at those people who dismiss his writing as "spin-doctoring" - which means  twisting a story to give a false impression. Now read his lead story on page A1.

The headline pretends that this is a report on comments by Louis Leger, president of Downtown-centreville 's board of directors and an advocate of the events centre. Now read the first, four paragraphs of Mazerolle's report. Those first four paragraphs are quite clearly worded as Mazerolle's personal opinion. They are not a news report. They are his opinion - his "spin-doctoring". No competent (or ethical) editor would have allowed that.  In fact, the whole "news" report is a diatribe pointed at Councillor Bourgeois who dared to disagree on the value of an events centre.

More spin-doctoring? Mazerolle talks about how the TandT has presented both sides of the question.  And that's the second piece of ass-covering for the TandT in two days. Yes, the TandT did occasionally mention that there was some opposition to the centre. But their coverage of the antis can scarcely be called frequent or equal or informative. And this whole, news story was wildly slanted.

Ah, it brought back memories of those weeks when my only source of news was Mao's New China News Agency.

A12 carried a big story about the Kent byelection that tells us nothing whatever. There is no sense here of the policies of any of the three parties. I would rather read something by Don Cherry on the importance of peace and love.
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There's a much better piece of reporting in NewsToday, page 3, "N.B. medical society rejected medicare cap". It's pretty clear what the feud between Health Minister Flemming and the medical people is really all about.

The medical people are focussed on the provision of health care.  The govenment is focussed on money. The government wants to run our whole society as if it were a business. But a society is not a business. and it won't work if it's run like a business.

This whole crisis seems to have been forced on us by the Irvings with their Six Sigma phantasy of running businesses by playing with statistics to improve efficiency. There's some disagreement over whether it works even for business with its only interest being profit.

But it certainly will not work for education, health or any other area of government. Government does, of course, have to be efficient. But its main purpose is not to generate profits. It is to serve people. Six Sigma is a disaster for government in this province. I do wish Mr. Irving would get his nose out of government and his fingers out of the budget. That's our government and our money.

If Mr. Irving wants to be in government, he should do it as we have to do it, by getting elected. I would dearly love to see what his platform would be - and what possible credentials he has to be in government. What is he trained to do?  I mean, besides getting tax breaks and grants from governments.
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The fuss over North Korea takes a whole page - as it should. The danger of this turning into a nuclear war - possibly involving China - is real. But the wording of all the reports paints North Korea as the aggressor. Yeah, like the way Grenada, Libya, Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia were aggressors against the US, threatening it by concentrating their massive armies, navies and air forces off the US coast to practice invasions.

It is quite possible the US wants a war with China. Certainly, it wants to surround China with American bases - and North Korea would be a magnificent addition to that.

It may even desperately need to get military control of China. For five hundred years, western prosperity has leaned heavily on military power to build empires- South Africa for gold, Rhodesia for diamonds, Central America for cheap labour and agricultural land for factory farms, China for its huge market.

Through the Second World War, it was always fixed in President Roosevelt's mind that the US must get control of the empires its allies were losing. Today, that is more important than ever. That's why we're having so many wars as in Iraq, Libya, Syria - Islam has nothing to do with it. The wars are about resources, markets, and strategic positions. That's why Africa is being torn apart.

The US economy is in much bigger trouble than is being admitted. So the reliance on war has to be increased.

The leader of the North Korea may well be a nutbar. So are the economic leaders of the west, the ones who own the politicians,  - and they are desparate. It would be nice to see a news story that recognizes that.
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The editorial is cute.  It says we must step up resource development, and then squeeze the developers for every penny we can get. Yeah. Squeeze the rich. New Brunswick governments have been really good at that.

Bill Beliveau's column is a mix of sense and nonsense. He wants to reinvigorate Main St. Okay. There are cities all over the world, important ones, that no longer have a "main" street. But it sounds nice and it sounds essential, so okay.

So let's build the world's biggest nude massage parlour, staffed by nude heterosexuals (to please Crandall University) with a partitioned section for gays and lesbians so they won't offend Baptist nudists. We could also build all our schools and churches into it (meaning people and business seven days a week), and have an indoor beach with real sand that would be open all year.

It would attract tourists, and really pep up the bookstore across the street. And I'll bet it could be done for not much more than 500 million.

Of course, it's silly. But it's more likely to make a profit and to draw business to Moncton than an events centre is.

Incidentally, Bill, a person who criticizes Irving is not necessarily launching a diatribe. Nor is he necessarily attacking an Irving simply because Irving is "successful". Check the meaning of diatribe. Then read your own  paragraph that begins at the bottom of the first column. Now, that is a diatribe.

Norbert has a useful column on the use of words. I'll just add a short piece of advice. Most dictionaries define words according to  how people use them. Some, very few, define them for what they should mean.

For example, some dictionaries will define "die" as a state of excitement because many people use it that way. (As in, "I could die; I could just die.")

If you want to be sure of what a word is really supposed to mean, use the Oxford English Dictionary.

On op ed, I have no idea what Brent Mazerolle's column is about. I suspect that he doesn't know, either.

The other op ed is on the proposed pipeline to St. John. It's by a Jim Quinn who is president and CEO of the St. John Port Authority. And he's in favour. Well, I guess that's it. Mr. Irving likes it. Jim Quinn likes it. Brunswick News likes it.

All in favour?

Approved.

April 5: Wow!!!

There is a news story in today's TandT that is worth reading. There is an opinion column that is well worth reading. Most of the paper is, as usual, crap. But, this time there are a couple of items that, ordinarily, the Irving press would refuse to publish. What's going on?

The Irving press is usually stuffed with propaganda - praise for the events centre, for shale gas, pipelines - for anything the Irvings are in favour of. News stories of things they disapprove of - the environment, Dr. Cleary's report on shale gas - either don't get reported -or appear in stories so butchered that advocates of these things appear to be extremists.

When I complained to the Atlantic Press council about a sample of this, its response was the one I knew from experience that I would get. I had accused the TandT of heavy bias in its reporting. The response?

Well, said the council,  they sometimes published a letter that disagreed with the paper's position. Therefore, it wasn't biased. Press councils don't exist to keep newspapers honest. They exist to cover up their dishonesty with doubletalk. One letter on the back page is enough to prove that issue after issue of propaganda is not bias. Right.

But today - well, you have to read Stever Malloy at the top of the op ed page. He is bang on about the nature of politics, business, and public attitudes in the province. I have never before seen a column like that in the TandT. You really do have to read this one. It's honest. It's informed. and it's clear. This is, without doubt, the column of the year. (But you can bet it's not going to get any awards.)

Then go to page A7, "Risks of shale gas outweigh benefits". Environment Professor Brad Walters delivers a powerful warning that the risks and costs of shale gas development are very real, indeed - and cannot be relieved, not even by what Mr. Alward calls "tough regulations". Reporter Alan Cochrane not only reports the story, but reports it honestly - very unlike the treatment of Dr. Cleary's speech.  In other words, a professor who is actually in the field of environment studies is on the side of Dr. Cleary, not on the side of the kissups like Frank  McKenna and a U de Moncton professor (who is NOT an expert on environment studies).

This is radical stuff for the TandT. What's happening?

I don't know. But the reality is there to be seen. Two items that normally would not have been permitted by the Irvings and their servile editors really have appeared. My guess?

The Irving press is covering its unattractive ass. Even by the standards of the generally biased Canadian journalism world, Brunswick News is a national disgrace. I certainly had enough editors tell me that before I moved here. That's why it has periodically been under investigation by the Senate, and always with blistering reports.  Just as the Atlantic Council plays it, the TandT  is planting the occasional honest report as evidence that it really is impartial.

There is also an excellent letter to the editor, ""Station billboard deemed sexist".
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On A2, daily coverage of candidates in the Kent by-election continues, today with Susan Levi-Peters of the NDP. It's better than the coverage given to the Liberal and Conservative candidates - not because of the quality of the reporting, but because ms. Levi-Peters actually said something. She identified the major problem in her region; and she discussed it at some length.
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In Newstoday, there's another story on the Koreas crisis. Like the others, the crisis is being caused by North Korea.It's simply assumed that it's the North Koreans. No news story I have ever seen has ever even hinted that might not be so. But think about it.

Which is the country which has troops, bombers, ships on somebody else's border to rehearse for an attack on that somebody else?

Which country has by far the world's large stock of nuclear weapons? And which one is using dummy nuclear bombs for its rehearsal?

Which is the country which has most to fear from the other?

Which is the country which for over a  hundred years has had an ambition to dominate Asia to get control of its trade?

Which is the country which is now maintaining bases and concentrating its fleet in the Pacific for that reason of military domination?

Which is the country which, for sixty years has refused to sign a peace treaty to officially end the Korean war?

Which is the country that Martin Luther King described as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." (Gee, Norbert. How come you've never used that quotation in your column?)

So why do all the news services report North Korea as the villain? Why isn't it possible that the villain is the nation that has been the most aggressive in the world ever since 1945?

That easy assumption that this must all be North Korea's fault is a good lesson in what brainwashing means.

Gee, ain't it terrible the way all these small and distant countries with no significant navies or air forces or industry are always bullying the USA?
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April 4: looking for an important story....

....but it wasn't there.

The confiscation of bank accounts at the Bank of Cyprus is developing as a much bigger story than it might seem. So, of course, I checked the Business Page of the Tiresome Times to get the latest scoop. But no luck.

The lead business story (a half page) was about how Mike's Bike Shop fixes bikes (Who woulda thought it?)

The only other story is one that talks about the pipeline for another half page without saying anything.

The Cyprus bank story (which doesn't appear at all) has at least three important elements.
1. The Canadian government is considering what to do if there is a Canadian bank failure. That was on CBC news. (And, yes, there is a possibility of a Canadian bank failure. We are in dangerous economic times.)

In such a case, it is possible the Canadian government will confiscate bank accounts to pay off whoever the bank owes money to, just as the EU forced Cyprus to do. According to the budget statement, the government says all options are under study.

2. The reporting on Cyprus gives the impression that the  middle class and poor are protected. But maybe not. In the first place, the middle class and the poor, though they pay a lower percentage of what is owing, get no benefit from this because the money, though not going to the execs and directors who drove the bank into trouble, doesn't go to the poor and middle class, either. It goes to the billionaires to whom the bank owes money. As in the US bank failures, it's the poor and the middle class who pay - and the billionaires who get the money. So what's the big deal?

3. Though the really big accounts are supposed to hand over a larger proportion of their money that is in the bank, that didn't happen in Cyprus. One hundred and twenty-three companies transferred all their Cyprus money - almost a billion dollars - into safer havens just before the government swooped in. Obviously, they were tipped off.
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Another story didn't make it intoo the TandT, too. A junior staffer for the federal Conservative Party - named Rona - has been charged with setting up robo calls in the last election that misdirected voters as to where they should vote. and had a hand in allowing people with no IDs to vote. To do that, he would have  needed access to the Conservative's very secret list of names of people who were likely to vote Liberal, NDP or Green. He would also need authorization of people higher up the ladder - maybe right to the top.

Obviously, legal authorities are hoping not so much to nail Rona as to get names from him.

So far, the Conservative Party has refused to cooperate in any way with the investigation. And their chief campaign officer is out of the country, has refused to come back, and is not answering any questions.

Is this serious? Well, kinda. It now seems possible that every federal election since 2004 was illegal and has created illegal governments. This looks like far the biggest political scandal in Canadian history.  But why even think about it?

Relax with you Tiresome Times and the big story on A5 to learn how a local company faces challenges because of its expansion. Very gripping.
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As for foreign news, read the story on the tensions over North Korea. Notice how they're all the fault of North Korea. It's making threats - which is something the US would never, never do.

Now, let's for a moment forget all our notions about who's good and who's bad. (I don't think there's much good on either side.) Let's look at what is actually happening.

Every year for sixty years the US and South Korea have held war games which are clearly aimed at war with North Korea. North Korea reacts by "threatening". But the US does not threaten. The US is  peace-loving country which never threatens anybody and has been active all over the world protecting people in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, just everywhere.

But the North Koreans are evil. They "threaten'. The US never "threatens". It just issues genteel "warnings". At least, that's how our news agencies tell it. That sort of choice of words is how our newspapers brainwash us.

Who is the aggressor here? Who is being provocative? Certainly not the US. It's just holding war games along the North Korean border, you know, just practicing. I'm sure the US would happily allow North Korea to hold war games on the US border - even every year for sixty years. There's nothing threatening. The US would never dream of killing anybody and invading anybody - unless, of course, they had "weapons of mass destruction" - or oil.
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There's not much to talk about that's in the Tiresome Times. A2 has a picture of Brian Gallant, and yet another pointless story that tells us almost nothing of what principles or policies he advocates. This look like the same old same old. Just one more lawyer aspiring to make the right friends for his future. And one more gofer for the Irvings.
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The editorial is essentially a personal attack against people who make personal attacks. In particular, it is a personal attack on Councillor Bourgeois. His sin? He no longer supports the events centre. O!Lord cast out this imp of Satan from among us.

The editor also reveals his own ignorance of what democracy and elections are about.

Norbert is back to his worst days ignorant rant and name-calling. There are, it is true, problems with the universities. They should be examined. But it should be discussed by someone who knows what he or she is talking about. Norbert doesn't have a clue. That's why he rants and calls people names. He simply doesn't know anything about the subject.

Even Alec Bruce is disappointing. Contrary to what he says, we do not have piles of information about the economic potential of an events centre. Almost all we have seen is propaganda put out by those who stand to make money out of it. Nor have we ever seen detailed or accurate reports of what "big shows' cost us, and exactly who gets the benefits.

Rod Allen continues talking about himself with a pretentious writing style that he seems to think is humorous. This is what passes for opinion in the TandT.

I'll even disagree with Jody Dallaire. I think women "gaslight" too. Not just men. You'll have to read her column to understand that. But, unlike the rest of the paper, it's still worth reading.

Gaslight, indeed! Real men never gaslight.

April 3: the T and T and T and T....

...The Trivial and Tiresome and Times and Transcript.

Sorry to be late with this one. I have written it twice, with it disappearing from the screen each time so I have to start again. Fingers crossed.

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The top news story on p. 1 is neither news nor a story. "Pipeline Moves One Step closer to reality."
Well, it sounds like a trumpet blast for progress. In fact, it's simply a statement that those who have expressed interest in building the pipeline to the East coast are going to meet to discuss who is still in the game and ready to go for it. And it gets worse -

The opening two paragraphs aren't news at all. They're a hymn of praise to the pipeline. So is the picture on A8. it bears a striking similarity to patriotic posters of Stalin's Soviet Union.

Also on p.1 is a question. "Moncton in line for federal funding?" MP Robert Goguen announces, in effect, that he doesn't know the answer. Why is this a news story? I don't know.

p.1 almost has a real story from city council. "Events centre debate gets heated". Unfortunately, the reporter wrote it in a style that resembles something appropriate for a scandal mag - something like- Shocking display of brutality as Mayor Leblanc clashes with raving councillor.

Councillor Bourgeois suggested a plebiscite on the events centre because "we can't simply be giddy cheerleaders for it."  Mayor Leblanc replied in pretty oily fashion that council should, in effect, simply be giddy cheerleaders because most of the councillors campaigned in favour of it.

Well, Leblanc shows a certain lack of understanding of democracy. If everything that a majority of councillors favoured in the campaign should become law, then there would be no need for council (or the legislature or parliament) to meet at all.

As well, voters vote for councillors for many reason, and often for none in particular. A plebiscite gives us something closer to popular opinion. In any case, voters had almost no clear or impartial assessment of the events centre at the time of the election. (and they still don't.) There is an excellent letter to the editor on this, "Taxes shouldn't pay for events".

A reporter is supposed to ask questions. But it would appear that Mr. Mazerolle did not.
1. Why are we getting almost no news or opinions that suggest criticism of the centre?
2. Why didn't the minister of the environment order the owners (as the law required him to) to clean up the pollution of the soil in Highfield Square?
3. Is that pollution limited to the square itself? Or does it extend to the offices, homes (and a hotel) beside the square?
4. If so, if an events centre must be built on clean soil, what about those people affected if the soil crossed the street? Are they in danger? What is it that these pollutants do to people?
5. Why is the only public "symposium" on the subject of an events centre being focussed on a pro-centre group? (Yes, I know the audience will be allowed to ask questions. But it would be nice to hear of cities in which events centres have not worked out.)
6. Is our tax money paying for this one-sided symposium? Why? Do we all have to be 'giddy cheerleaders?"

On balance, I'd rather read a scandal mag than that silly, first page story. I can see it now, "Shocking news; Britney Spears prophesies world will end tomorrow at 6.15 am edt! Check our special sale of alarm clocks."
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A2 has a stunningly pointless story about Jimmy Bourque, the Conservative candidate in the Kent byelection. Mr. Bourque has told an astonished world that he hopes to do well in the election. Well, that's nice - though I rather think that is what all candidates hope.

He made only one statement of anything that could be called insight when he gave out a one-liner about shale gas.  He said, "...he trusts any shale gas developments in the province will be closely regulated and safe."

Yes, that was it. The rest was all about his air cadet days, his business life - as if anybody gives a damn.

A reporter should ask questions.
1. Why and who does he "trust" on shale gas?
2. Exactly what does "closely regulated" mean? Has he seen the regulations? Is he knowledgable about how closely the government will regulate? Does he believe that any Liberal or Conservative government will do anything that a big stake-holder in shale gas would be annoyed at? (Think Irving.)
3. What does "safe" mean? Has he consulted experts from each side? Does he have the expertise to determine when regulation as "safe" enough?
4. The medical opinion of the Chief Medical Officer is that we don't know enough to determine what is safe. Does Mr. Bourque know more about medicine than the Chief Medical Officer does? Or does he "distrust" the Chief Medical Officer?

But no questions were asked. This is three, half-page columns of pure drivel. I cannot understand why an editor would even consider running it - except as free advertising for what seems like a hopelessly unqualified candidate.
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Newstoday carries the story of how two Canadian have been identified as terror bombers in Algeria. The Canadian Press (and the Canadian government) refer to them as "radicals". Neither The Canadian Press nor the government seem to know what radical means. Nor do most people. But it sounds bad, wild-eyed, crazy.....  Government wants to stop young people from being "radicalized".

Mackenzie and Papineau, the men whose rebellions led to responsible government in Canada, were radicals. George Washington was a radical. Florence Nightingale was a radical.

Radical refers to a wish to make fundamental change. Trading in your BMW sports car for a 4X4 Hummer would be radical.

Jim Irving appears to be very radical. He has announced that, contrary to all constitutional practice, he can be a member of government with getting elected - simply because his name is Jim Irving. He's sort of George Washington in reverse.

Obama and Bush are radicals. Both advocate illegal invasions and illegal bombing. Both advocate keeping prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial. Both advocate the use of torture, and domestic spying without warrant. Those are fundamental changes to the US. Those people are radicals.

If a Canadian were to become a mercenary employed by the CIA as an assassin to kill Moslems, would The Canadian Press refer to him as a radical? I rather doubt it.

I don't much like terrorists of any sort, no matter what language they speak or what religion they claim to follow. But  radical is a misleading word. Words should carry intellectual meaning to us - so they help us to think. But radical has become simply an emotional spark to spread hatred and fear and ignorance.
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Page C3 has the Liberals saying that the new health CEOs are overpaid. Of course. We are now operating according to business practice. And for the last thirty years or so, business practice has been to wildly overpay and overbonus execs while making everybody else poor. Indeed, you can get fired for messing up your exec job for years, and have a contract that gives you a payoff for more than most people earn in a lifetime of good work. Why?

The people who decide the rules for business practice are the execs and directors - and those rules benefit them.

But busdrivers who want a few more bucks are greedy.
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Alec Bruce is in good form.

Norbert is back to being a grumpy old man with constipation. And the op ed page is, to be kind, trivial.

April 2: Well, I tried....

There is not a damn thing in today's Times and Transcript that is worth reading. Well, in fairness, NewsToday has a worthwhile story on harrassment and discrimination among prison workers That's been true for a long time, of course. But it's getting worse just at a time when Harper has done even more damage with his "avenging angel" approach to dealing with prisoners.

There's also a worthwhile story, too, about how Harper is muzzling scientists, refusing to make public their reports of research findings to us - the ones who paid for them. This seems to be particularly true of environmental reports. Harper's poisition is clear. He was elected to be a dictator, and Canadians have no right to see anything he does not want them to see.

B6 has a heavily biased report on Venezuela as a result of the years of rule by Chavez. One gets a picture of a poverty stricken people, suffering under an improvident government. It's the old game of refusing to look at what Chile was before Chavez.

It was then run by the people who are now running against Chavez' successor. It was, in practice, a dictatorship controlled by American big business with the full support of the American government. Most Venezuelands were wretchedly poor, and with no services at all. A small number of Venezuelans were very rich, and happily cooperated with the American government in keeping everybody else poor. There was also a racist edget to this. The bulk of the poor had native blood. The rich were descended from the Spanish conquerors.

Chavez made the oil companies pay for their oil. For the first time in their history,  ordinary Venezuelans got decent housing, medical care and education.

The North American press plays the same game with the Cuban revolution. There is never any mention of the brutality of the American-imposed dictators on Cuba, or of their general treatment of the Cuban people. Or of the American overthrow of democracy in Guatemala, and the subsequent massacres of native peoples by the CIA and by the dictatorship  (dominated by those of Spanish descent.) In fact, most of the North American media didn't even report it.

Nor is there much mention of the hell that has been reimposed on Haiti under nearly a century of rule by American-imposed dictators, then the overthrow of an elected government and the re-imposition of American dominance.

In all cases, incidentally, power and money was (and usually still is) held by those people who are whiter.

There are very few news agencies you can trust. And very, very, very few of them are North American.


So let's talk about what should be, but isn't, the big story. Let's talk about the Kent by-election.
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This occured to me in the oddest of ways. I googled Pete Seeger on Youtube. Seeger was hugely popular when the world and I were young. A US army veteran, his folk songs, backed by his five-string banjo, were songs of defiance and of hope for the future that a world longed for after years of depression and poverty and war.

I checked the long list of his songs on Youtube, then clicked enter for "We shall overcome". The song came from African Americans who were struggling for equality in the US. But it became the anthem of all of us who hoped for a better and more democratic world.

I saw and heard him on stage a long time ago...Seeger began quietly, gently...

"We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome some day- ay- ay.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
That we shall overcome some day."

He began the second verse a little more strongly; a few voices in the audience joined...

"We'll walk hand, in hand....."

Then, with more energy, he said, "join me." And a few timid voices were raised.

"We shall live in peace some day...."

Then, with hearts almost bursting, all three thousand of us stood to roar out the defiance of the next verse...

"We are not afraid..."

Much of what we hoped from came true - better access to education for all, medicare that, for the first time, gave us all a chance for healthier lives, employment insurance that made it possible for us to survive the bad times (we all knew damn well that it was NOT the laziness of our parents that kept us from adequate diets.) By the 1960s, we were well on the way to a better world.

All of that is now under attack, under attack by big business which wants to privatize education so that it can get its fingers into the pie, which wants to cripple medicare as an excuse to end it so that only the rich will be able to afford to be healthy, and so the rich can make money out of it.

Now, 68 years after the war our parents and grandparents fought to protect freedom (so we are told every Nov. 11), democracy itself is all but destroyed. In both the US and Canada governments are largely controlled by big business. Here, in New Brunswick, we don't even pretend. Mr. Irving has, without being elected, announced that he is a member of the government, and that his people will advise the Minister of Finance.

Democracy. That's where all the rest starts. Democracy is the only issue in the Kent by-election. If we don't vote for democracy - then nothing else matters.

The Conservative party does not stand for democracy. Alward made that clear when he accepted Irving as a member of his government. He made it clear when he pushed ahead with plans for shale gas fracking not matter what the medical advice, no matter what we thought.

The Liberal, Brian Gallant, will not make an issue of democracy. Of course not.  He's as much a servant to Irving as Alward is.

And the other two parties have not  yet mentioned it. And we can bet that that the Irving Press won't mention it.

But democracy is the issue. It is the only issue in the Kent byelection. There is not the slightest possibility the Liberals or the Conservatives will raise it. One of the other parties has to. The whole future of New Brunswick rests not on "listening to the people", or tinkering with the budget, or promising a new hockey rink.... The whole future of New Brunswick rests on restoring democracy.

And deep in my heart, I do believe...

And I believe we are not afraid of greedy bullies and the lies of their wretched press. No. Damn them. No. They cannot have us and our children and the soil we walk on and the air we breath.

For the sake of ourselves, and our children, we are not afraid.

Check out Pete Seeger on Youtube. You'll get the idea.

April 1:April Fool...........

well, I have to assume the TandT staff did go to church for Easter Sunday - and stayed there all day. There is certainly no evidence they worked on today's newspaper (and Norbert admits he wrote his column some days ago.)

The front page headline "Four parties to battle Kent riding byelection" tells us nothing whatever. There was no report on the platform of any of the four candidates. The closest to a mention of any platform is Susan Levi-Peters (NDP) who says she is concerned about Kent county issues - and is not running to further a legal career. (Gee. I didn't know lawyers did that. Actually, I thought they ran for premier to get rewarded with high-paying jobs afterward for the favours they did.)

The only other big story in Section A is a series of pictures of a pancake brunch at Stilesille United Church (caution - some violence and sex.  Parental guidance advised.)
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NewsToday? The big story is that Pope Francis had made an appeal for world peace, and expresses concern for the poor and suffering. Can you think of a pope in the last century who has not made that same speech on Easter Sunday? Or do they normally wave swords over their heads, wear bomber jackets like Bush, and call down the wrath of God on the other side?

The pope's statement is worth mentioning. It's scarcely newsworthy enough to be worth almost a full page, or to stand alone as the only foreign news story in this whole, village paper.

However, Section C does lead with the only story worth reading in the whole paper. "Prison guards lack basic respect for inmates' needs: survey". On the basis of some familiarity with prisons, I can add that such an attitude goes all the way up the ladder of prison administration. And it's an attitude not likely to change under Stephen Harper - who sees harsh treatment as important - because it get him votes from the self-righteous and ignorant who form an important voting bloc.

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Loved the cartoon by de Adder. It's inspired by a Japanese print, "Great Wave off Kanagawa". Look it up on Google under the Images category - or look it up by the name of the artist, Hokusai.

Alas! There is one hell of a worrying message behind this. As Cyprus has now shown, banks have the right to loot customers' bank accounts to pay debts that the bank owes. Cyprus has established a precedent. There is every possibility that other countries will follow suit, just to make sure the super rich don't suffer any hardship. (Their own savings are more safely distributed.)

Both Alec Bruce and Norbert Cunningham write about the bedget and the provincial debt, though Bruce did so with more insight and less rant. However, both missed an essential point.

There is no reason to believe that Finance Minister Higgs or any other member of the government wrote that budget. Over two years ago, Jim Irving named himself a member of the government. Then he held a conference of his own invitees to plan the economic future. And then he appointed his own boys to be official advisors to the Finance Minister.

Alward was either foolish, ignorant of democratic principles, or weak. Whatever the reason, he accepted this. And, in accepting this, he gave up all responsiblity for the budget. That was the day an editorial in the TandT should have demanded his resignation. That's the day when New Brunswick should have woken up to show soupport for that demand.

Alward publicly gave up his responsibilities as a premier, and handed them over to people we never elected, and who have long demonstrated their contempt for our needs.

So I certainly blame Alward for what he did. But not for the budget. I blame Jim Irving for that. He is the one who pushed his nose in where it had to business to be. He is the one who casually dismissed the whole concept of parliamentary government and of government responsibility.

What we now have is a budget that  does us no good at all. It hurts both education and health. It does nothing to create jobs. It does nothing to prepare for a future. It does nothing whatever for the people of New Brunswick.

As in the US, where major bankers plunged the country - and much of the world - into severe recession, and then made the taxpayers reward them for it, this is a greedy and inward-looking budget which serves only those who wrote it -and treats us as though we are guilty of something.

Put the blame for this where it lies - not on the people of New Brunswick, and not even on a feeble and submissive government. This was an Irving budget. Jim Irving made that clear two years ago. What he has ignored is that with power comes responsibility. But taking responsibility does not seem to be his strong point.

And reporting on that does not appear to be a strong point of the TandT.

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Skip the op ed page. Letters to the Editor is far superior.