Sept. 13: I'm used to getting some pretty bozo flyers from...

...our Conservative Member of Parliament, Robert Goguen. But the latest is a real stunner.

It poses a question. Do you think Canadian citizenship is a right? and two circles to check ---
Yes, citizenship is a right.
No, it is a privilege and must be earned.

I don't even know what those two questions mean. Is it a right? Of course. I was born here. I have a right to be a Canadian citizen. I don't have to earn it, and I don't have to ask Mr. Harper's permission.

Is it a privilege and must be earned? No. Not if  you're a citizen by birth. Yes, if you're an immigrant. (Though I'm not sure earned is the right word; but, yes, you have to be approved by the government.)  

So why the questions? Why would they go to the expense of mailing this bilge to millions of people? And, oh yes, there is a reason.
Below the questions, it asks which party is on the right track to solve Canada's immigration problem - whatever that problem might be. .( Most people will give the name the party they intend to vote for). Then it asks whether you are a stay-at-home parent, a senior, a veteran, a parent of child under 18, a working Canadian. It also asks you to return it, including your name, address, phone no., and email.

This latter part is what this expensive mailing that asks dumb questions is really all about. The Conservative party will get answers from all over Canada, giving the party information it needs to plan for the next election. And I'll add my question. Who paid for this?

No wonder the photo of Goguen on it has a smirk.
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Years ago, when the world and I were young, I briefly met a CBC reporter ;(his brother was my producer on CBC radio). His name is Karl Nerenberg; and I've often followed his work. He's a reporter of the old school - knowledgeable, independent, inquiring, tough-minded. For some years  he was CBC's main man on the parliament beat. Now retired, he's a "regular" on a web site called Rabble.ca.

It has a number of excellent opinion columns - none of the TandT's Rod Allen flutter. Karl has one in there now about Barrick Gold, a company that is one of the biggies, and is Canadian-owned.  This story is about Barrick Gold's behaviour in a third-world country where it exploits cheap labour, and ignores the environment by simply dumping toxic waste over the surrounding land.   If anybody complains, the company has a private army to beat, rape and/or murder them. Recently, the private army burned down 200 houses.
That's not unusual. Canadian mining companies are a major force around the world - and they are brutal even by the standards of a brutal industry.

The easy way to find him is to google rabble.ca, and look over the site. It's all good. For this column in particular, if you insist on doing it the hard way, it's:
http//rabble.ca/karl-nerenberg/2014/09/barrick-gold-refuses-to-relocr# VBMIhf8aik 8 gmail

You might also check out the column on how B'Nai Brith Canada (now a front for the Israeli government) is trying to get Stephen Harper nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Harper gets a lot of mileage for a man who, internationally, has talked big and fiercely while doing close to nothing. I guess the peace prize is for the "doing nothing" part.

While you're at it, check out a paper called The Local  - France's News in English. for Sept. 12. It has a story about New Brunswick that the Irving papers missed. It's about a Dutchman living in Nackawic, New Brunswick who was arrested recently when he confessed to police he had murdered his Dutch wife. He is also wanted in France where he was known as the "Dentist of Horror" for his mutilation and cheating of his patients.

The Local is also a most enjoyable paper to read.
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Also missing from today's paper is the story about a study of fracking in Pennsylvania.  It shows that people living within one kilometre of shale gas drilling suffered far higher rates of respiratory problems and skin diseases than did people living beyond that distance. It also pointed out that the problem is likely to get far worse as illnesses like cancer  have a chance to develop.

You can find it at rt.com/usa/187420-fracking-health-effects-pennsylvania
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In section A of the Sept. 12 edition, there wasn't a single news item worth reading. The editorial and op pages seemed as bad - until I came to the column by Alec Bruce. It contains a description of New Brunswick society that is brutal.

".... a province that suffers from a systemic lack of ideas, a structural absence of political and social courage, a perennial failure of imagination and innovation, you have confirmed for all the world that things will never change here in Canada's mental rust belt..."

I think he's right. I don't agree with all of his examples. But, in general, this is bang on.

Where I disagree is his criticism of the education system. Educational success reflects the values of the society we live in. I had reminders of that all the way through my education career.

Kids in my elementary school started leaving school in grade four. My mother's highest hope was that I would one day rise to a job from which I came home in clean clothes. I achieved her highest hope when I was kicked out in grade eleven, and became a mail-sorting clerk at Bell Tel.

But when I finished high school at night and then entered university, my parents were upset. I was trying "to rise above my station". Then, when I quit my prestigious job at Bell to attend university full time and become a teacher, there was something like anger. And when I quit teaching to go to grad school, anger gave way to fury.

The other boys in my grade eleven class graduated brilliantly. (They were a select class). Most went on to distinguished careers. Of course. Most of them were Jewish. They had been raised in a society with enormous respect for learning - and with high expectations for its children.

During that period, I was also a counsellor for a YMCA camp, and then  director of a YMHA (Young Men's Hebrew Association) camp. The YMCA camp was fun and games. But the YMHA expected me to mix the fun with some serious discussion and learning.

I was again reminded of cultural differences when I taught university courses in China. In three summers of teaching, no student missed a class - or was even late for it. If I mentioned the name of a good article, even casually and with no hint they should read it, they would all have read it by the next class. When I learned that one of my students was taking pills to stay awake and study all night, I had to threaten him with hospitalization if he didn't stop it.

The schools of New Brunswick are not different from good schools anywhere. But New Brunswick society is different - very different.
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NewsToday has lots of space for provincial elections candidates -all of whom continue to talk about everything but the real issues.

Page B 7 has, hidden in a corner, the story that there will be no further investigation of the Lac Megantic disaster in which a dilapidated train carrying oil on the cheap, and with labels submitted by Irving oil that lied about its cargo, and a railway owned by a man notorious for lax safety measures that made his cheap shipping prices possible killed dozens of people.

There will be no charges laid against any of the above. God is kind to his servants. All the blame will be dumped on three, minor figures - one of the them the engineer who had to drive that train alone all the way from the prairie West to the East coast. It was cheaper that way.

The investigation has received little attention from the Irving press.

Foreign news is skimpy. A story about the new war against IS features a statement by Ron Baird, Foreign Minister for Canada, and our national village idiot. "Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world...they have had a destabilizing influence in just about every single country in that region."

Sure, Ron. It was Iran that killed over a million Iraqis, and starved close to half a million Iraqi children to death. It was Iran that bombed Libya and created chaos in that country. And it was Iran that financed the Syrian "rebels' with American money and weapons to stage a brutal (and phony) civil war in Syria. And no doubt it was Iran that has been sending drone bombers to kill innocent people all over the world, and is sending special ops troops  (cleverly disguised in American uniforms) to carry out assassinations all over the region.

And, you know what? I'll bet it was Iran that overthrew its own government fifty years ago so it could give all its oilfields to  those nice Americans and British. And I'll bet it was Iran that replaced its elected president with a torturing, murderous and corrupt dictator called the Shah.

Boy,  you can't fool our Ron Baird. That's why they pay him the big bucks.
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For Sept. 13, Section A  has its usual thought-destroying drivel. Seriously, this is deliberately designed to keep the population dozy. A3, for example, continues a series of interviews on the provincial election with people who don't have a clue what they're talking about.

This waste of half a page has inane advice on just about everything as seen by a city councillor. Problem- the cost of health care is too  high. Solution - people should go for more walks in a park.

Problem - people are afraid to talk openly. Why? Because they're terrified by people who are against shale gas.

The only clear suggestion concerns beautifying the city. It seems we should do that by following Fredericton's lead in redesigning our manhole covers.

This makes Gallant look like a fiery revolutionary. Perhaps it's on purpose that this on the same page as the ad for the Irving Memorial Chapel.
                      
A6 takes us back to the TandT's more common form of doziness. It's not a real story at all. It's an ad for a show at the Casino, somthing called Artificis.  The story says this show will take the audience by storm. That is an illegitimate starting point for a news story. So is the headline, "Audience to be 'wowed' at FUSION.

Newspapers do not tell the future. They have no qualifications to do so. They report what has happened. Usually, the TandT can't even tell what happened - or it lies about it. It certainly can't tell the future. That sort of thing is for an opinion column. That's why opinion columns are distinct from news stories.
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Then there are the pages of opinions - editorial and op ed.

The editorial, as usual, is about money rather than people. It is very upset that the Moncton firemen got a wage increase (though it still leaves them the lowest paid in major cities of the maritimes.)  It doesn't mention  whether any Irvings got wage increases this year - or whether they are falling behind the firemen's pay scale. Why not? We have to pay the increases for both of them.

There is a hint that we can take action. The editor warns that "...cities might soon seek firefighting options."

I know. I know. Look at my hand waving in the air. We could get CE0s to walk by the fire spitting on it. Then we could build a Moncton firemen's hall of fame - and put their pictures in it.

Bill Belliveau has a column of election ideas - some good, some less so. Norbert is Norbert. On the budget, he says, "Recognized experts have outlined how to do it." Yeah. Experts recognized by Norbert. His plans are exactly the same as those that were disastrous in the decade of the 1930s.  Neither Norbert nor Belliveau makes any mention of the big money that really controls our governments, our budgets and our lives.

Brent Mazerolle uses half a page to tell us a pointless story about his Tupperware.
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In NewsToday, there is virtually no foreign news. But there is one, interesting piece on B2. Little Cuba, with a population of only 11,000,000 is sending more than 160 health workers to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone.(Cuba, though kept poor by American economic sanctions, produces health workers, including doctors, way out of proportion to Canada and the US - and the training is free.)

The US population is thirty times as large at 320 million. But its health workers in all of Africa are a relatively small number.

The TandT editor, by the way, got the headline wrong. It says Cuba sent doctors. The story says health workers - including doctors.
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The Faith Page has two encouraging items, both from St. George's Anglican church. It will be offering free meals for those in need. It had better be careful. In doing doing something helpful, it'll be out of step with mainstream Christianity in Moncton.

The Sermonette on the same page  (B7) will no doubt create wider discussion among the saintly in Moncton.  It proposes radical changes in the church service. No, not something crazy radical like feeding the hungry. No. It proposes the church make itself more exciting by having more singing, or more praying, or less praying, whatever turns you on.
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What's going on in the world?

Well, the US and the EU are imposing more sanctions on Russia. Now, why would they do that just when Ukraine and Russia are in peace talks, and when even the President of Ukraine says the number of Russian troops in the country is small and getting smaller? Harper, too, is talking tough ( though doing as little as possible.) Harper's reason is obvious. He is courting the Ukrainian vote just as he's courting the Jewish vote. Big talk. Big promises. No action.

But what's Obama's objective? Why impose more punishments just as peace talks are starting? Well, here's a possibility. Obama wants a war with Russia. That would be a major step toward dominance over China. And China is the country that's holding vaults full of IOUs on the huge, American debt.

Get control over Russia, then China -and you can, maybe, force forgiveness for the debt. And, if necessary, you can bomb your way to forgiveness.

Meanwhile, China and Russia seem to be making deals to carry on world trade in their currencies, rather than the US dollar. And that would drive the US dollar into the basement. (China would the loser on all the American IOUs it's holding. But they're worthless, anyway.

Both sides' schemes require speed. And every step of the way raises the possibility of nuclear war.

In the Middle East? The US wants to stay out of a ground war. But it seems mostly unlikely that IS can be crushed by Iraq troops. And nobody is keen on sending ground troops.

But that may not matter. What the US wants in the long term is a weak and generally destabilized Middle East which will give it power to do what it wants in the region. (I think that is what it wants. That is certainly what the "warhaoks" want. But it is, seriously, very difficult to tell who is running the US government.)

And, finally, a story the TandT hasn't figured out, yet. Crystal Palace has closed. Target is in trouble. In today's paper, Dollar Stores have had a great year. Crystal Palace will be replaced by a high-end sporting goods store. Across Canada, The Bay department store chain is going high-end. What does all this mean?

It means the grossly unfair and greedy distribution of wealth in the province and across North America is taking hold. Dollar Stores had a great year because so many people don't have much money. The boom is in high-end stores because the upper ten percent have so much money that they want something better than Walmart or Target -and damn the cost.

But the TandT will never notice that.
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Oh, there is one more thing the TandT missed. It was in The Gazette (Montreal), for Sept. 12. The mayors of Montreal and its surrounding municipalities have voted thumbs down on the Enbridge pipeline from the tar sands to the East. The reasons seem pretty good.

The rules are slack. Serious risks of spillage and toxic pollution are ignored. And neither the company nor the government seems to care.

But hey, think of the jobs.

Sept. 11: Debates dominate election campaign...

So says page 1 of section A for the Moncton Times and Tribune.. And the only possible answer to that is so bloody what.

The Broadbent Institute is one of the few left-leaning think tanks. I don't like think tanks; but the TandT ususally just loves them - though only if they're far, far right and financed by billionaires. It happily, on Monday, ran a piece of shale gas propaganda from a notoriously right-wing think tank as a featured column on its editorial page. But they probably won't mention the one from the Broadbent Institute, even though it raises the key issue in the New Brunswick election campaign - the issue the leaders aren't debating.

The gap between rich and poor in this province, this country, and the world is growing rapidly. The top 10% now get half of all the wealth produced in Canada. The bottom half (five times as many people) have to get by on just 6% among all of them, And that is not the whole story.

Most of the top 10% are making some increases. But the bulk of the increases and the bulk of the big money goes to the top 1%.

And there's nothing wild about these figures. You can find a similar pattern in Statscan statistics.

No society can survive such a wild distribution of its wealth.

In our case, the top one percent actually control (dictate) the provincial budget. They use it to create this wild disparity. They get wealthy by driving the rest of us into poverty. Then they demand that we suffer to pay off the debt they created.

The top 1% can do that because they ARE the government. They also control information through ownership of the print news media and a good deal of the electronic news media.

"Debates dominate election campaign"? I'm damned if I see why that's news. Debates are what's supposed to happen in an election campaign. The important point is that the debates are dancing around the real issue. We should be talking about restoring democracy. We should be talking about cutting off welfare for the top one percent, and about them paying their share of the debts they run up at our expense. We should be talking about the scandalous wage gap, and why it's happening.

"Debates dominate election campaign" is not a news story. It's just an attempt to create news out of an electoral farce.

Wednesday's A11 has a similar story. "Town hall sparks debates on election issues. This is a report on a big, big public meeting to hear the candidates for Moncton Southwest.

It's, perhaps, unfortunate, that only one Moncton Southwest candidate was there. That one was Rish McGlynn for the Green Party. The NDP candidate couldn't be there; but at least the NDP sent a candidate from another riding to represent itself. Liberals and Conservatives were completely absent.

Not that it matters a whole lot. Only 35 voters bothered to show up. But don't blame the reporter for that overblown headline. It's the page editor who writes the story headlines.

Thursday's section A is equally useless. "Metro police services back to normal". This is just an attempt to milk one more long story out of the shootings of several months ago. There's really nothing to tell. But it goes on and on saying nothing.

It's in a class with all the stories about how incredibly brave the people of  Moncton were in the days of the shootings and the manhunt. Boy, if only the Vietnamese and the Iraqis had the incredible courage of the people of Moncton ---well---if only----

The rest of Thursday's section A is trivia - except for a "story" that is really a free ad. Moncton Wesleyan church is hosting a simulcast of some evangelical effort called "Living Proof". And it's all about how women can learn and live and God's word. And it's only $25.

Well, it doesn't really grab me. But I might spring for 25 loonies to see a simulcast of how the Irvings live and love by God's word.
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Wednesday's Alec Bruce column does a solid job on Harper's motivations in supporting scientific research such as northern exploration. And they are very,very political.

Norbert writes on the provincial debt-----again. And again. And he does it without once mentioning the people who are sucking the money out of this province. No, in his view, it's them there poor people what's doin' it. Norbert. we tried to solve a debt problem in the 1930s by cutting government services. It didn't work. It never works. You cannot make a society prosperous by making it poor. What ended the depression of the 1930s was war -and a government that could find money for war that it couldn't find for it's own people when they were hungry. It also ended the depression was that big business had a lid tightened on it, allowing civil servants who knew what they were doing to do an outstanding job of managing the economy through the war.

On op ed, Rod Allen still either doesn't know what an opinion column is - or has nothing to say.

Beth Lyons does, and does it well on a topic we don't take seriously enough - the dreadful exposure of indigenous women to violence, rape, murder. Harper has made it clear he doesn't give a damn. Beth Lyons draws attention to campaigns to make Mr. Harper take action. There will also be a vigil in Moncton at New Brunswick Community College on Oct. 4.

Thursday has a bizarre editorial for the TandT. This is the paper that has a record of savagely criticizing out  hearlth system, and which virtually trashed the report  on the risks of shale gas prepared by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Eilish Cleary. Thursday's editorial opens with praise of our health system as "one of the very best in the world.: That is - one of the very best "whatever its current shortcomings." (I'm not sure how to interpret that. But I'm damned if I can see why one of the "very best healthy systems in the world" has been so much attacked in this paper.

It also speaks of t hose "noble New Brunswickers"  who are in Africa to control Ebola. One of them is a person they treated in vile manner during the shale gas debate - Dr. Eilish Cleary.

I wonder how many executives of SWN and Irving will be among the "noble" ones risking their lives to fight Ebola.
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Foreign news for both days is largely useless. For example, Thursday has a report from The Associated Press on peace negotiations in Ukraine. It's drawn entirely from a Kyiv point of view, with lots of references to the sins of Russia. The final sentence is a gem. "The Ukrainian public has been largely supportive of the war against the separatists." Oh, really? Has there been a vote? Is there a source for that gem of information?

Wednesday has a very similar story, also from The Associated Press, on the investigation of the shooting down of an airliner over Ukraine. It's on p. B3. This is a report on the official study of the cause of the crash.  The answer, so far, is that it was destroyed by "high energy objects". But they have haven't seen the wreckage yet; they don't know what the obects were; they don't know who or what did it; and they won't know for another year.

But the American government knows. Yeah. It knew from the start. They knew it was Russians. Right from the start, before they even saw the wreckage, they knew it was a Russian rocket fired from the ground. And when the investigators made their report saying they were still a year away from a conclusion, the State Department immediately announced that this was sure proof the Russian had done it.

Well, maybe. It can happen. Some years ago, an American warship shot down an Iranian airliner over the Mediterranean, killing everyone aboard. But the American government never talks about that and, so far as I know, never even investigated. It also set a bomb in a Cuban airliner killing everyone aboard. And I don't recall any indignation about that.

Now, I've seen newspaper photos of the Malaysian airliner. (They may even have been in the TandT). There were, indeed, holes in it which were certainly made by "high energy objects". But the holes were small, and all the same size. There were at least four lines of them, equally spaced, going up the fuselage.

A rocket doesn't do that. Those holes were made by machine guns; and the number of lines of them suggests machine guns mounted, equally spaced, on a fighter plane.

That plane could well have been shot down by a plane of the Ukrainian air force. And Kyiv had a motive to do it. This could trigger a general war, and Kyiv needed a general war because it was doing badly on its own.

Both reports from Associated Press are not what they claim to be. They do not report fully and honestly about the events. Both of their reports are essential propaganda that "the Russians did it".

They also give the impression that NATO is completely in support of US policy in Ukraine and Iraq. In fact, it is not. They are not fully in support of US policy in Iraq because they don't care about Iraq. And those who are helping the US, like Canada, are doing the minimum possible. They don't all support the quarrel with Russia because the sanctions hurt them more than they hurt Russia, and because any war in the region would expose Europe as a battlefield.

For reasons I'll explain later, Obama's policy on destroying IS makes no sense. But before I do that take a look at B7 of Thursday's paper. It's one of the very few good news stories I've seen in the Irving Press. And, surprise, it, too, comes from the Associated Press. "Islamic State has several limitations."

This points out that the IS army is relatively small, even in comparison with those of Iraq and the Kurds. It has no air force. It has far less firepower than the Iraqis and the Kurds. This is not the fearsome army that has been portrayed in our news. There is a strong possibility of the whole region bursting out in war ( much of it already is). But IS, itself, is by no means unbeatable.

The bigger danger, the one that could trigger a much broader war, is Obama's decision to play a role in this war, even if it's only in the air.

Groups like IS are created by war. In 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that the war against Germany was a war for freedom and democracy. At the end of the war, they extended freedom and democracy to nobody except some European countries.

The US tried hard, but failed, to establish a puppet dictator in China. Parts of the British Empire had to fight - or at least threaten to fight - to get their freedom. Britain controlled most of Africa and the middle east  (with help from France and Belgium). They didn't give freedom or democracy to anybody. When countries, like Egypt, demanded freedom, Britain sent troops. (President Eisenhower was furious. But that was because he intended to replace the British Empire with American rule.)

The British owned Palestine. Without asking the people of Palestine, they sliced it in two, kicked out Palestinians into the small part (without giving them national recognition) and handed over the rest of Palestine to European Jews.

When Congo revolted, kicked out their Belgian rulers and democratically elected a president, the mine owners had the president murdered - and went back to the old ways of inviting foreign resource companies to come in, impoverish and brutalize the people, and loot their resources. (And there are Canadian investors who have done very well out of that.)

The US kept all its puppet dictators in Central America, murdering Guatemalans who dared to set up a democracy, and putting a military dictator in charge. Not long ago, When Haiti had the impudence to overthrow its dictator, and to democratically elect a president, the US invaded to exile the president and to set up a phony election to elect one of their boys.

The only one who successfully defied the US was Castro. And he's done it for over half a century. That's why they hate him.

When Egypt at last held a democratic election not long ago, the US disapproved of it, and immediately helped the army to overthrow it. It maintains, as its closest ally in the Middle East, a Saudi Arabia ruled by the strictest dictatorship in the world. (with the possible exception of North Korea.)

The Moslem experience (and the experience of others) of more than a century of western intrusion has been killing, exploitation, tremendous social disruption, arrogance, deprivation. The world's biggest terrorists are the armed forces, the mercenaries, the special ops teams of the US, with NATO tagging along because it has nowhere else to go.

The United Nations, international law, don't exist. We can thank the major powers for that.  In the US view, it and only it, has the right to intervene in the affairs of other countries  (Can you imagine the reaction of the American government if Russia were to intervene in a civil war in Mexico?)

That attitude, that scale of killing, that destruction of democracy wherever it shows its head, is what creates organizations like the Islamic State. I fail to see how that attitude and that killing can do anything but create even more extreme groups.

Meanwhile, we have troops in Iraq. There was no discussion, no debate about it. If the war gets worse, we're in it, like it or not.

We also have troops, aircraft and at least one warship in the area of Ukraine. I don't know about Obama, but there are influential people in the US who want a war with Russia. Obama probably doesn't. That's why he's pretending to be aggressive there while actually doing nothing. Our troops, aircraft, and our warship are on site to help Obama give the impression he's taking action. It gives Harper a chance to look helpful while actually doing nothing.

But if anything happens, we're in another war - with no discussion, no debate. Think of it. There is a Canadian warship floating around for no useful purpose in the waters off Crimea - an easy target for an accident - or incident.

And we can all chant on Nov. 11 that they died defending freedom.

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Oh, my, this was a long one. I  had hoped to talk about a possible reason why some people in the US want a war with Russia. But it will have to wait. (It has a relation to New Brunswick's budget deficits.)
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On Thursday, Sept. 17 at 1:30, I'll be at Rose Hall in People's Tower on St. George to register people for a class under the auspices of Tantramar Seniors. It will be - sort of - about current events - but it really won't be about that. It'll be about the ways we think about them and react to them. So it's not really about the events. It's about us and what affects our thinking. And it will, I hope, encourage lots of discussion among all those who attend. I don't want this to be just a lecture class.

It's also on a topic I've never taught before. So it'll be a challenge for me as much as for the students.

Sept. 8: anything happening in Scotland? Nae

The Scottish vote on separation from Britain is nearing. And polls are showing the separatists in the lead. The effects on England, militarily, economically and diplomatically, will be serious. And so ends the Union Jack that hung in the front of my grade one class, the one for which we would stand every morning, and say, hands on hearts - "I pledge allegiance to this flag and to the Empire for which it stands."

So now, it seems possible the cross of St.Andrew will be ripped out of the flag, a symbol of the last shred of   empire.

Separation wouldn't really be a turning point. Britain's power has been in decline since World War One. But it is the signal of the end of "make her victorious, happy and glorious...." It's news. But the editors at the TandT haven't noticed it. Or they're keeping it their own, little secret. Imagine that. We could be watching the final, complete ending to the greatest empire in history, the ones we were a part of, and for which over a hundred thousand Canadians died. And the only British news for September 9 is in NewsToday. "  Royal Couple William and Kate expecting second child."

Hell, I knew that a long time ago from the scandal mags at the supermarket checkout.

Then there's an even bigger story on, also on September  9. but also not big enough to make the main story for the day - the dismantling of a covered bridge in New Brunswick.

The really big story is in NewsToday, page 1. "Obama weary of weight of the world". Yes,  here the US is fighting war after war, all for us and truth and democracy, and the rest of us aren't helping it nearly enough. And now the US is hugely in debt, with terrible unemployment and poverty, ....and don't you feel terrible about it?

The story is from The Canadian Press. And, like almost all of those major news companies, it tells only a little bit of the story. Nobody asked the US to invade Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, or to get all hostile with Russia. Nobody asked it to torture thousands in secret prisons. Nobody asked it to build almost a thousand military bases all over the world. Nor did the American people show any enthusiasm for these ventures. These were imperial wars fought for the benefit of American big business.

And American big business is very happy as a result. While everybody else is going into debt, big business, especially the super-corrupt military-industrial complex, is making great profits. It makes the weapons that are being used by both sides in Iraq. It will supply some, probably most, of the soldiers who will fight against IS. It will also supply even more weapons, operate food services, operate military administrative offices, provide drones, etc. The "defence" industry no longer just supplies weapons. It is actually the controller and renter of most of the fighting forces. A reader sent me an interesting not on this...
http://commondreams.org/news/2014/09/09/profits-soar-pentagon-leans-private-corporations-special-ops

These wars have all been fought to give big business huge profits at the cost of forcing millions of Americans into poverty.  (millions? estimates - none of them reliable - hover up  to 50%. US census figures are lower; they're also largely fictional, as are unemployment estimates.)

The US empire is following exactly the same course as the British one. The British began asking us to share the cost of its wars in the Boer War. Then it pursued the US as a buddy for almost a century.

But, like Britain, the US is not policing the world. It is trying to bully it into submission. And it wants us all to help its rich get richer. The reporter could have asked a few questions that would have shown that, or it could have interviewed some experts to get a fuller picture. But it didn't because, like most reporters, he or she is really in the propaganda business.

The news editors at the TandT are either ignorant or sloppy. After all,, there are news services that are more honest that Canadian Press, American Press, and Associated Press. But the TandT editors seem to have  no sense of what the big stories are, and no sense of what is news reporting and what it just propaganda.
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But let's concentrate on the real stinker, the September 8 edition. Front page - Balloons float over Sussex. And there's picture of a balloon floating over Sussex. Don't worry if you miss it. There are two more pages of balloon photos in the NewsToday section.  And for those who find pictures of balloons intellectually demanding, there is a relaxing, full page of photos of old cars and motorcycles.

And the front page has other big news. Somebody retired at 77. Big story. A lawyer retires. Big story.

On p.2, there's a picture of a man in what appear to be pyjama pants throwing a bucket of war on a small fire. Apparently, it's in Ukraine. Why is the picture there in a section usually devoted to local news? In fact, what is the point of having the picture at all? Well, they had an empty space. So they grabbed the nearest picture and slapped it in. It's what's called a filler, something that just fills space. And it's a sign of pretty sloppy editing.

On p. 3, there's a quarter page telling us that nobody in St. John has Ebola. A paragraph would have been plenty. It also has two, pointless pictures, one of an ambulance taking away a woman who does not have Ebola, and one of a doctor and a fire chief talking into a microphone, presumably to tell the press there is no Ebola.

Then there's the editorial page which doesn't have Alec Bruce, but in his place has a "Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute." Tanslation - he works for a propaganda agency for big business that gives its propagandists fancy titles - like Senior Fellow. And it starts with a headline that's a lie. "Nova Scotia chooses high taxes over fracking".  They chose have a clean environment rather than having unknown chemical poison pumped into their soil.

It is also a plea that Nova Scotia overtaxes big business. Sure. That's why big business is making its biggest profits in history

As to the safety of fracking, he ignores the recent reports that the carbon dioxide in the skies above us increased in 2013 at the fastest rate in history. Yeah, fracking will make big, big money. But, like most resource extraction, it won't be big money for you, baby. It'll mean big money for "Senior Fellows" who write propaganda and for their bosses. And the editors of the TandT dropped their regular columnist (who is honest) to slip in this lying crap.

Gee. I wonder who told them to do that.

The editorial, as usual, is about ways to make money. The only editorials I have ever seen in this paper in  favour of government spending money is when its spent to build multimillion dollar hockey rinks for team owners who prefer not to risk their own money.

In this one, they get onto the subject of improving the sort of weak tourist season we just had. They think we need better marketing. But just a line above that, they give the real reason. There isn't a whole lot of money running around in the US. It's in a recession. Many millions can't possibly afford to go anywhere. You can play at marketing all you like, it won't change that.

The reality is that most of the money in the US, as in Canada, is going into the pockets of the very rich. And much of it is getting there because of vast corruption - as in the US military-industrial complex and, in Canada as in the US, of low taxes for the rich, and the freedom to destroy jobs here and set up shop under quasi-dictatorships that let them get away with no taxes, no environment controls  and scandalously cheap labour.

That is not going to change. Indeed, it is almost certain to get worse. Get used to it.

The last page was needed for another balloon picture and ads; so letters to the editor found a place by kicking out one of the op ed writers. The only op ed left was Craig Babstock. On balance, I would have preferred to see another picture of a balloon. He's all in a fuss because some shale gas opponents made threats to reporters - and he wants them to get really harsh sentences. After all, he says, the press is what gives the information that a free society must have.

It should, Craig. But your  paper is propagandist and lying. And it's destructive to a free society.

September 8 has less than one page of foreign news. No man is an island. Certainly, New Brunswick is not an island. What happens in all of Canada affects us. We can, for example, plan our economy until our teeth fall out. But how our economy develops depends heavily on how Canada's develops. In the same way things that happen in the most remote parts of the world affect us.

For example, no paper I have seen says so openly, but Obama has so far lost his challenge to Putin. The Kiev army was defeated - and not by the Russian army. Even if the numbers we have seen (and which I doubt) for Russian involvement were true, it would not be enough to defeat a professional and loyal army from Kiev. The reality is that that the Kiev government does not have national support. Ukraine was a bungled affair from the start.

We have a NATO strike force being formed, and we have air and sea patrols in the Ukraine region. But they aren't there because we intend to do anything. They're there to cover up the reality that we aren't going to do anything. Kiev knows that. That's why it agreed to peace talks.

The war could still happen by mistake. But there is no possible way such a war could be worth the risks it poses. However, we have aircraft there, and we have at least one warship. If a mistake happens, we're in a war. And living in New Brunswick is no insurance to help us through that.

The existence of IS is the result of another blunder. The US,   in destroying Iraq, killing so many, and starving so many to death (estimates for children in the war and after starving to death are at least 400,000), created the situation that gave rise to IS. The head of the Arab league, referring recently to IS, said it is "...an armed terrorist group that .....challenges the state authority (and)..its very existence."

Very true. But how is that different in any way from the American invasion of Iraq? This one could blow into a very long war - and Canada  will be caught in it because we have already committed troops in the form of advisors.

I don't blame Obama for being tired of it all. But we get no sense from the Irving press of what caused all this or even of what's happening now.

I also checked out the Sports section. It had four pages, which certainly beats foreign news, and even beats election coverage. But it's very weak on columnists - with only one, and he seems to cover just the Wildcats.
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There's more to say, much more about these two issues of the TandT. But life is short.

What we have is a newspaper designed to keep people ignorant of what is happening. It's quite deliberate. In local affairs, it does it publishing trivia, most of it really not news of any sort. In national and federal affairs it relies on material from news services that are so  unquestioning and so biased that they just promote more ignorance. And to make it worse, the editors seem to make no attempt to assess which are the important stories of the day.

The editorial is almost always local - partly, I suspect, because the editorialists don't know any better. And they're almost always about money. There is no sense that New Brunswick is also about people.
And the columnists? Well, the big one for September 8 was a pure propagandist spreading the line that shale gas is absolutely harmless. The op ed columnist for that day was one who knows of nothing except the most local matters - and knows very little about them.

And that's the TandT formula. Keep it trivial. Spice it with propaganda. It's much the same as the commercial radio stations. And it is profoundly hurting New Brunswick.

Sept. 6: Let's forget the Irving press for a bit...

...there's nothing in it anyway. But something happened yesterday that can only be understood with a lot of history.

While suffering the boredom forced on us seniors by exercise instructors who condemn us to forever walking on treadmills, I watched Obama's press conference on Ukraine. At first, I was infuriated by his lies, his spewing of hatred, and his threats. Then, as  it went on, the truth dawned on me. It was all huff and puff. What he was really saying is that he isn't going to do anything about Ukraine.

To understand all this, why it's happening and what it means, we have to go back, way back to the 1870s.

That's when Germany was uniting and  industrializing. That would make Germany a formidable competitor both for trade and for empire. So Britain needed friends. It needed it's own gang. That's when you start to read of the British calling for US friendship. That's why Churchill called  his history series "History of the English-speaking Peoples".

But the US wasn't interested. It was busy building its own empire, something which might involve gobbling up bits of the British Empire - like China and Canada. So Britain had to settle for another gang. That's why it asked Canada, Australia and New Zealand to send troops to fight the Boers in South Africa. It was a warning to Germany. As I used to say as a kid, "You fight me; you fight my gang."

Later, the US would fight on the British side. But that had nothing to do with helping Britain. The US intervened in the two world wars very late, and only to further its own interests. One of the those interests, incidentally, was to snap up the British and European empires in Asia - as in the case of   French Indo-China (Vietnam).

That's why, even before Pearl Harbour, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Quebec City to outline the purpose of going to war. In what became called the Atlantic Charter, they promised a world of freedom and democracy.

In fact, that was pure PR. Both Britain and the US had substantial empires, with US imperial wars beginning even before American independence - as the wars against native peoples. (There is no evidence it was part of God's plan for the US to occupy all that land.) After independence, it fought imperial wars against Canada, Mexico, then a hundred years of imperial wars in Latin America, planting dictatorships like dandelions, then moving against Hawaii and The Phillipines.

No. Freedom and democracy were not really on the British and American agendas. But the Atlantic Charter did lay the groundwork for the United Nations, an organization that would establish law and order throughout the world. But the US and Britain, along with the other major powers of the day - Russia, China and France - wrote a charter that gave them, individually, the right to veto any UN action. They, all of them, had no intention of submitting to law and order.

Any charge or investigation against any of them was immediately vetoed. They also vetoed charges against their friends - as the US, for example, has on some 50 occasions vetoed any examination of war crimes charges against Israel.. They only time the UN was able to take a major action was in the case of the North Korean invasion of the south. And that was only because the Russian delegate was not there to use his veto.

The UN was destroyed as a form of world government before it even started. It was deliberately destroyed by the major powers of the time. And their weapon was the veto.

But the US was finding, as Britain had a century earlier, that conquering the world can be a demanding business. It needed its own gang, people it controlled, to help out. And so the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created.

At least one person, a Canadian, saw where this was leading. Prime Minister Pearson was a man with a long experience of foreign affairs. He saw immediately that NATO was really a rebirth of the old British idea of the Boer War period, the creation of a gang - but in this case, a gang to serve US interests. That's why he pioneered the idea of the Canadian army as peacekeepers. It was quite clear to him. Either we are street thugs for some gang boss or we are working toward a world of law and order.

It was a very sensible idea. So, of course, it was opposed by the armed forces and by those who saw nothing wrong with street thugs. The concept of peacekeeping  was also abused by the US.

When an army of  soldiers for the former dictator of Haiti invaded that country, the US sent a military force to establish peace. It was a farce. The US invasion force ignored the gunmen, and kicked out the country's elected president, the first one they'd had after decades of rule by American dictators. Then, to complete the cover-up for what they'd done, they asked other countries (like Canada) to send peacekeepers - to make it all look legitimate. And we did.

NATO is now what the US wanted, it's own gang to help fight its wars and to give them an air of legitimacy. There's even talk now of sending them to Iraq -which is a long way from the North Atlantic. So it was natural for the US to call in NATO as trouble developed in Ukraine. It also increased the dangers of the situation. (Can you imagine the reaction of the US if Russia were to station troops in Mexico to threaten the US?)

From the start, Obama's tone has been belligerent, aggressive, accusatory. And lying.The problem did NOT begin with any incursion of Russia troops anywhere.

Before it began, Ukraine had a legal, elected government which was on friendly terms with Russia, even being permitted to gobble up billions in Russian oil without paying for it. Then there was street violence in Kiev, and the government was overthrown. That was how this all started.

Our news media repeatedly and routinely say that Russia started all this with incursions into Ukraine. But no such incursions had happened. It was the street rioters in Kiev who did it. It would make no sense whatever for Russia to have provoked those riots; there is no evidence it did; and, in fact, I have seen no reports in any news medium that Russia had any connection with those riots.

But this is where it all started. So why do our news media repeatedly tell us that Russia started it? This is one  hell of a demonstration of the bias, the lying - and the tremendous influence - of our news media.

In fact, the only public statement we have on responsibility for the overthrow of the elected Kiev government comes from an American Associate Secretary of State. She has claimed credit for organizing  the coup, and for spending millions to organize the riots.

Now - Obama immediately recognized the new government. Huh? People riot, illegally overthrow the government, a new government with Nazi Party members prominent in it is appointed - and Obama instantly recognizes it?  Gee! How come he's so slow in recognizing the government of the Islamic State in Iraq?

Why would the US do this? Well, it might have something to do with pushing its gang (NATO) up to the Russian border at a point so close to Moscow that American missiles could destroy it in minutes.

From the start, Obama's tone has been accusatory and threatening. And the North American news media have followed his gang's line.  Russians evil. US good.

Putin may very well be evil. He didn't slaughter millions in Vietnam and Iraq like the US did. But, sure, he could be a bad guy. But there's precious little evidence that he's the bad guy in this case - and lots of evidence that Obama is. (If Obama is really in control - which I doubt.)

So I listened to his press conference as I plodded my weary way on the treadmill. And then it began to dawn on me.

Obama was talking tough, very tough, indeed. But the real message tucked in there was that he is not going to intervene in Ukraine. Yes, he will set up a Russian strike force - in a year or so. Big deal.  But he is not going to risk a nuclear war. Ukraine is going to have to work out peace terms with Putin, and with its own people.

Why this sudden change? For a start, it could be that the NATO countries are not nearly so keen as our press has led us to believe. Like Harper, they all talk a good game - but they aren't really interested in the commitments or the risks. As for sanctions, they hurt some of the NATO powers more than they hurt Russia.  Obama was talking tough to cover the reality that NATO leaders are telling him to back off.

As well, the threat of the Islamic State may be more important than Ukraine to both the US and NATO.

Whatever the case might be and whatever the Irving press might tell us, Obama and NATO have lost the showdown in Ukraine. Putin has won.

That reminds me. Some weeks ago, on TV news, Brian Mulroney laughed at the idea that Putin could challenge Obama, and said Putin would soon learn his lesson. More recently, he's been publicly criticizing Harper, and today we have a breathless story that Mila Mulroney knew Joan Rivers. I was so thrilled to read that.

Mulroneys have not been in the news since he confessed to accepting large sums of money in unusual ways and evasion of paying taxes - and, being one of the boys, suffered almost no penalty at all. He's a proven thief and a liar. Mila has a craving for public attention and living expensively.

Is it possible that we are witnessing the organized return of those two to public life? Does Brian now hope we've forgotten, and will let him back as an elder statesman? Does Mila hope the world will tell her again how lovely her dresses and jewelry are? It looks that way.

Sept. 4: hysteria?

Section A has a few pages of N.B. party platforms worth reading. Alward's platform is already dead in the water because we know what he'll do ----whatever Mr. Irving tells him to do. Gallant's platform? I would award it two yawns, possibly three. There's nothing in it  that has a grip on anything this province needs. If either of them is elected, I would expect Mr. Irving to do another arrogant repeat, and call for a provincial conference of his human hamsters to  plan the economic future (in one weekend at a good hotel.)

I have lots of sympathy for the Greens, but their programme is too narrow to remedy the province's problems.

Peoples' Alliance? No, thank you. I taught Canada's early history. But I have to desire to relive it.

NDP? It's the only party that has a clear philosophy on the purpose of government and the nature of human society. And it has, like the Greens, an intelligent and clear plan for what it wants to achieve. But I don't think it goes far enough to remedy the basic problems.  Nor am I convinced that New Brunswickers have the courage to support anything but their habitual politics of the mid-nineteenth century.
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In foreign news, the world is really in a state of hysteria - and that hysteria is being whipped up the news media across North America.  Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is in Baghdad to denounce terrorism, and to say that while we support Iraq, we're leery of Iran.

Well, of course he's leery of Iran. Being leery of Iran is the official policy of the US; and Canada's foreign policy has been nothing but an echo of the US foreign policy for decades.

He accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism. Now, our friend, Saudi Arabia sponsors terrorism. The US sponsors terrorism very directly with massive invasions, weapons that kill huge numbers of civilians, drone bombers in the skies  over Pakistan and Somalia, mass murder by chemicals like Agent Orange and by depleted uranium that not only kills in large numbers but causes cancers and horrible birth defects for years after. Counting the unending wars, the assassination squads, the drones, the United States is far the worst terrorist organization in the world. But smarmy and self-righteous Baird would cut out his own tongue before he would say so.

And, certainly, you will never see even a hint of that in the press services that the Irving press subscribes to.

Harper is on the same page spouting the same hypocrisy - with an added touch.  He is determined to crush ISIS and to help the suffering people of Iraq (the same ones he didn't help when the US was killing them). But, well,  like...sort of...y'see, we're on a budget. Good luck for those who are counting on Canadian help.

Then we have Obama vowing to 'degrade, destroy' the people who beheaded an American journalist in Iraq. And we're told how the world was horrified by it. Beheading is certainly awful. So is carpet bombing of civilians in cities, poisoning the land, crippling and killing people by the million - including babies, women, elderly.....destroying schools, factories, plunging whole nations into poverty and starvation (as the US did to the Iraqis it is now so ardently defending.)

I don't remember the news media of North America getting all horrified at that - or even mentioning it. But foreigners  kill one American - ooooo- Obama and the news media reel in horror. And Obama shouts into microphones that he will destroy ISIS. Maybe - but there are a few points me might remember....
1. ISIS exists because of money from the good ol' boys in Saudi Arabia.
2. It is a spinoff of groups financed and trained by the US to fight a "civil war" in Syria.
3. The reason Iraq cannot defend itself is because it was so thoroughly and brutally destroyed by the US and Britain.
4. Terrorists like ISIS exist because of a century of conquest,killing and plunder by the western powers against the Middle East. They are created and sustained by hatred and fear of what the west, certainly including the US, has done to them.

"Degrading" and "destroying" is how you create "terrorists", not how you destroy them.

What's going on in Ukraine is still pretty fuzzy. The theme you find running through North American media is that it's all the fault of the Russians. Yesterday, The National Post featured a story that Putin is evil, hates freedom, etc. This is typical, much like the reporting before the Iraq war and before Afghanistan. This is the problem of a news media almost entirely owned by a small number of extremely manipulative people. Right now, they're in "hate" mode.

The general message is that Russia is a threat to peace. Yep. The US has killed millions is a series of wars that we still do not have any reason for. It operates torture prisons all over the world. It has almost a thousand bases all over the world. But, oh, them Russians is the real threat.

Most news media also make it a point to print every accusation that Russia invaded Ukraine, and is responsible for starting it all. That is simply lying.

This began with the illegal overthrow of a Ukraine government on good terms with Russia. Obama immediately recognized that illegal government. This is a problem started by the US. Now, NATO is going through the hysteria of preparing for war against Russia. With both sides having nuclear weapons, they are almost certain to use them. It is simply not possible for such a war to be worth the cost in money and human life. But it is worth it to the billionaires who happily killed, at huge cost, in Vietnam, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan to increase their economic domination.

Incidentally, if the West is big on freedom, why don't we have a UN supervised vote in Western Ukraine on whether they want to be part of Ukraine?

We're being stampeded into wars to make the rich even richer. Then they can say we're living beyond our means. So they'll cut our services.
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Alec Bruce has an intelligent column on education. Norbert doesn't.

Doesn't is such a small word. Ignorant? Smart ass? Illogical?

From the deep and dark corners of his incomplete mind, Norbert says, in effect, that we don't need  education systems. We can learn without them.  His proof?

He looks up a bunch of funny quotations by famous people about education. Norbert, that proves nothing. And, in fact, it would easily be possible to find a much larger list of quotations by people who say education is essential.

And anybody who has actually read books on the subject knows well the tremendous impact of public education. A prime example is  the story of how a tiny and poor Scotland pioneered public education, and became, by the nineteenth century, a tremendous force in creating the ideas on which our modern society is based.

Some of the quotations are quite true - but they don't say what Norbert thinks they do. For example, his quotation from da Vinci "Study without desire spoils the memory..." or Plato, "knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind." Learn to read, Norbert. Those statements do not say that education is bad. They say that THE WAY IT'S TAUGHT is important.

Much of your criticism would have more value and truth if aimed at our universities. They are way behind public schools in their understanding of education.

Sept. 3: I don't usually write a blog on Wednesday .... but...

... there are big things happening in the world, big things (or one) in the Irving press, and a few bits to tidy up.

Let's start with the beloved Times and Transcript - with the editorial page.

The editorial, not surprisingly, harps on the provincial debt. It certainly is bad. But the editors stick to simple-minded propaganda in trying to explain it, and how to deal with it. The reality is that the debt was created by big business in this province - just in the way the world's biggest ever debt has been run up in the U.S. It has been created by people who are greedy beyond measure, who have been robbing us blind for decades, and who are happy now to make us suffer while they run up even bigger profits.

The message is clear. The very rich created the deficit. Now, they expect us to pay for it. The same thing is happening all over the western world. Children may starve, may suffer for life from lack of opportunity - but Mr. Irving will still have plenty of money for pictures of himself to hang up in our various Halls of Fame for philanthropy and self-worship.

And the poor will still be welcome to go to the Irving Chapel to ask God to forgive them for being irresponsible, and to have special music and a free cup of coffee in the barn.

The very rich are the lords and ladies of our world. Born better than us, they run the province - then blame us when things go wrong.

And not one of the political parties  has addressed this reality.

Then there's Alec Bruce. His column is what drove me to write a blog today. It's called Who fails democracy: systems or citizens?" And it is far the best column I h ave seen in an Irving paper, and one of the best I have seen in any paper.

The main point is that capitalism and democratic government have to operate in a balance. Margaret Thatcher and a second-rate actor named Ronald Reagan destroyed that balance. The result? Even as hundreds of millions get poorer, the very rich get richer. And the economy as a whole gets destroyed. That's a lesson we learned in the great depression, but which we promptly forgot when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan - and more than a few news media - sold us out.

I have no confidence that either Conservatives or Liberals will even understand any of this. Both leaders are obvious lightweights with the lightest part between the neck and the hairline. Both kiss up to the Irving press line that entrepreneurs are special people with special gifts to run a society, that government is too big, that civil servants don't know what they're doing, and so on.

In fact, government is too small (and the elected part of it commonly too corrupt) to govern a society. The result that the big "entrepreneurs" of this world run free, predatory animals that leave a trail of killing and destruction and poverty wherever they go.

Wake up, New Brunswick. Time is short. Forget these political debates that don't deal with anything that matters (indeed, Gallant can be so vague that he usually says nothing at all.) Nor, I regret to say, can I point with pride to any of the other parties on this issue.

Anyone who thinks we are going to solve our problems by firing civil servants, cutting pensions, creating more entrepreneurs, etc. should be living in a cage with the other canaries. Virtually all of the western world is in the same crisis. Developing a better school reading programme in New Brunswick won't change that.

The issue is who runs this "democracy"? The question is are we equal? or are most of us peasants under an aristocracy of wealth?

Most of the western world is heading for a very big crash, both economic and social. It's a crash being caused by the greed, amorality and incompetence of our aristocracy. It's happened before. That's a characteristic of an aristocracy.

But do yourself a favour and read Alec Bruce's column. He explains it all very well, indeed.
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Something is going on in Ukraine. But it's hard to be sure what it is. It looks as though there may be a stop to the fighting as Russia and Kiev move to an agreement on terms for a permanent solution. Why are they agreeing?

Well, there was never any sign Russia wanted a war in the first place. Kiev did want a war. But it has not gone well as the Kiev government has proven to have limited popularity even among its own army. That's why it was pushing Obama for intervention.

At the beginning, Obama might have agreed to intervene. In fact, it is possible this whole war was set up as an excuse for US intervention. But now, Obama has a very full plate in the Middle East. (not to mention the full plates we never hear about in South America, Africa, Pakistan - and he's not out of Afghanistan, yet.
I expect he told that to Kiev - thus Kiev's sudden willingness to negotiate with Russia.

This is all speculation and, in any case, very vulnerable to unexpected changes.
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Then there was just a small point. I think it was yesterday that Norbert wrote a column on how the world is becoming a more peaceful place. It seems he read a book. It was by a Stephen Pinker who created a sensation by arguing that the world has, over the centuries, become a less violent place. Norbert quotes it to show we are likely to have a more peaceful world in the future.

Norbert, I'm glad you read a book. But since you have no expertise at all in the field, it's dangerous to accept it as gospel. That's why good newspapers have book review sections written by experts in the field.

I have only glanced at Pinker's book. I was not impressed enough to glance any further. And I know people in the field who were not impressed. And I have read reviews that were not impressed.

Look - in the academic world, reputation as a thinker and as the centre of intellectual attention is  important. (It's everything.)  So the academic world is full of people who look for quick fame with controversial books that attract wide attention. (Yes. It's a pretty silly world.) Pinker's book seems to me to fit that category.

In the first place, I do not see how he could gather statistics on violence. They aren't all reported today -and they certainly haven't been in world history. I have no idea how many people have been killed since World War 2. Nobody does. There isn't even agreement on the Vietnam war, or Iraq - not to mention killer raids by special forces - or Mao or Chiang-Kai Shek or Stalin. Some estimates would run well over 200 million deaths (But there isn't even a standard definition of what a war death is.)

So Pinker only counts those wars fought between major powers. And, yes, no such war has occurred since 1945. It's all been major powers attacking lesser ones. So we can ignore the fact that millions have been killed. They don't really count because they live in lesser countries. We've become sweet and lovable.

But even if we  did have peace for all that time, what would it tell us about the future? Nothing. We've had peace between major powers because they all have nuclear weapons. And there has been no defence against nuclear weapons. Now, it seems the US does have a defence against them. So a nuclear war is possible. And, gee, I think that might count as violence.

You might keep the same thought in mind for your worship of the book on how our economy is going over a cliff. It is, of course. But it does not follow that is happening because the poor are overprivileged or because we have too many civil servants.

By the way, you're always complaining about poor literacy in NB. So why doesn't your paper have a book review section to encourage reading? And why does you paper encourage low literacy by publishing so much pointless and brainless trash?

September 3: missing the point - and point....

Front page - read all about it...getcher papers now....

The jolting headline for September was "Students headed back to school tomorrow". Wow! who would have guessed?

Then there's a big story about an old graveyard that's been cleaned up. That's nice. Then there's another big story about how Crystal Park Employees will miss the amusement centre when it closes. All the news YOU need to know!

The real story of the day - a major apartment fire in Dieppe only made page two. But that, at least, was forgivable. Since the fire happened after the paper had gone to print, it must have been quite a scramble to get the story in at all.

And that's it for section A.
______________________________________________________________________________With With the world in turmoil, the TandT manages to cover it all in just 1 and 1/4 pages of NewsToday - and still have room in there for a photo of two children in Dieppe riding in a pink play car.

Putin has again called for talks on the fighting in Ukraine, and again called for federation of the states to solve the problem. So far, it's been the evil Putin who has been the only one to suggest a peaceful solution. The US has consistently accused  (without evidence) and threatened (as with trade sanctions - which it surely knows by now are ineffective). And the Kiev government's only policy has be to try to pull the European Union into the war it started. More on that later.

Page C1 notes that Canada's refugee policy is often cruel, indifferent to suffering, breaks up families. Actually, it has always have been that way. That was a lesson German Jews learned when they tried to escape to Canada in the 1930s, and even for some years after the war ended. At that, Harper is probably a new low for us.

There is no mention of any Christian church picking up my suggestion to offer sanctuary to a Dieppe family  which is threatened by our government with deportation into a very dangerous situation. Nothing offends Christians more than to be asked to do something Christian. Their idea of Christian behaviour is to wear clean clothes to church, to attend pancake breakfasts, and enjoy coffee in the barn.
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There's an 8 page supplement of brainless, fatuous, trivial, juvenile, "feel good" propaganda. It's called Spirit of Moncton. It was written by reporters whose standard of what journalism means is so low they allowed their names to appear on the "stories".

Some of the points made are true. Moncton is a nice size. It's pretty safe. It's polite.

But it's also a place that leaves vital services (like eating) up to voluntary charities, that is terrified of open discussion of just about anything, a place that serves the rich in scandalous ways - as in building an "events" centre - has very few good restaurants, that is an intellectual morgue  (and that is why its children don't read), whose idea of culture is whatever is in the top ten, and that tolerate a newspaper that is shabby and shallow even by North American newspapers.

But, oh yeah, it has "entrepreneurial" attitudes - as though those are very, very important. In fact, as you read this insert and most political statements, it becomes clear that the only, really important thing in life is making money.

 Yes, it is necessary. But you don't start with money. You start with people, and with what they need. But in dealing with these issues, New Brunswick starts and ends with just the money. Actually, shovelling most of the money into the pockets of a few "entrepreneurs" doesn't do a hell of a lot of good for people.
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The editorial, for Labour Day, is about the enormous respect that editors have for the working people of this province. Yes, I've often noted that in their strong support for better wages and services for the working class.

Norbert has a pointless but largely harmless column - but for one thing. He blames the school for the poor rate of literacy in New Brunswick. That is sheer ignorance.

Though I grew up in a district in which illiteracy was common, I was a heavy reader from the age of five or six - starting with Dick and Jane, and with The Bobbsey Twins. I was a heavy reader because my father was a heavy reader. There were always books around; and every Saturday he would bring me a book or two from a used book store. I read piles of Rudyard Kipling poems and stories. By twelve, I was hooked on cowboy novels. Then, high school friends introduced me to Shaw, and Sean O'Casey. And my father shifted gears to get me Winston Churchill's "History of the English-speaking Peoples."

We cannot expect schools to teach reading all by themselves. You need a social setting that makes reading a normal sort of thing to do. And children are not likely to learn to read if they spend all their free time watching TV or playing computer games.

I wish Norbert would learn something about education before he dumps on the schools.

Alec Bruce makes an excellent point - that we have to find a balance between free enterprise and regulation. Yes, that means we really do need an expert civil service. That balance, and the loss of it, is the dominating influence of our time.

Steve Malloy writes the sort of column I usually dislike, the personal story. But there are two things that make him worth reading.
1. He writes really well.

2. Though his column are often about moments that happened to him, he shapes them to have a wider meaning.
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Section A for September 2 is the usual zero with lots of pictures.

NewsToday, as usual, has very little news. - so let's to try to figure what's going on.

Just about every story on Ukraine suggests Russia has troops and weapons helping the rebels in Ukraine. No story has any evidence of it. Western news media have been doing this from the start. By now, with drones, satellite cameras, etc., there should be evidence. So why isn't the press showing it to us?

There was a satellite image of  a line of black spots. We were told they were military trucks invading Ukraine.How do we know? They could have been carrying humanitarian aid. For that matter, the picture tells of nothing of whether they were in Russia, Ukraine, or Saskatchewan.

And the reports of Russian tanks on the rebel side? Well, yes. Those are Russian tanks. And the army of Ukraine has Russian tanks. And the government of Ukraine admits that large numbers of its tanks have been captured by the rebels - as have ammunition stockpiles, artillery pieces, armoured troop carriers.....

How could that happen? Because large numbers of Ukraine government troops have deserted to the rebel side, bringing their equipment with them - and also bringing their military skills. That's why the Ukraine government is desperate to get American and European intervention.

There is no way that a rebel group of amateurs, even if they had Russian help, should be giving such a hard time to a trained army. But this is a very shaky army because the government itself is shaky. It is an illegal government. It is made up of those who staged an illegal coup against a democratically elected government. The illegal government later had an election of its own. But an election in which half the country was a battleground is scarcely a test - even if, as is unlikely, it was a fair election.

(As an aside, it seems that reporters for Associated Press as well as editors for the Irving press, have things to learn about the military. A story at the top of C10 passes on  a rumour that Russia had at least four battalions in Ukraine; and it said a battalion was 400 men. u-h-h, I don't think so fellas. The basic unit of an army is a regiment. It is the unit the soldier is placed in when he joins up. A full regiment would be a thousand, though it's commonly a bit less. When training is complete, and the soldiers committed to action, they are called a battalion - and new soldiers are admitted to the regiment for training. But the battalion sent off is still a part of the regiment - so it is called, say, the First Battalion of the Black Watch - then there might be a Second and a Third and so on - But each will be close to a thousand. And each battalion, like each regiment, will be commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel or a Colonel. But each will be of close to a thousand soldiers.)

The US has supported the illegal government of Ukraine from day 1. What is happening here is not a Russian aggression against Ukraine. It is an attempted (but failing) attempt by the US to establish an ally on the Russian border.

Obama certainly  supported the illegal government from the start. Now, he seems to be using sanctions to stall for time - perhaps because he's too heavily tied up in the Middle East. But it could still get out of control as one can never be sure who is calling the shots in Washington.

In the Middle East, Obama is intervening to prevent any strong state emerging in Iraq, Syria, or Libya.
Saudi Arabia and the emirates seem to have a quite different interest.

Page C3 has a bizarre sub-headline that Israeli children living close to the Gaza strip are trying to return to some sense of normalcy after widespread deaths.

What widespread deaths? The war killed almost 500 Palestinian children - but no Israeli children. Shouldn't a news editor notice that before deciding to print it?

There is no mention in the news that Netanyahu has annexed a thousand more acres of Palestinian land - to kick Palestinians off it, and give it to Israeli settlers. Way to get the peace process going, Net.  The lesson of this is clear. Israel will illegally annex Palestinian land until Palestine is destroyed. This isn't war. This is genocide.

Harper, who talked a great game about supporting the illegal Ukraine government, and who promised help, has just cut $2.7 billion from the defence budget. It's starting to be noticed. Harper is a big talker. But it's just for the local vote.
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Norbert moans about the terrible suffering inflicted on people by the Hitlers and Cambodian dictators, etc. No mention of the US or the millions of dead in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala......

Alan Cochrane has a column on culture - Moncton style.

The Letters to the Editor page proves that propaganda works. Routinely, the Irving press avoids any question about the role of the very rich in creating our debt. Remember, J.D.Irving make it clear after the last election that he would run the provincial economy. And that's the way it's always been done in New Brunswick. But now, the myth peddled by his news media is that he had nothing to do with created the provincial debt. Goodness, no. It was them there poor people who wanted so many services. Read the letter, "Can we distinguish wants from needs?."  See how propaganda works.

The real question is  whether Mr. Irving can distinguish wants from needs. And that is why today I haven't commented on election issues being discussed in the news. The issues  being discussed in the news are trivial. The ombudswoman says she has worked to make the coverage even and balanced. I'm sure she has. But nothing is nothing no matter how fair and evenly balanced.

This election has an invisible issue - and that invisible issue signals the greatest change we've seen since the earliest days of democracy.

There is no "democratic" world. In countries (and provinces) that claim it, democracy has long disappeared. Power is not in the hands of a very few. It's happened here, in the US, in much of Europe, in Russia....
The very few can buy governments. And they do.

That very few can, to a considerable degree, control thought through propaganda and lying - a  process made such simpler in North America with almost all news media controlled by a handful of wealthy people - like the Irvings. Nor, thanks to free trade, do they need to have any concern about regulations or limits to their behaviour. Annoy them - and it's an easy matter to shift operations to another country.

Using propaganda and lying and fear and an enforced ignorance, it's possible now to blame the poor for the poverty created by the rich. It's possible to make the rest of us willing to funnel billions to military-industrial complexes so that we can kill people to force them to buy the products that our businessmen make - often with the cheap labour and lax regulation  of impoverished countries.

We are abandoning democracy, and in exchange getting government by the very rich - not because they have any talent for it, but because they were born rich. It's a recreation of the world of aristocracy in which any bozo could be king so long as he was the first-born of all the other bozos in the family.

We are very far down the road. But that, above all others, is THE issue of this election. And nobody's talking about it.

Oh, yeah. People in Grassy Narrow, the site of two, native communities, are dying of mercury poisoning. Most of the animals were killed years ago. We know this only because Japanese doctors who have specialized in this problem are pushing Canada to do something about it. But Canada has done nothing despite years of death and suffering. It has refused to help the suffering, and refused even to acknowledge that anything is wrong.

Origins of the disease seem to lie in a lumber mill and a mine which dump their mercury-laden waste into a river, poisoning the water and the land through which it flows. But the government is so far ignoring the evidence presented by the Japanese doctors, and is showing no interest at all.

Ditto for the mine and the lumber mill.

Something very similar has been happening for years downstream from the Alberta oil sands, where death rates have shown a marked rise.

But, hey, if your can't trust your billionaire mine owners and lumber mill owners and oil companies, who can you trust? Remember. They're all better than you. They were born that way.