Feb. 10: www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1500596.htm

To the cheers of my French Catholic ancestors, and to the curses of my Scots Presbyterian ones, I urge you to read the site in today's title above.

It's a report on a speech by Pope Francis; and it's brilliant. He starts with the problems of hunger, and points out that there is enough food for all. But while we let millions starve, we waste food, and we overeat so dreadfully that our greatest problem is not hunger but obesity.

For this and for much of the hunger and suffering in our world, he blames our economic systems and the financial speculations of the very rich. We tolerate a system which tolerates and even encourages the richer of us to exploit and abuse the rest of us. And, of course, those richer also own governments.

We need to question our politics and economic projects in the broader perspective of what life is about.

The greatest problem we  have is inequity. This, with the stronger (and richer) bullying all of us, is the cause of daily suffering and the mass murder we call war.

Right bloody on.

(For contrast, while driving along St. George St. in Moncton I passed a Protestant church that specializes in signs with cutesie slogans. This week's special message is "Life is short. Pray hard." Wow! What insight! What outspoken courage!)

And I think the pope is more than right. Almost all wars are fought to make more money for some gang of the very rich. They are not caused by religion or skin colour or some genetic evil which afflicts other nations but never us. Religion and skin colour and genetic evil are used by our political and economic leaders to make us fear and hate and kill others. But they aren't what cause wars. It's our political and economic leaders who do that.

 The western powers couldn't care less about suffering and dying in Africa. and the Middle East. In fact, they've long been the major cause of it. What they care about is oil and resources. And they'll kill and starve and degrade to get them.

They couldn't care less about Ukraine. They've been letting Greeks suffer and even to starve for years without lifting a finger. In fact, they're helping international bankers to make it worse.  Obama couldn't care less even about the suffering in the US itself, the malnutrition, the homelessness - though helping them would cost far, far less than sending weapons and mercenary troops (contractors) all over the world. But American big money wants the troops sent, and it wants money spent on its war industries. So the hell with all those Americans who are suffering.

American big money wants the oil of the middle east, the resources of Africa, control of the whole Russian, Chinese, Indian, South American economies. That's why our news media remind us daily of how evil Putin is. That's why Obama is prepared to risk a nuclear war to get what his owners want.

Harper swaggers and talks tough - and rarely does anything. But he plays the fear and hate game, too. That's why we're sinking into the Ukraine swamp. That's why Harper is now pushing for his very own gestapo. That's why we have troops in Iraq.

If Harper cared about Canadians, he would , as the pope says, work on a broader sense of the meaning of life. But Harper doesn't care. Native peoples are not getting the funding they need and deserve. And they are suffering for it. They need, and have a right, to control their own affairs. And Harper won't allow that because he wants control to lay their lands at the feet of the very rich who pay for him.  Large numbers of Canadians are going hungry, and even more are malnourished. A great many are homeless. A very great number live in poverty. Harper couldn't care less.

His idea of "the broader meaning of life" is to spend millions on a huge monument to all those who died because of communism.  Really???? Yes, really. And there is no mention of the more millions we have killed and starved and tortured (including our own whom we sent into horror)  to please the greed of capitalism..

(I can't help thinking of the sign on that St. George St. church during the Afghanistan war - Pray for OUR soldiers. Obviously, the person who write that sign thinks that Jesus came to save the investments of billionaires.)

There was a time when many Protestant clergy thought as Pope Francis does. They were major founders of the old CCF party that was designed to fight the threats that Pope Francis now speaks of. But the CCF became the NDP which softened CCF policies. That's understandable. It's hard to talk sense to a population whose news media and political leaders constantly bombard them with hatred and fear.

Here, in Moncton, for example, "the broader meaning of life" requires a new hockey rink. That tells you something about our political and economic leadership - and our acceptance of its "values". The reality is that we have developed a form of capitalism which is utterly without moral standards. Now, I don't mean by that that everybody should get religious Moral values don't come only from religion. Indeed, there's plenty of evidence that our churches no longer have much in the way of moral values to hand out.

No. It's not simply a religious issue. Moral standards are a necessary condition for the survival of human society. Capitalism was never a great source of moral values. Dare I call it evil - just like them there Islams and Putins? But in the last forty years or so, we have developed a form of capitalism that refuses to permit the existence of any moral values at all. And no society can survive that.
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The big news today in the first section of the paper is that a new diner is opening in town. Well, that should take care of the world's hunger and nutrition problem.

Norbert has two columns on  how social media have very little effect on how we think. And there's a good deal of truth in that. The bigger issue, which he might give some thought to, is that mass media like his newspaper do affect how we think. And their lies and manipulations are destroying us.

Steve Malloy's column is a troubling one. He gets the feeling from some of his francophone customers that they don't want English-speaking people in this province. Well, that happens, of course - just as you'll always find some people who don't want Africans or Chinese or Muslims or - well- us humans have a strong streak of  hatred and intolerance. I grew up in a district of Montreal that had a wide assortment of ethnic groups - French, English, Syrian, Italian, Polish, Armenian, Greek Jewish. To make the choice even wider, Catholics were  divided into French and English.

And, certainly, there were some people who made other groups feel unwelcome.

But I haven't seen much of that in Moncton. In particular, I haven't seen it from Acadians - though it seems more common among anglos. So I wouldn't let one incident chase me away. And consider this possibility - the person who gave you a hard time might have been from Quebec. I'm met a couple of French-Quebeckers here who seem to want to bring the language wars to New Brunswick.
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Monday's paper leads with a story that Harper and Obama are deeply divided on the issue of Jihadism. I wouldn't take that seriously. Harper talks tougher - but it really has nothing to do with Jihadism. It has to do with getting the votes of all those Canadians who have been propagandized by the hate and fear created by our news media.

And Obama is not more moderate. But he has to look more reasonable because much of Europe is getting nervous about his hard line.

I wish there were more to say about section B. But it's hard to talk about a world news section of only 4 pages, and who's biggest story is that Sam Smith won four Grammys.

Our premier, we learn, is taking a pay cut, along with his cabinet ministers. What an inspiring example for all of us!  Well, not actually.

The cut is so small that, after taxes, it will be negligible. And they still get to keep all their perqs. Obviously, this is a pitch to all of us to expect we are going to face cuts, probably in education, health, and other services. And, oh, our premier is suffering, too.

However, Gallant and his crowd can stand a cut. Most of us can't. That's one fault with his proposal. It's pure show biz. And it signals a much worse part.

Gallant is buying into the big business myth (supported by the Irving press and the whatchamacallit committee on over the edge at the U de Moncton.) Make the poor and the middle class suffer for this recession.

The trouble with that theory is that it won't work. Making us poor won't boost the economy. It never has, and it never will. What it will do is make the rich even richer on money that can only come from us. In other words, it will make us poorer to make us poorer.

And the rich, who controlled the economy that led to the recession, will pay little and make even bigger profits. New Brunswickers in particular - remember - it was Mr. Irving who announced just after Alward's election that he was planning the New Brunswick economy, that he was self-appointed to work with the government, and to appoint advisors to the Minister of Finance.

And Gallant every day looks like another Alward, another Graham........

B4 for Tuesday has a (sort of) amusing story, "Obama, Merkel say Russian aggression helps to reinforce  Western unity"

What's amusing about that? Well, there's a reason why she's in the US to visit Obama. It's because Western unity on what she calls Russian aggression doesn't exist. That's why she went to Washington. Germany, France, The Netherlands, possibly Britain, don't want to risk a war with Russia. They don't like Obama aggressiveness. That's why she's there.

As well, of course, she knows that there has been no Russian aggression. Russia doesn't particularly want Ukraine. There's nothing to want. It's broke. It's likely to stay broke. And a Russian invasion would certainly increase the risk of a nuclear war. Putin is no sweetheart. But he also is not a fool. He's involved for only two reasons.
1. Russian speaking Ukrainians are being killed. He can't just let that happen without making himself contemptible in the eyes of Russian people.
2. The Russians have an important naval base in Ukraine. It's been either Russian-owned or under Russian lease for much more than a century. He can't possibly hand that over to Ukraine.

As well, The government in Ukraine is illegal. The last, legal government was elected, but overthrown under US direction and with US money. That information been public for a long time. It was made public by the senior White House official who did it. Too bad our newspapers never get around to mentioning it.

Why does the US care about Ukraine?

1. It's on the route for the Russian oil that fuels much of Europe. US oil companies want their own monopoly of Europe's oil supply.
2.It wants rocket bases as close to Moscow as possible. Remember way back when Russia was going to base nuclear rockets in Cuba? The US went into hysterics. Well, Russians feel the same way about nuclear bases close to them.
3. The very, very wealthy, and all the politicians their money has bought, want a war with Russia to control the Russian market, and as a prelude to a war with China. This sets up a strong risk of nuclear war.

And that is insane. Unlimited greed can do that. Especially in a capitalist state that has no moral code of any sort. The asylum has been taken over by the inmates. And the whole world faces a risk so horrible it is not possible to imagine it.

So far, Obama has been the front man for insanity. Merkel is very, very scared. Most of Europe is scared.
It wants peace talks.

To make it worse, Europe gets nothing out of this deal. Neither, for that matter, does Canada. But we're all offering ourselves up on a great platter to a billionaire class of the greedy and, I can safely say, evil.

Fight your enemy by all means. But don't let the news media and the politicians tell you who your enemy is.

And what will happen?

Well, Obama now pretty well has to accept the peace talks. So - he'll set impossible terms, or set up an incident of some sort.....

And then...................

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Just as a matter of passing interest, under Harper's bill to create a gestapo,, almost everything I've said above would make me a terrorist suspect - and just being suspected would be enough to put me in jail.

Feb. 9: bits 'n' pieces

Today's paper has little in it, so let's take a few looks back at issues that seem to be of no interest to our news media.

Remember the airliner that was shot down over Ukraine. It's now being examined by experts in The Netherlands to determine what shot it down. I don't know why they bother. I mean, Obama knew right away what shot it down. It was a rocket shot from Russian rebels on the ground in eastern Ukraine. Obama was almost  half a world away at the time. But he can tell.

There was a photo of it in the papers. It seemed pretty clear to me that it was shot down by aircraft fire from above. There were the bullet holes, shot through the top of the wing and the side of the fuselage. The lines of holes were straight, and parallel to each other. Rockets don't do that. But Obama, well, if he says so, he must be right.

The scientists have the fuselage  now, and they've been studying it. But they haven't come to any conclusion - and the news media haven't been asking them. Not even a "How's it goin', guys and gals?"

Obviously, these are retarded scientists. Heck. Obama could tell in minutes, and from thousands of miles away. So when will we get the official results? Don't hold  your breath. And be careful about trusting them.
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Another story we aren't hearing much about is a British one. It's about the parliamentary investigation of the entry of Britain into the Iraq war when Blair was prime minister.  All indications are that the report will be dynamite. That is, it will be what was obvious from the start - that Blair and Bush lied about their reasons for invading Iraq. In fact, they gave different reasons at different times - that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (whatever that means), that he was involved in 9/11, and just that he was a "bad man".

So they tried Saddam and hanged him as a war criminal.

Well, lying about the reason for going to war is also a war crime. Killing a million people and more for no legal reason is also a war crime. Inflicting torture on people is a war crime.

But not to worry. There is so far no trial of Bush and Obama for authorizing the use of torture. And there isn't going to be. And the news media aren't going to make a fuss about it. In fact, they hardly mention it even now. And there won't be any trial for anybody who lied about why he went to war. Only the losers ever get tried. Check the record.

Oh, It's also illegal under international law to bomb a country and to kill people you aren't at war with. But the US does it every day with drones. It's killed thousands by now, many of them quite innocent and including children. So how many reports have you read about it? And where is the death count?

Actually, the US hasn't declared war on anybody since 1941. It's a peace-loving country.

Gee! Isn't it terrible what the Naziis did? I wonder how the German people could possibly have supported that.
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Then there was the incident at Rexton, New Brunswick. It was over two years ago that an over-excited premier Alward declared the anti-shale gas demonstrators were an armed camp. The only evidence I have seen of that is a photo of three rifles and three knives. Heck. I went to schools that had more weapons than that.

Now, I  have no doubt that the violence had to be dealt with. In fact, it should have been dealt with earlier - and differently. And differently is the key word.

The position of native peoples was that it was their land. It had never been ceded to Canada. It was legally theirs, and they had a right to determine the use of it. Alward knew that. So why didn't he deal with that BEFORE there was a protest?

The answer is obvious ( though never mentioned by the news media). The shale gas developer was in a hurry. He claimed that delays were costing him $60,000 a day. Now, an intelligent premier would have told the developer that the issue of his right to be there would have to be settled first. And, if the developer had persisted, the premier would have sent the RCMP to clear out the shale employees and their gear. He might also have arrested the President of the company for behaving in a manner to provoke a violence.

Well, we know the chances of a New Brunswick premier doing that. So he chose to turn the RCMP loose on the weaker side - and the one that had little money to contribute to his election campaigns. Well, it may have happened, but I can't think of a single incident in all Canadian history in which the police have been used to put down dangerous behaviour by big business.

Alward created the situation that sent that protest out of control. And that sort of thing has been VERY common in Canadian history. And there was something even more dangerous about this incident - the presence of a line of police wearing camouflage, and carrying semi-automatic combat rifles with large capacity magazines.

The only possible reason for planting them there was to fire into the crowd.

It is not possible to fire into a crowd without killing innocent people -and even worse with semi-auto combat rifles. I looked to where they were placed - on an open field behind the riot squad. I presume they were standing so that they would be able to fire over the heads of the riot squad.

But of all positions for shooting, standing is the least stable and the least accurate. Even at short range, the chances of hitting an innocent person are high. And that's if  the target is in the front row. I have no idea how one could get an accurate shot to hit a specific person anywhere behind that..

And, whoever is hit, doesn't just grunt like in old cowboy movies and say "ya got me in the shoulder" Modern combat rifles use bullets that are high unstable. They tend to flip sideways on a hit, slowing them to a stop while still in the body, and ensuring that the body takes up the whole shock. (This is also what hollow point and soft-point bullets do. But hollow point and soft point bullets are illegal in warfare. That's why we developed unstable combat riles - to do exactly the same thing that it's cruel to do with mushrooming bullets.)

In short, the riflemen were carrying guns that were hopelessly unsuited for use against a crowd unless the whole crowd was made up of psychotic killers.

Then there were the camouflage outfits. Why? They weren't hiding. They were standing in an open field. I could see them quite easily.

But the camouflage suit has become the uniform of a new kind of police. It's kind that has always been there, but usually in small numbers. I knew a few of them. They wanted to beat up people. They wanted an excuse to shoot. I'm not sure why, but it always seemed to be linked to a personality that craved attention and respect - from the better sort of people. That's why they looked forward to policing strikes or protests. They called protesters of any sort 'shit disturbers', and in need of beating. Having a beard, too, was very bad. Most of them, I noticed, didn't last long on the force. (And none of the ones I knew was RCMP)

You'll see the type on some US city police forces, wearing camouflage in the middle of a concrete city. The message is that they aren't there to enforce the law. They're there to keep people in line, to close down the shit disturbers.

They're the ones in the US (and, apparently) in Canada who are getting more powerful weapons - including machine guns, and even tanks. They exist for the war against - us, all of us.

It does not appear to have occurred to  any of our news media to ask questions about any of this, or even to notice the odd things that are going on.

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Yesterday, I  was furious at Tom Mulcair and the NDP for the seeming acceptance of the expansion of the numbers and the privileges of our spy service. I expected it from Trudeau. I expect it from Heil Harper. But I thought the NDP would never descend to that.

I'm happy to note that they didn't descend to it. Yesterday, Mulcair asked the questions that our media should have been asking from the start. And he made demands that everyone who claims to believe in democracy should have asked.

As it is, Harper has given us an intelligence service with powers closely resembling those of the gestapo. And, no, I am not exaggerating. Worse, it is a service that is designed to spy on us (like the boys in camouflage outfits) and designed to treat us all as shit disturbers who can be jailed without charge. And they're free to accuse and jail anybody who isn't "in line". You don't have to be a jihadist - or even a Muslim. Anybody who isn't in line, Harper's line, is eligible.

Harper doesn't see a problem with letting such a 'service' run loose in this country. Of course not. Harper has utter contempt for democracy. And Trudeau has obviously decided that the best way to win the election is to have no policy or principals, just lots of photos of him and his family at the pool.

Harper reminds me of the class bully when I was in grade five. The teacher appointed him to line us up in the classroom to march into class. He would roughly push us into line  (even if we were already in line), then work to the front of the line smashing each kid on the head saying to the kid behind "You - keep your eyes on this spot."

Henry later made a name for himself as a hockey scout for New York, discovering a Montreal boy who turned into a star on the ice. The star then retired to work a bit on radio with me - until he was named in a nasty mess about defrauding elderly people.

Feb. 8: Excellence. Ignorant rant. And the irrelevance of Christian churches.

Back to the Dec. 7 (Saturday) issue of the Irving press where page A4 has a big story about "This week's J.D. Irving, Limited Reading is Wild Readers of the week"

And, no. I have no idea what that sentence means.  But I am struck by the modesty of the owner of the newspaper who, so far, told us about his reading week only twice in two day, and, in great modesty, has permitted his name to appear in the headline only both times

. As a former elementary school teacher (and a former elementary school student), I've never liked the hyped up reading races. Yes, I read heavily in them. But I did that every week, anyway. And they certainly never made a dent on my illiterate friends. I know of no evidence that they develop literacy. But it is heartwarming to see Mr. Irving's name in a headline that screams of his saintly generosity.

A7 has a must-read story about a woman who threw a vodka bottle thought a car window. It doesn't say whether the bottle was full. But we'll probably get that information in the next story of this important news in Monday.

The editorial is based on the wildly idealistic notion that politicians enter politics in order to help everybody. And this, says the writer leads to an oversized bureaucracy which achieves little. And the editorial concludes that we have an impossible dream that government can do everything for everybody.

Now, that's a load. I've met and known a great many politicians. Most of them, particularly in the Liberal and Conservative parties, were in the game purely for themselves and to kiss up to people with big money. One of the few exceptions I knew was Warren Allmand (minister of Northern Affairs, and then Solicitor General in the Trudeau government. I had and still have a great admiration for his political work in  helping others, and his selfless effort to bring peace to Ireland.)

Concern for others was (and is) more common in the NDP and, I suspect, among the Greens.

The editorial's conclusion that government can't do everything is silly because 1.Nobody has ever said it can do everything. 2.And, by any definition, the government of New Brunswick could do a lot more. Read the paper every day. It's there. This a a province that leaves it to volunteers to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and raise money for health, education; and pats the wealthy on the head with gifts of forest, lush contracts, the world's lowest taxes, and lets them control most of our news sources.

There are tiny and poor governments that do more their people than Canada does, and they do it very well.

Norbert writes on much the same subject, using as a base his usual ignorant rant about bureaucrats. Yes, things should be done to better organize our civil service. But it's not the bureaucrats that organized this mess. It's the self-serving politicians supported by Norbert Cunningham who did it. Again, this column is just an ignorant rant.

Brent Mazerolle sticks his neck out to write a column on a subject of which he knows little. And he does a first-rate job. of it. Some of the details aren't quite right. But he doesn't pretend to be an expert. He uses common sense and, evidently, he has a lot of common sense. This is well worth a read.

One quibble - he refers to ISIL as "evil".  That's an emotionally loaded word, used to make us fear and hate. It's an essentially religious term that has been twisted into a propaganda word to make us fear and hate.

In this case, the term refers to "Thou shalt not kill".  Well? What is it we do in war?
Okay, let's say Moses got a bit of it wrong. It was supposed to be thou shalt not kill by burning alive. No. Won't do. Canada, with it's few wars, has killed far more people by burning alive than ISIL has. The US has killed infinitely more.

How about "Thou shalt not kill unless billionaires really want control of some oil country? No. I don't think so. or thou shalt not kill innocent civilians?  m-m-m-m - we've killed far more innocent civilians than ISIL can ever hope to. Oh - "Thou shalt not kill Americans? Nope. Been there. Done that.

We all have evil in us. You, me, Stephen Harper, Mr. Irving...all of us. We all have evil. We have all done evil. To use the word as a general description of one society, as our news media do, is to use an emotionally-loaded word to spread hatred and fear. And that is evil, too.

Gwynne Dyer is back to his normal superb with a column on the violence in Nigeria. His last paragraph might slip by. Don't let that happen. It's dynamite, and it's true.  He says that the Nigerian government is based on a  model set up long ago by its European, colonial masters. Very true. It was designed to make the colonial masters powerful and rich at the expense of everybody else. All that came with "freedom" is that new masters took over to rip everybody else off.(something like New Brunswick.)

That problem is common throughout the former European colonies - and also true of all the American colonies that we don't call colonies.

Bill Belliveau is brilliant in his column on A13 "A spooky anti-terrorism bill". While Canadians doze, parliament is passing a bill that is effectively the end of democracy in Canada. Read this one. Belliveau is the best here that I have even seen in him.

The editorial page stinks. But the Commentary page would be a source of pride to any newspaper any where.
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B3 has a jubilant article on how NB unemployment is steady at 10%. Don't waste your time reading it. The statistics for employment are pure  hokum. A friend worked at a senior position in Employment Canada. He showed me a case where a real unemployment rate of 16% was jiggled to be 6%. And just about every country plays the same game.

There is no foreign news to speak of - though an interesting one is becoming evident. Remember how our Conservatives publicly gave a talk to Putin? It put all the blame for the Ukraine affair on Putin. It threatened him with attack if he didn't accept the blame, and get out.

At the same time, Joe Biden was publicly making the same threats.

Think about that. Then think about how we are about to begin to talk peace in Ukraine with Putin.

Now, think hard. If you were to begin peace talks, would you start by publicly threatening the other side and putting all the blame on it? It wouldn't be a very bright thing to do because it almost compels the other side to refuse anything you offer. Our side in recent days, through major leaders, have made public statements that almost force Putin to say no - and to set up the risk of a nuclear war.

There are senior diplomats and politicians involved here.  It's happening at the highest level. So what does this behaviour suggest?

The US and Canadian governments want a war. They want Putin to say no. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, they want an excuse for war. Such a war, even without nuclear weapons, would destroy Ukraine. But nobody gives a damn about Ukraine. That's not what all this is about.

As a major factor in the US wanting to provoke a war, the European nations and most of NATO are very, very reluctant to see such a war. They want serious discussion of a peace. These speeches by the US dog and it's Canadian tail are designed to make that impossible.
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The Faith page and the sermonette, C7, are the usual bland and trivial stuff. I guess that suits all those Christians who seem to live only for pancake breakfastss.

Look. The whole, "Christian"world is murderous on a huge scale. It carries on brutality, exploitation, murder, torture on a grand scale in Congo, Haiti, Guutemala - not to mention Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan - not to mention Canada and the US in order to satisfy the very wealthy and very, very greedy. And the churches don't say a damn thing about it.

What the hell do they think Jesus was talking about?

If I went to church wearing just underwear, I'd be asked to leave. If I went wearing medals for all the people I  had killed, there would probably be a special prayer in honour of my heroism.

Churches, which side on you on?

It's been like this for centuries. German churches, for the most part, praised the work of Hitler. (So, on occasion, did Canadian and American churches - but we don't like to talk about that. And we won't discuss how Canadian churches, for the most part, had no comment when the Canadian and US governments forbade Jews escaping Hitler from coming here. And we'll say nothing about Cardinal Spellman of Boston who blessed the bombs that were about to be dropped on Cuba. We won't talk about living in a society that will not feed the hungry or house the homeless. (In some California jurisdictions, it is forbidden for the homeless to seek refuge in public parks.)

Our churches' preaching produces people who hold up posters at abortion centres - but nobody who cares when we firebomb and napalm and kill and torture all over the world.

Canada, the US, all of Europe are run on economic principles that are a direct denial of fundamental Christian and Jewish (and Muslim and Confucist and Hindu) teaching.

But the churches are very, very patriotic. That's their problem. It is very, very difficult to believe in any religion and, at the same time, be patriotic. What does patriotic mean? Does it just mean killing people?

So, instead of discussing what Jesus said, the Faith Page gives us cutesie bedtime stories for church-goers who seem to have a fixation on the munchies.

I'm not asking the churches to defy our governments and business leaders..I'm suggesting they should at least encourage discussion of public affairs in the context of religious beliefs. Let people come to whatever conclusion they like. But they have to learn that in order to be Christians, they have to act like Christians.

I have no idea why the churches make themselves and their faith so irrelevant. I have no idea why they sermonize on topics that don't offend anybody, and that would stun a moose in heat.

Feb. 7: Back to the (ugh) irving press....

For Feb.6,  section A news is as trivial as usual. The editorial is, as usual, pretty soggy, too. My it would be nice to have an editorial writer who could handle topics besides parking laws and recycling garbage.

Norbert's is the usual "we gotta balance the budget stuff". Actually, we know that Norbert. Your problem (and our government's) is that you start with the answer of cutting services. But that's not where you start in dealing with a problem.

If it were the way to go, I could balance the budget this year and  forever. Close all roads. Tax the rich at 50%. Close down the Irving press. Make the police walk on patrols. Close the hospitals entirely. Close the schools. Make all students walk for their education, and hold classes in fields. Once people reach 70, shoot them. It will save on pension plans.

But that's not really a good way, Norbert. What you do is to find out what is causing the problem. Then you look at what the needs of your society are. (I notice you never do that.) Then you look at possible answers. The lack of that is why the grandly titled Institute for Public Research and Public Policy, and it its much quoted book "Over the Cliff?" is such a pile of hokum. (But Norbert likes it because it thinks just like he does - so there's a danger sign right there.)

It's really disturbing to see how universities are letting their names be tied up with this sort of propaganda.

Why are our budgets out of wack? That where you start. And, if you're dishonest (or stupid), you begin by saying the health system or education or pensions or all of those are too expensive. Now, let's try really hard to be honest.

1. The very rich have been increasing their share of the world's wealth by giant steps for decades. They also get special gifts in the form of contracts and, say, forest lands, grants.....
2. The rich of North America - and especially New Brunswick - pay among the lowest taxes in the world. The result is that we get poorer. As well, the rich get to decide how the money they don't pay in taxes will get spent - and usually it won't be in New Brunswick - or even in Canada.

Gee! d'ya think that might have something to do with our budget problem?....and why do I think here of the words...events...centre....

3. The Bank of Canada was designed to lend money to Canadian governments at no interest. But now they have to borrow from international banks at high interest rates. It also means that international banks get to determine what Canada's economic policies must be.  We are getting robbed by international bankers with a reputation for imposing hardship and even starvation and death on countries.
By the way, thank Pierre Trudeau for that one.

So, first, let's find out where our money is going.

Then Norbert says that is a waste of time to create jobs by spending public money. Well, Norbert, it depends on how you spend it. If you give it to private companies that are buddies with the government, you're right. It is a waste of money. (even though you often approve when that is done.)

But you should read a little bit of history, Norbert. Not ancient history, just back the the 1930s. Those were very bad years. And what snapped us out of it? Government spending for World War 2. And the prosperity went on for years after - until business got back into full control. Now we have deficits.

Incidentally, the first Canadian prime minister to catch on to this W.A.C. Bennett who was born just a short drive from Moncton. And who was even smarter that you are, Norbert.

In the next stage, you look at the needs of our society to determine what services are important for our quality of life. And on all that, you draft solutions.

Your slash and burn policy will do nothing but create even worse poverty (we've been there before because we've believed books like "Over the Cliff? before.)

Worse, the people of New Brunswick have elected a typical New Brunswick premier who has "visions" without having any philosophy of what government is for. The people read a newspaper which is full of lies and propaganda much of which, I am sure, is believed by most of the columnists.

And God help New Brunswick. It's in for one hell of a time as international banks and home-grown politicians pick its bones clean.

That's what is happening to Ukraine. That's what is happening to Greece. That's what's happening all over the world. And, of course, all those bone-pickers are "philanthropists".
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Cole Hobson has a column of pure gush about a baseball player who occasionally came to Moncton. He provided, "important life lessons for all New Brunswickers." So I patiently worked though paragraph after paragraph of adolescent gush. The important life lessons turned out to be just one. It's based on his record which, it seems, had its share of strikeouts; but when he hit a ball, it went a long way.

And they talk about Plato and Aristotle.

What does that have to do with life? Well, when things go bad, keep going with full effort, and you will launch yourself to success. What that has to do with hitting a baseball a long way I have no idea.

Good column by David Suzuki. And, if I may draw an analogy with baseball, Alec Bruce writes a great one on the census that's a home run.
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The sports page, as usual, has no column for commentary or analysis. Is it, like politics, something that Monctonians are afraid to discuss in public? I mean, how are people going to learn lessons for life without sports commentary?

At last, though, it has a book review. But that's only because it was written by a local woman. Most newspapers have several book reviews in a weekend copy - and they don't usually include Harlequin romances.
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For those who need a laugh, go to B3 for the story of how Canada's Conservative party is telling Russia to 'back off' in Ukraine.  I guess Putin must be hiding in his closet now. Grow up all you Harperites. Years of neglect have left Canada with a military force not capable of doing much of anything. As for the Conservatives telling NATO what it should do, well - Canada has no international status with NATO or anybody else. There was a time when Canada had respect and influence as a sort of honest broker. But that's all over with our years of being a flunkie to the US and, worse, with Harper making tough-sounding talk that everybody knows he can't back up.

In any case, many NATO countries are not crazy about provoking Russia, including major ones like Germany, France and Britain. In fact, that's part of a major story on B5, and another one on B6. Doesn't the news editor read his own newspaper?

For Canada to use provocative language on an issue that would almost certainly lead to nuclear war is wildly irresponsible. So maybe it's a good thing that nobody gives a damn what Harper and his cronies say.

Page B4 has the story about new security arrangements in Ottawa. Playing a role, apparently, will be  government-appointed (which meansHarper appointed) and reporting only to the prime minister.  This is the House of Commons committee on intelligence service. Alas, some of them were not available in Ottawa today.

The chairman, Arthur Porter (appointed by Harper) is in the Bahamas. And he really can't leave. That's because if he enters Canada, he'll be arrested on very serious charges of fraud, breach of trust, and forgery. Then there's two others who have had to temporarily step down for similar reasons. Gee. I guess The Canadian Press didn't know that.

This whole idea of an expanded intelligence service, apart from its record of moral rot, is an absurd response to just two, unrelated attacks - with no evidence of any organized influence. So why are we setting up a huge and dangerous expansion of    our intelligence service?

After all, it's very dangerous indeed. The service would get the power to jail Canadians with no charge, no evidence if they see any even remote connection with terrorism. And terrorism could mean anything. It could, and does mean environmentalism. It can also mean being anti-shale gas. (If you're pro-shale gas, you can terrorize all  you like.) It could mean simply talking to a person who is an environmentalist. It could be me for writing that our wars in the middle east are driven by oil billionaires. In fact, it could mean expressing critical views of Mr. Harper because that might induce some fanatic to kill him. (None of this is exaggeration. This is a bill now going through parliament.)

This isn't an intelligence service. This is a gestapo. And neither the Liberals nor the NDP will say much about it. Why not?

Because Canadians are scared. We're catching up on a process the US began over fifty years ago. Fifty years ago, communists were evil, even satanic, and ruthless, and would murder us all in our beds. That was the message of Senator McCarthy, played up in all the news media.

People were made to be terrified, to hate. The Russians aren't communist any more (the never were, actually),. but our news media have been reviving hatred and fear again - but of Russia. And with oil billionaires setting up wars in the middle east to loot the region even more, our news media have been blowing up hatred and fear of Muslims. Politicians just love people who hate and are scared. You can sell them on all sorts of  absurdity.

Why did the US and Britain invade Iraq? We know we were lied to. We know Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 -or with Afghanistan. But Canadians were sent to die - and to kill - in Afghanistan. Why? We've never been told. When people are scared and hating enough, you don't have to give reasons.

Why are we in Iraq again? You seriously think it's because of ISIL? Get real. The US alone has killed far more people than ISIL has. The US alone, has burned more live people to death than ISIL ever could. No, ISIL is not nice. We are at least as murderous and as cruel. But our news media have not trained us to hate what we do.

Our news media has us scared and hating. We'l fight and we'll kill anybody anywhere no matter what the danger to the world.

Result - any party that opposed Harper's gestapo law would lose the election. That's why they aren't likely to oppose it. And that's why we, in hate and fear of Muslims (or whoever the flavour of the month is) will destroy our own freedom and our nation.
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I didn't  even get to January 7.------------tomorrow.

Feb. 6: meanwhile...

I'm happy to say the Irving press has enough ignorance and silliness in it today so that I should have enough for a column about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, let's cover a few more general points.


All the news media lately have been full of horror and anger at ISIL's killing of a Jordanian pilot by burning him alive.

There's certainly nothing commendable about burning people alive. But the whole world has been doing it for close to a century. It began with flamethrowers and phosphorous shells, and was used chiefly against enemy soldiers at first. By World War 2, leaders on all sides had become more relaxed about it. They, all of them, used burning alive without discrimination, even targeting civilians because it added terror as a weapon of war. (No. Muslims did not invent terrorism.) The most successful example of it was the fire-bombing of Tokyo by the US air force which killed some 100,000 people - burned alive - women, children, babies. And it was no accident that the dead were mostly civilians. Civilian areas were deliberately chosen for the bombing. The same would later happen to Laos, Cambodia - which most of our news media never mentioned.

At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both cities largely civilian and with no military targets, those close to the blasts were mercifully vaporized.  But those further away were burned alive, many, many thousands of them.

Canadians would never do that? Well, they did it to German cities,  using conventional bombs to destroy water supply first so fires couldn't be fought, then switching to firebombs The Germans used fire. The Japanese did. Everybody did.

The horror of it never hit the North American public until the Vietnam war when the US dropped many, many tons of napalm. And you can't really aim napalm. It just kills whoever is there - usually civilians. But then a photographer got a picture of a young girl and it, somehow, got published in the US. She was a very young girl, her clothes burned off her, and her whole body and face horribly burned. She was screaming in pain and terror.

God bless America.

The military had to react, so it flew her to the US for years of plastic surgery and recovery. Well, that was nice for her. But those bombs also killed  or horribly mutliated- nobody knows how many other civilians were killed by fire in Vietnam. But they didn't get free trips to the US or anywhere else for treatment

Napalm and phosphorous were also used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the US drones that terrify much of Africa and Asia fire rockets designed to set fire to those out of range of the explosion. Again, we occasionally get numbers of the dead - not often since our news media don't seem to care. But they include the innocent and children.  Israel has used firebombs. That's what war is about.  I could wish that those pussycats who write our weekly Faith page could develop the wits and the courage to talk about that. It's a long way from "Thou shalt not kill".

Those people in ISIL are terribly cruel. But you know what's really wrong with them?

They're just like us.
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While I'm on the subject of the clergy who write those awful sermonettes for the Irving papers, why have they not ever written about the US-led slaughter of Guatemalans in the 1970s? Google lists clergy who were killed in that slaughter. The lists (about half of them killed in direct murder) take up six pages. Can you imagine the howl if they had been killed by Muslims? But, hey, it's okay. It was done by American and Israeli and Guatemalan soldiers, all standing up for the real God.

Curiously, google has very little to say about that horrible period. And for CBC, I found only a brief reference - to a report that the rebels were marxists. Right. The mining companies were stealing their land, beating them, killing them, submitting then to lives of poverty, destroying their waters and lands - but it was all their fault because they were marxists. (Actually, they weren't. They were desperate people trying to fight back against the very rich.)
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I'm delighted to see our Foreign Secretary Baird leaving politics. It was only recently he made the asinine statement that Cuba can now become a happy and prosperous state if it copies American capitalism and American values.

Capitalism, particularly the uncontrolled sort we have now, does not create prosperity. Cuba, despite all the penalties placed on it by the US, actually has less malnutrition than the US does. (Cuba is on about the Canadian level.) You want to see real malnutition? Check out countries controlled by American capitalism. Guatemala has malnutrition at over 50 times the rate of Canada and Cuba. Haiti has 100 times the rate.

What uncontrolled capitalism produces is poverty, hunger, misery. That's why it's the height of idiocy to say, as the Liberals and Conservatives do, that we have to pamper the rich and nail the poor to get back to prosperity. It doesn't work. It has never worked. It will never work.

As to American values, who could possibly want them?

When Cuba was  under the control of American capitalism and its dictators and thugs and its mafia, it was a land to terror and wretched poverty. The mafia controlled prostitution, which was about the only work a Cuban woman (or child) could get. I don't think Cuba really interested in American capitalism and values.

Baird was playing his usual role as loud-mouthed and ignorant thug.
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There a superb news item at www.informationclearinghouse:info/article-40886.htm
It comes partly from a source I wouldn't normally take  seriously - RussiaTimes. Like FreeEurope or The Muslim Issue,.RT is a propaganda sheet. But this story is also backed by very, very reliable sources - like reporter Carl Bernstein - and the US Senate. Funny it never made the Irving Press.

A leading German newspaper editor, suffering a terminal illness, wrote a book and gave interviews on a topic that has bothered him for some years. He needed to confess. The book and the interview are about how the CIA not only influences news media, but actually writes copy for it and, sometimes, even holds senior management positions in news media. That is true of Time magazine, for example. And, as I glance at copies of MacLean's, it could be true of it, too. It has gone down dreadfully.

According to this editor, he accepted CIA-prepared "news stories", and virtually all western news media do. And what the CIA prepares is aimed at creating fear, hatred, and killing.

Carl Bernstein confirmed that from his own experience,. He had access to Senate Intelligence Committee hearings which confirmed it further,

I guess I already knew that. After all, I spent much of thirty years in broadcasting and writing columns. I think I can tell manipulative and lying news when I see it. And I certainly have seen it in Canadian Press, Associated Press, and all the other suppliers to the Irving press.

As for the Irving reporters, all that most of them write is trivia. But when they, rarely, write about something seriously, it seems obvious they've soaked up the manipulation from the news they read.

The German editor's book is Bought Journalists. (It has not been mentioned in the European press.)
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For readers of Google News, there was an item in there until just minutes ago that I suspect was planted.
Get this. Three professors I have never heard of from universities I have never heard of in Australia and New Zealand decided to analyze attitudes to fracking.

Okay. So they went to the US.

Well, that could make sense. After all, the US has a much bigger population. But - they sampled just 120 people. Hell, they could have found that at any sheep station at home.

The 120 people were chosen at random. Oh? Did they travel around the US, stopping people on the street? That must have been expensive. Did they phone them or send email? They could have stayed home and done that. Gee. I wondered who paid for the trip to the US?

120 people chosen at random means nothing in a country the size of the US.

So they produce their report. it shows ---well ----

What I first noticed about the headline was it said the anti-fracking people really didn't know much about the issue, but were reacting to people they didn't like who did want fracking. So I read the story. The real story was that both sides acted that way. So why was the headline worded to suggest it was only anti-frackers in the wrong?

The story does not mention peer review - the checking of an article by experts in the field. Did it happen?
Are the three professors expert in the field? The article never says.They certainly aren't experts in statistics. I can't imagine a real statistician would ever conduct a study on a subject that is an issue all over the world, and do it on such a small group, without even selection criteria, in just one country. This whole story is obviously propaganda.

Can university professors be bought just like journalists?

Make me an offer.

Feb. 5: Government is about people.....

Greece is deeply in debt to international banks. The human suffering in that country has been profound - and the malnutrition deadly. But the banks refuse to give easier terms on the debt. Particularly vehement has been Angela Merkel of Germany who takes the toughest of tough lines. (She forgets that her country,in 1945, was forgiven ALL its debts - most of them incurred in killing us. Without that forgiveness for debt, Germany would still be the wasteland it was after the war.)

But let the Greeks suffer and die is the word today.

Something similar is going on in Ukraine. That country is broke, so broke it has been surviving with oil it gets from Russia, but never pays for. (That's one reason why it is absurd to think Putin wants Ukraine. It would mean taking over massive debts.) If you look at the presence of international bankers and their agents in the Kyiv government, it is obvious why they're there. They want to suck out every last drop of blood from that country. And one of the interests of the US is it wants American companies to control the supply of oil to Europe.

That's one reason why western Ukrainians (the ones on our side) are refusing to volunteer for the army and, now that there is a draft, are fleeing it. There is no future to fight for. If the Russians don't get them, the bankers will.
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There's a lot of death all over the world. Malnutrition is the biggest cause, especially of child deaths.

In the US, eleven percent of US families suffer from hunger.  That's the largest number of modern times. In Canada, every week, 850,000 Canadian use food banks, and the number is rapidly growing. And all those food banks depend on volunteer donations and volunteer workers.

And I can assure  you that those 850,000 people are not the only Canadians who are going hungry. I grew up in a household and a district in which food, especially nourishing food, could be hard to come by. Going to school hungry was routine. But we and our neighbours would have died before going to a food bank. Some did.

All of this is why I find it contemptible that most leaders across this country - and the news media -  (with the help of university 'experts") can talk of nothing but cutting budgets, and making the suffering even worse. Check the columnists in the Irving press. Check the editorials. Check the news stories. They're very big on the need to balance the budget.

But they rarely talk about the people, what they're going through, what they need. (Neither, I note, does the Faith Page.)

Right now, Harper is pushing through a very dangerous bill to complete the job of destroying democracy and making this a police state. His excuse  is terrorism. Yes, we have to guard against terrorism. But terrorism, however spectacular and newsworthy it might be, kills far fewer Canadians than do hunger, malnutrition. In fact, it probably kills fewer than are killed by lightning.

Why the hell are we spending billions to create a gestapo to check our every move? Why do we have a piece of legislation to fight terrorism that doesn't say what terrorism is? If you're an environmentalist, you're a terrorist. (That's not an exaggeration. The police spy on environmentalists now, and report on them.

Once you are listed as a terrorist (that is, someone who disagrees with Harper). then you are open to gestapo interference in your life just for talking about  it.  If you disagree with terrorism but say you can understand what causes it, then you are a terrorist. If you talk to someone who MIGHT be a terrorist, then you MIGHT be a terrorist - and the gestapo can then interfere with your bank account, your job, whatever they like......

This is a law that uses our fear to destroy our democracy, and us.

And it's expensive when there are 850,000 (and counting) Canadians who are hungry - and even more who are undernourished. And it's a safe bet that more Canadians are killed by hunger than are killed by terrorists.

To Conservatives and Liberals who support such a bill, I can only say, "you bastards."

Government is not about raising and spending money. It's about people. So you don't start by talking about money - which is largely what Gallant did in his recent speech.

Government is about people, what they need. So you start by electing politicians whose own starting point is human need - not balancing a budget. And not coming up with get rich quick schemes like building an events centre.

You start by outlining what is needed for health, for education, for shelter, for food. And you do not leave any essential service to private business or volunteers. Moncton can be proud of its volunteers. But it should be ashamed of its politicians who make volunteers so necessary.

That takes what I have not seen in the Liberals or the Conservatives - a sense of what a human community is, and what it needs.

Once  these priorities are settled, then you examine needs and costs. Why are North Americans becoming poorer? Why are our budgets so far out of adequacy? For example, we have what's called the wage gap. That is, for some 40 years the rich have been getting richer, and most of the rest of us poorer. And where is all that money for the rich coming from? Us.

When will the rich have enough? Never. The Greeks can tell you all about that.

So will cutting budgets help us? No. They will just make most of us worse off, especially as the government hands over public responsibilities like health and education to the rich. (which will also transfer more of our money to the rich.)

To make it worse, we are now in a severe recession which shows no sign of easing. What caused it? Free trade with very special terms for the rich was certainly a factor. So was behaviour by the banks which was probably illegal, and certainly unethical. And who paid for it? Tax payers - so the rich wouldn't feel bad. And execs and board members all got bonuses for their cleverness.

Balancing New Brunswick's budget will make no difference to the basic problem - and that is the massive flow of money from most of us to a few - and the   ability of those few to pay some of the lowest taxes in the world. And this is happening all over the world. The result of it, inevitably, will be massive suffering and, almost certainly, violence.

The rich have to pay their share, and they have to be forced to pay a fair share to their employees. Uncontrolled capitalism simply does not work. It never has. And the rich do not have a special gift for managing money or societies. that's pure bunk because all they understand is making money for themselves. That is their only purpose in life. (well, that and getting named to philanthropic halls of fame.)

Government is about people and society I have seen not the slightest sign that the Liberals or the Conservatives or the Irving press understand that.
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I didn't focus on the Times and Transcript today because there is a limit to how often one can say this is mindless crap. The latest paper has a new format which, for some reason, seems annoying. However, it now uses a real photo of Norbert Cunningham, and the real Norbert is a delightful improvement on the cartoon one.

One point in Thursday's paper caught my attention, though. Moncton High School athletes are the Purple Knights. In fact, almost all the Moncton teams have very masculine and fierce names. I've never met anyone who knows who Beatrice McNaughton was or what she did. But everybody knows the school symbol, a hairy Scottish warrior whose picture dominates the entry hall. (There are no pictures of Beatrice McNaughton.)

Now, it's quite possible that Scottish warrior is transgendered - but it still seems to me that school athletics are dominated by male images, and the worship of male warrior prowess. Don't those schools have girls in them, too? And don't some of those girls play on school teams?
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I still have lots of notes on other topics I want to cover. I'll try to set aside some time tomorrow for that.

Feb. The Irving Press is so boring and trivial......

.....that we won't say much about it this time. Well, I can't miss the headlines of Jan. 2 and 3. Both told the world we'd had a blizzard the day before. But maybe some people didn't notice. And we'll skip the big news story that Horton's is bringing back 'roll up the rim'.

Both days have excellent columns by Alec Bruce. Then it goes downhill. Feb. 3 has a column that is really a free ad for Siemens, a German firm that works with NB Power. No. It's more than that. According to the column Siemens is a member of our community. And we are members of the Siemens community - whatever all that means. Yep, We're all just buddies. And so it goes plodding on, sounding impressive but really saying nothing. And, oh, it is tedious reading. (It reminded me of Gallant's recent speech on his economic plans.)

But the writer, a senior exec at Siemens must have had a reason for writing this bafflegab. So notice his references to green energy toward the end. This smells like something written at the request of the Gallant government to reassure us that is is committed to protecting the environment. The idea is to ease concerns when he tells us that his experts have determined that shale gas (with the world's strictest regulations) is perfectly safe.

NewsToday is equally limp - though with interesting spots. Dennis Oland is at last going to court to be tried for killing his father----maybe. Meanwhile, he's still wandering free. Compare that to Bourque who was instantly jailed, tried and sentenced. I'm sure there's a lesson in there, somewhere.

On B3, we learned that Japan is horrified and outraged by the ISIL beheading of  a Japanese citizen. Oh, what savagery!  Well, I guess they've never heard of World War 2 and Hong Kong where wounded Canadians were bayonetted to death in their  hospital beds. Or of Singapore where a boat load of nurses were murdered, and where Chinese civilians were slaughtered in tens of thousands -  not to mention their ruthlessness in raping and or killing Chinese civilians by the million. There are lots of pictures of these, great heaps of the dead, which, obviously, are not soldiers.

But we, too, are selective in our memories. I haven't seen any western report on the Japanese reaction that mentions the Japanese record.

(None of the above is to suggest that Japanese are savages. I worked hard to get restitution for Japanese-Canadians who had been put in concentration camps during World War 2. In fact, the Montreal Japanese community chose me to thank the government when restitution finally came through. Japanese are not evil. Muslims are not evil. And western Europeans and the people of North America are not good. We are all capable of savagery,and have proven it many times. The anger at Muslims is manufactured by our news media - and it goes down well with those who think, with supreme self-righteousness, that Christians would never do such a thing. Perhaps, between burps after a pancake breakfast, one of the clerics on our Faith Page could write a column on the theme "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Oh, and there is a hilarious story on B4 about our foreign affairs minister, John Baird, making the idiot speech of the year. He says that the more Cubans accept American values and American capitalism, the freer they will be.

What an ass!

Cuba was dominated by American Capitalism and American Values for fifty years. It had American-appointed dictators. It lived in terror. It was also heavily controlled by the Mafia  (one of the American values, I guess.)  Cubans grew up for decades with almost no access to education or health care. They suffered from the American values of torture and brutality.

(For Christ's sake, Baird, you ignorant twit, the US stole a part of Cuba that it still controls - and has used as  the most notorious torture camps in the world. As well, the US does not like the word free. Any Latin American leader who tries to make his country free ends up getting shot, like Allende in Chile, or getting ousted, as more recently happened in Haiti.)

Since their rebellion, the Cubans have made education available to everyone all the way through university. They also offer full access to medical care for their people. US capitalism and values have done neither in the US or anywhere else. Oh, and poor, little Cuba has had to do it under heavy US trade embargos.

Above all, for Feb. 2, section D, page 1 (Sports) check out the photo of the Miracles' basketball game at the bottom of the page.  Don't look at the players. Look at the stands. Count the spectators. It won't take long. That, not the game, is the real story.

Of course, if we had a real events centre, I bet it would be packed every time with people coming from all over the world.
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Enough about the wretched Irving press.

In almost all our news media, we find Muslims associated with savagery and evil. That's deliberate. Powerful people want to destroy the Muslim nations.  But it has nothing to do with savagery. It has to do with oil. (It is extremely rare to find a war at any time in history that was fought for anything but economic reasons. That is why the western world put Israel where it is. That is why the US is hostile to Iran. That is why it invaded Iraq. That is why Canadians are now risking their lives in a war that isn't a war.)

Conquerors have commonly used the  word 'savages' to justify their conquests. After all the practice of conquest is extraordinarily brutal. It kills large numbers, destroys whole cultures, exploits the survivors as cheap or even free labour, and loots the land for its farming and minerals. Us Christian need an excuse for that.

Our excuse, for centuries, has been that the conquered people are savages. So it's okay to kill or abuse them and steal from them. They are racially inferior to us. They aren't real people like us. That goes a long way to explain the centuries of racism in Europe. And in the Americas.

The Japanese killed helpless victims in World War 2. So they were savages, and some of their leaders were hanged. The US, with just two bombs, killed or wounded some 250.000 people, almost all of them civilians. (That's a conservative estimate,)

But that's okay because there was a reason for it. I mean, Americans are civilized - like us.

When the Europeans discovered (invaded) the Americas, they defined the people as savages. Therefore, it was only reasonable to kill them. They had no cultures, no philosophy, no concept of a society. Not like us superior types.

That's why Canadians and Americans destroyed the buffalo herds. They knew they were killing off the basic food supply of Plains Indians. But they didn't care.  And, as the Plains Indians died of starvation, John A. Macdonald, like his American counterparts, deliberately let them die. All the easier, then, to take their land and distribute it to immigrants. (But you won't find that in many history books.)

The truth about native people was much different. For a start, they were almost certainly healthier than Europeans. Plagues did not come to them until AFTER the Europeans arrived.

And they not only had their own religions, but were a great deal more religious than the Europeans were.

The status of women in the tribe was commonly higher, much higher, than the status of women among Europeans. Here, if there was savagery, it was on the European side.  Even today, some of that higher status remains. That is why it is so common to see native women at shale gas demonstrations, and playing a major role.

Native peoples were way ahead of the Europeans in transportation. European settlers would have had a rough go without the birchbark canoe, the snowshoe, and the toboggan.

There were substantial and prosperous settlements of some native peoples - like the Iroquoian tribes. These had to be moved every twenty years or so to maintain agriculture, so the housing was simple. But the Europeans, again despite myth, were often lousy farmers. That's why they would go to war so often - to steal native land. That's a major reason why the US invaded Canada in 1812 and, later, Mexico. .

(By the way, the trigger for that war was that American settlers, like Davy Crockett, were bringing their slaves with them - and slavery was against the law in 'savage' Mexico. Most of the defenders of the Alamo were slave owners and slave traders - and land speculators.)

To continue native settlement, the native peoples were the ones who knew how to farm. They commonly taught the Europeans how to do it.

The wigwam, often dismissed as primitive, was a brilliant stroke of engineering for a people who had to move frequently to follow the buffalo, and who had to survive savage winters. I've spent many a month living under canvas, and the best tent I ever found was the bell tent, a copy of the wigwam.

Politically, native peoples were at least as sophisticated as the Europeans. Indeed, the Iroquoian tribes were developing a concept of a UN centuries before the rest of the world even thought of it.

In their arrogance, the Europeans looked at the Americas, but saw only what it was convenient to see. They looked at civilizations. But all they saw were "savages" who were therefore, eligible for killing, displacing, sometimes enslaving.

That sort of thinking still affects us. That's why we accept our federal government's often illegal treatment of native peoples. In fact, there was still strong feeling in the United States for killing all native peoples until quite recently. That was the basis of a popular book called The Wizard of Oz. (The author's widow was furious that the film changed it to a child's story.)

To this day, the 'savagery' of others lives on as our excuse for the savageries we commit. You can read it every day in the Irving press, and in almost all news media in North America.