It's official...

...the US is no longer a democracy. Big business, especially the banks, are in control of social policy, foreign policy, everything. It's been that way, except for blips almost since the start - and most certainly since World War 1. Real power has been in the hands of the big banks have been in charge for a very long time. Much the same is true in Canada. They are the ones to create money, to decide who can borrow it, and on what terms.

Increasingly, they share their power with big business all over the world. With free trade deals, like the one Canada is completing with the Pacific nations,  no longer have the power to set terms of taxation, environmental controls...and if they try, they can get hit for billions in "compensation" to big business. A mine's pollution is killing people? Tough luck. We have a deal.

As well, the very rich are no longer really citizens of any country. The free trade deals are 'free' largely in the sense that the very rich have no obligation to any country. But they control the governments of almost all of them.

Elected governments, where they exist at all, are the bought and paid for servants of big business. In the US, for example, Senator Orrin Hatch belongs to the drug industry which supplies him with money to kill any legislation the drug industry doesn't like. As a bonus, his son has a big-paying job as a lobbyist for the drug industry. For that part of the story - and other stories, check out a fascinating site www.vox.com.

The bigger story, the collapse of democracy in the US, is in a study recently completed at Princeton University - but unreported in the Irving press. Partly because of the size of the US, it is not possible for any party to get elected without the massive funding that can come only from the bankers and others of the very rich. That's why a third party can't even get a nose in.  The US government has no power on its own. The US is now (and for many years has been) run by a handful of very, very wealthy people. That's not called a democracy. It's called an oligarchy. There are similar oligarchies in Russia, China, Britain....

That's largely true of Canada. We still have other parties besides the Liberals and Conservatives. But they can't even come close to the big campaign money available only from the very rich. And, of course, the very rich own virtually all of the news media in Canada and the US.

The maritimes are probably the worst example of government by oligarchy in Canada. Every New Brunswicker must know that. But they go on years after year voting for either the Irving Liberals or the Irving Conservatives. It's also the worst example of oligarchic news media in Canada - lord knows, the rest of Canada is bad enough.

That's why the NDP and Greens are doing nobody any favours by moving the to the centre. The crushing problem of New Brunswick, the one that will destroy it, is the power of a tiny oligarchy of the very rich and very arrogant and very selfish and very uncaring - and, in the long run, very stupid. Nobody is going to make a dent on that by piddling around with environmental and/or social programmes. The problem of New Brunswick is its oligarchy. That is what has to be the main concern of any party that hopes to save this province. And voters have to be told that.

For a full report on the Princeton study, see    www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41471.htm

(The might be a colouring book edition for Irving editors.)

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Despite desperate levels of poverty, the US is cutting welfare money.Why can't the rich US afford welfare for its hungry? Well, it has to maintain more military spending than the whole rest of the world. You know, to protect itself from threats like Venezuela, Guatemala, Yemen... And that's super-expensive because of the wildly overpaid contracts that go to owners of the corrupt military industries. And that's necessary because a)the war industries need wars to keep their profits up and b)the oil industry needs armies to help them steal oil. (Sorry - fight terrorism. But the reality is we are not fighting terrorism because we ARE the terrorists. The people we call extremists and terrorists are people who are so rude as to fight back against us, and they're extreme because we have pushed them to extremes. That fact is that we cannot win a fight against terrorism. There are actually far more "terrorists" in the world now than there were when this started. And we are daily creating more of them.

Then there's the trouble with poor people.  They expect government to do everything for them. And that's very unlike the very rich who bribe government to do everything for them. So American legislators are getting tough on those greedy poor. They're making it illegal for them to spend money on frivolous thing like a movie. Meanwhile, "You want us to spend trillions to kill a million people in Iraq so you can get their oil? Hey, no sweat."

We Canadians are in this game, and we're going to be in it a lot more. And, like the US, the poor of Canada - and almost all the rest - will be making financial and human sacrifices to make the rich richer, just as we are paying extra taxes and suffering cuts now in this recession caused by the rich, and while the rich are making their biggest profits ever.

It's a system that's going to break. It may already be too late to save it. It certainly will never be saved here if the Greens and the NDP don't deal with the root of the problem - and SAY SO. And it will never be saved if New Brunswickers remain in their political coma.
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Yesterday, I joined New Brunswick's "The Rural Schools" coalition. It's not just for the schools. It's also because rural New Brunswick needs far, far more intellectual and social stimulation than it's getting. The schools are important for that. The churches should be, but their attitude in both rural and urban Moncton seems to be that they're already in heaven, clapping hands for Jesus, and really don't have time for us.

We need more, much more, to get people thinking. And TV certainly does not fill the gap. Nor do the universities in any tangible way. And any community radio I've heard of has been pretty feeble.
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What? I haven't mentioned the Times and Transcript? What's to mention?

The only story of note on the front page is that the Roman Catholic Church is raising  7 million to save its cathedral on St. George St. Get real. Such a church with a normal congregation of only 300 (and declining)
doesn't need a seven million dollar facelift. Three hundred people could be better served in a cheaper and new building for a fraction of that.

The building, though gifted with a pretentious tower, has no great value either architectural or historical. Nor do I recall any passage in The Bible in which Jesus frets at not having a big church with a high tower. It's time to think less about show and more about service.

Norbert discusses, yet again, the need to cut the budget and, again, without a word about the role of the very rich in causing this crisis or about their share in paying for it. Not does he consider the impact that such cuts would have on all of us.

He closes with a mention of the economic and social pain that Greece is experiencing because of deficits. He doesn't bother to mention the role of international banks in inflicting that economic and social pain.

He blames Gallant for it all. Norbert, Gallant is an Irving puppet, just like you.

Bent Mazerolle's "commentary" is about baking a cheesecake. I can't think of another newspaper that would even consider allowing something so trivial on a commentary page. Over half of his space is filled with a big picture of a cheesecake. And that's the best half.

Then there's a bizarre column by a Dr. Paul Kershaw of UBC. I don't know who this guy is, but his schtick (anybody out there read yiddish?) is that we spend more government money on senriors than on younger people. He seems to feel it should be 50/50 with the split line being at age 40.

As I read it, I thought it was silly. The fact that it comes from one of the Irving press favourites - Troy Media - did not reassure me. Look. Public spending should depend on need. It should be portioned according to need - not to 50/50 with a dividing line at 40, not to more for people who have brown hair because they are more numerous than blondes - the question is where is it needed. Then you decide, based on what you have, where the money should go. This thing looks to me like a thinly-disguised attack on social programmes.
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There's nothing worth reading in Canada&World unless you really care about Duffy's trial. The one, intriguing story is on B4, "Teams start exhuming bodies at Tikrit mass graves".

These are the graves of hundreds of Iraq soldiers killed by ISIS last year. The story is full of suggestions of the evil of ISIS for killing soldiers - and for the mass graves.

er - don't all armies bury the enemy dead in mass graves? And, now I think of it, have you ever seen a story of mass graves of the MILLIONS killed and buried in mass graves by the US?

What did the US do with the millions in killed in Vietnam? Take them to their village homes? Build memorial chapels? What did they do with the hundreds of thousands killed in Guatemala? (Actually, it have found the answer to that. But it sure wasn't in any North American newspaper. When whole villages in Guatemala were murdered, right down to babies. bulldozers dug great pits. then bulldozed the dead into them.
In Iraq? It was probably much the same as in Vietnam because so many were killed by bombing, napalm, and Agent Orange. They were just left there to rot in the sun. And it wasn't just (or even mostly) soldiers. It was men, women, and children.

Sorta makes ISIS look good in comparison. Funny that we have never seen a story about that in our news media.

Again, there is nothing about Ukraine, though that's the most dangerous spot in the world. Western Ukraine (our side) is getting restive as its political leaders ( bankers, etc.) are bleeding the country dry. As well, this is the country that Obama wants to fight a war over with Russia and China.

And there's very little about the Middle East where both Saudi Arabia and Israel are threatening violence to prevent the US from signing a peace agreement with Iran.
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By the way, if Catholics are raising 7 million to facelift a church for no good reason, wouldn't it be a nice gesture to use a little bit of that to provide shelter for the homeless? Isn't that what Jesus would do?

And maybe Brent Mazerolle could put his bakery career aside, and do some study on how many homeless there are in Moncton. And what they need.

And maybe another reporter could do a serious study of the quality of life in rural New Brunswick.

That, not writing down quotations is what is called 'reporting'.

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April 7: A shameful waste of good paper....

The front page headline is okay. It's an important story on a coalition of rural New Brunswickers that is trying save rural schools. It's nice to see New Brunswickers getting interested in something other than car shows. But then -Section A becomes a swim in the toilet with the big flush on A4.  Moncton may hire somebody to test the quality of beer in bars. It's actually a bigger story than the one about rural schools.

The editorial is, as always, about money. It's an editorial that rants all over the place, and so makes no clear point.

Norbert has a point, sort of, but it's hardly worth writing about.

Alan Cochrane has a commentary---which is about a maker of stained glass windows - and it's pretty much the same one he wrote as a first page story on, I think, Saturday. What was the commentary page editor thinking of when he approved that? And maybe both Cochrane and editor Rod Allan should get a dictionary, and look up the meaning of 'commentary'.

Louise Gilbert has a senior's commentary that actually is a commentary. She talks of us sitting down and writing our histories - our histories and the world we lived in. That's a top idea for everybody. We get to write about ourselves as a record for our descendants.. That way, we remain real to them.It also tells our descendents of what a very different world we lived in - and it is very different from the one we live in now.
Like today, it was a world in which he were taught and propagandized to hate others - but with nothing like the professionalism and madness we see used on us today.

As an example of what a stupor we now live in, I think of the obvious (or should be obvious) and imminent danger of nuclear war with Russia and China. But it hardly makes the news at all. And most people seem unconcerned about it. When I see that, I flash back to the (justifiable) terror of the Cuban missile crisis. I was teaching high school at the time, and the fear in my students was as solid as a wall. Today, people seem to be less interested in their own survival - and neither thinking nor caring about anything else.

A family tree is a great project, too. And it can be a great ego booster. On my French side, the first Decarie born in Canada (about 1655) and my direct ancestor was Jean Decarie. His godparents were deMaisonneuve, the founder of Montreal, and Jeanne Mance who built the first hospital. Then there was Dr. Yves Decarie, a good friend and advisor to Pierre Trudeau, and Reverend Zenon Decarie who is being considered for sainthood.

But beware.

I also came across a dentist, Dr.Noel Decarie, who was deputy-Fuhrer of the Nazi party in Quebec. Hey! You win some. You lose some.

Alec Bruce has a very light column about how Canadians, as compared to Americans, are polite and self-deprecating. There could be a big story in there. Americans are raised in a history of pure mythology in which they are God's chosen people. Thus the belief in their 'manifest destiny' to rule the world, and in 'American Exceptionalism', their right to do whatever they like anywhere in the world and with no regard for law.

Couple that with the faith that they were born tough, good with a gun, but also with a code of honour. Much of this comes from the example of the cowboy quick draw shoot-out at high noon on Main St. A man's gotta do whut a man's gotta do.

In fact, the quick draw, code of honour shoot-out never happened. Usually, people were shot in the back or killed with a rifle at long range. The quick-draw shootout was invented for the movies.  And - a high proportion of the cowboys were black. Of course. Texas had been a slave state. Cowboying was a low-paying, bottom of the scale job. So that's what blacks got after the civil war. But you'd never guess it from the movies.

The "American" character and personality has been shaped by images from history that have nothing to do with any reality.

We watch the same movies. So how come we don't pick it up? Well, when was the last time you saw a movie about Canadian cowboys?

B3 has an important story that should be of interest to Canadians - but its placement in the bottom of B4 suggests it's not of much interest. "CIA spy on Canada's intelligence safeguards 'You're kidding me.'

We aren't. Harper's idea of making sure that his anti-terrorism bill won't infringe our rights is an oversight committtee- appointed by Mr. Harper. And reporting to Mr. Harper. And not to parliament. That is a   classic definition of a police state.

On B4,  take a look at the picture at the top of the page. It's a battered street jammed with thousands of people lining up for food. This one is of Palestinians being besieged by Syrian troops. But it really doesn't matter who they are. This is what all sides, including Canada, are doing all over the middle east. And it has nothing to do with religion.

This is what it looks like when oil billionaires destroy whole societies so they can get even richer off their oil.
These people have no food. No medicine. Almost no shelter. No electricity. No clear water. This is what we are doing. Praise the Lord. We'll have to send them missionaries, and sermonettes from the Faith Page of the TandT.

It's even worse in Yemen where people live like that in good times. Now, they're being battered by Saudi Arabian and Pakistani troops armed by the US, with US observers spotting targets for the invaders, and with US warships bombarding villages along the coast. (Of course, they don't ever shoot at women and children.)
This is what war is about. This is what we're doing.

We're all behind the US oil billionaires as the inflict death and misery on millions. And neither those people nor what's left of the city around them will ever recover. We hanged Germans and Japanese for less than this after World War 2. This is what greed looks like. And the greedy would be just as happy to do this to you.

In paragraph two, the ISIS state fighters are referred to as 'extremists'. I don't know. It seems to me that anybody who destroys and kills like that in an extremist - even if he's relaxing in his private club in New York, enjoying a drink and some appetizers.
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As always, I am left wondering where the Irving press gets the dozy editors who think the story or an Ontario couple who are suing a sperm bank is hot stuff. Meanwhile, they ignore the ecological disaster that is the southwest US. There has been a drought there for years with vast areas of California, Texas, Arizona, Utah turning to barren desert. It is a tremendous blow to food production in a very important part of the US; and a threat to human survival.

There is no water. Rain is forecast for today, but not enough to make any difference. Massive forest fires have swept California, right up to areas of human settlement. There's water to drink - for now - but that won't last. Now what?

Gee! Do you think it could be climate change? That might explain why glaciers in the Rockies are melting, too.

Nah. Our oil billionaires have told us there is no climate change. And if you can't trust an oil billionaire, who can you trust? Certainly, Harper trusts them. That's why this country is behind most of the world in cutting back on the use of fossil fuels.

There is no plan to cut back on fossil fuels, There is no plan on how to deal with the disasters they are causing. Indeed, one of earth's most fragile environments, the far north, is being opened up to the search for oil. Greed creates insanity. Good thing the Irving press doesn't bother to tell us about it.

Nor has the Irving press said much about the Iran deal. But don't worry. I don't think it will ever take effect.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are both looking for dominance in the Middle East. For both, Iran is the rival that has to be knocked off. Israel and Saudi Arabia can easily buy off Congress so it will refuse to permit lifting the trade sanctions on Iran. And that will kill the deal. Then, someday soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will have to deal with each other......One of them has to go.

maybe it's just me....

I found today's paper profoundly disturbing. It began with a picture on B3. It's on the centre right of the page. It's a photo of a man standing in a large area of broken rocks, just rocks. There are no remains of streets or foundations or doorways of what used to be a village. The people of the village, the few who are left, are standing on a hillside in the distance, looking down on the rubble that now covers the bodies of their wives, husbands, children, friends....

The picture was taken in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. It's just one sample of villages, towns, cities all over the middle east and Africa - most of them poor and almost defenceless - that have been ......what word can I possibly use to describe what has been done to them? How can I describe the utter hopelessness of it?

The village was destroyed by air strikes from out good friend, Saudi Arabia, using weapons made in the good, old USA and other western countries - including Canada. And Canadians have been similarly attacking villages in Libya, Iraq, and now Syria. We have lots of weapons to use against the poor and defenceless. The weapons industry has become, since World War Two, the biggest, most profitable and most corrupt industry in the US and, to a lesser degree, in other major powers.

Why is it happening? Why, in particular, is it happening in the middle east? Is it because Muslims have hate and destruction of each other and of us in their genes?

That's not possible. It it were, they would have become extinct centuries ago. This massive scale of destruction and suffering - and insanity - began with western intrusions through the twentieth century, intrusions that have picked up markedly in recent years.

Al Quaeda is terrible? Right. So what can you say about American money, weapons and training that created Al Quaeda to prey on other Moslems? What can you say about American money, weapons, and training that created ISIS?

The US, like Britain and France before it, is plundering the middle east and, like Britain and France, killing any attempt to form democracies or stable societies of any sort. It is also playing the old, imperial game of turning its victims against each other to kill each other.  The US has become everything it says its revolution was against.

And behind it all are the most evil and destructive people of our time, the oil billionaires who want Muslims fighting each other so that they can go on making themselves rich and their victims miserably poor, ant living in  terror.

They call Muslims who resist them terrorists  (and the news media they own and control pass that message to us.) The reality is that the wealthy of the western world are among the worst terrorists in history. Here in Canada, our politicians and news media have made us so fearful that we hate those "terrorists". People vaguely connected to them killed two Canadians just months ago. Therefore, they are a threat to national security. So we are now killing much more of them, creating scenes just like the one on B3. I'm sure that will make things much better.

Meanwhile, we ignore the threat to our security that caused the deaths of 47 people in Lac Megantic.

This is insane. Our economic and political leaders are insane. And we are insane to follow them.
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Page A1 has a  big story about why children in rural schools spend more time on school buses. And it's very scientific. The story says they are in the bus longer because of rural geography. Well, that clears that up. (It means their houses are farther apart that those of kids in town. Who woulda guessed?)

Skipping all the even sillier stories in Section A takes us to the editorial page. The editorial writer says our universities need to be nimble in their economic management, then the writer shows that he he or she has no idea what being "nimble' means. Oh - there is a hint. The changes have to be long-range, and sweeping. Well, that pins it down.

There is also one line that's a howler. It says that universities must learn to operate like businesses do. Sounds good to me. Yes. Just like businesses, university should wildly overpay their chief officers, tell government not to tax the chief officers, and get forests handed out to them on the cheap. Plus other goodies, Just like business.

Norbert comes closer than usual to having a good column. He points out that Harper could well win the next election because he has played to people's fears - like fear of terrorism, fear of criminals. He does it by responding with measures that many people, out of their fear, welcome - like putting criminals into jail forever and ever, and setting up a police state to "protect" us against terrorists.

These, as Norbert suggests, are measures that have never worked, don't work now, and never will - but they get the votes of the brainwashed. Then Norbert goes off track.He suggests this is because Canadians have become more "small c conservative."

Norbert, you don't know what "conservative" means, and you destroy a fine tradition whenever you misuse it. Canadians have not become more "small c" conservative. If they had, they would never vote for the Stephen Harpers of this world. They have become more frightened, more fearful, more hating, more bigoted, and dreadfully badly informed. And that is largely due to the manipulations of the Stephen Harpers of this world, the lack of professional ethics in private journalism, and the crushing power of the billionaires who own our private news media.

Alec Bruce has an excellent column - and rather a daring one for an employee of the Irving press. He recognizes the threat of climate change and, by implication, accepts the cause of it.
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In Canada&World, the big story is about a nurse from New Brunswick is going to West Africa to join the struggle to fight Ebola. I certainly applaud and admire her for her courage and commitment. But why is the story of her mission so much bigger than the coverage allotted to Dr. Cleary when she went? One has to suspect the Irvings don't like Dr. Cleary. Perhaps that has something to do with shale gas.

B2 has an important story about a Canadian (born in Syria) who was arrested by the CIA and flown to Syria for torture. It seems he was quite innocent of any wrongdoing. Harper knew it. And Harper never lifted a finger to help him. This is the Harper who happily sends Canadians to kill people in Iraq and Syria for a war really manufactured by the US. Worse. The RCMP was involved in the arrest and handing over of this Canadian.

If you ever get in trouble, don't expect Canada to help you. We've fallen a long, long way.

There's really nothing else worth reading in World news. All we get is bits of stories that are highly biased and, anyway, don't tell us anything useful about the incidents they deal with. The only one that caught my attention was the photo of the rubble on B3.
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How come they're ignoring the Ukraine? We are very, very close to a nuclear war on that one. The American government obviously wants a war with Russia. More accurately, American billionaires want a nuclear war with Russia. Winning it (if that's possible) would give them dominance of world markets. And, if they want that dominance, they have to move now or never. The American empire is in serious trouble. Worse, other powers like China and India are rising fast. American big business has a window of opportunity. Using it will kill at least tens of millions - and probably much more. But, hey, it's now or never.

We are being fed the line that Ukraine is a democracy-loving country that Russia invaded. The truth is the legal government of Ukraine was overthrown by US subversion, and the present Kyiv government is made up of international bankers who are bleeding it dry, and of genuine, old time Naziis.

Obama  has been pushing Putin to back off. But that's not going to happen. As well, China would have to support Russia.

Western news media and governments are almost all under the control of a small group of people who have no principles at all - except greed. And they have brainwashed most of the western world to accept their thinking.

This thinking is typical of the insanity of a collapsing empire. And we are conditioned by most of our news media to be equally insane. That's where Harper gets his votes.

I don't think we begin to realize that so many fundamentals of our society have vanished. Christian churches, once central to our world, have long ago decided to opt out, to do nothing, and to offend nobody. They have made themselves irrelevant, and the very concept of Christianity has largely disappeared. (as has Judaism -except as ritual -  in Israel). Democracy has become a dead idea that never did fully catch on.

And where does this take us? If the very rich get their way, then even if they get their war with Russia and win it, we will see a social collapse even here in the Americas because the very rich are too greedy and too arrogant to maintain a contented society. We will see profound domestic violence and, indeed, the US army is already training for that.

Can we recover our basic social structures in time to prevent this? Can we recover democracy? Can we get honest news media? Some concept of morality, of ethics? Can we get capitalism under control?  Can we develop a society that asks questions?

I haven't seen much sign of any of this.
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Sorry to be so pessimistic. I think it happened because I'm an historian; and because I read that story of a few days ago about Robert Irving becoming the (decorative) head of an organization to give greater meaning to Nov. 11 when we remember those who suffered an died in our wars.

What bothered me about it is that such a concept of what we owe our veterans is based on lies - and that does our veterans no favour or honour at all.

Contrary to the myths of our leaders and history books (and, I regret to say, most of our clergy), none of our wars from 1900 to the present day was fought to defend freedom and democracy. I don't understand how people can even say they were. The Boer War had nothing to do with freedom and democracy.  World Wars 1 and 2 were fought to stop the rise of German and then Japanese capitalists who would interfere with the profits of our capitalists. South Korea, when we went "to defend its democracy". was a dictatorship before we got there, while we were there, and for many years after.  And why didn't we help Spain when Germany was bombing it was a dictatorship.

The US went to war in 1917 and 1941 for freedom? Really? So why did it wait so long? And how come when those wars ended, it didn't free any of it colonies? And if we were fighting for freedom  in 1939, how come major capitalists in Canada and the US financed Hitler? And spoke admiringly of him?

And how come our major ally in World War 2, the one who, more than any other, made it possible for us to win, was one of the most brutal dictatorships in history - Joseph Stalin's USSR?

Far from building democracy, we have helped to kill hundreds of thousands of Afghanis so we could install one of the world's most corrupt governments. (Nor is it clear to me how Afghanistan was or is a threat to Canada. Or anybody.) And exactly why were we killing in Libya and now killing in Iraq and Syria? And, if we're so keen on democracy, how come we aren't attacking Saudi Arabia, the most severe dictatorship in the world?

What we owe the dead on Nov. 11 is not sentimental blubbering of lies about why we sent them to die.. What we owe is to take an honest look at why sent them - and to make sure  we don't do that to future generations.

I doubt very much that Robert Irving's committee will take that approach. More likely, it will have lots of expensive and large, self-congratulary dinners with, between burps, toasts to those who died.

And those worse than dishonest. It's contemptible.

April 4: Wow! The News YOU Need to Know.

Headline. Page 1. "Stained glass craft survives". Gee! I never knew that. I mean, I've seen stained on  even new churches and new houses. But I always thought angels it put there. And there's an even bigger story at the bottom of the page. There's no news about the events centre. Well, that certainly changes my plans.

A3 has a stunning revelation that woodlot owners should plan for the future. That's true. It's so much better than planning for the past.

In that whole section, the closest thing to news is the story that two men were killed in a crash. Two men. And that's really the end of the story. There won't be flashes and videos across Canada about this. There won't be editorials in all the papers or specials on TV. There won't be debates in parliament. There won't be a movement led by Harper for legislation to prevent this sort of thing happening again. Why not?

Two men were killed. And accidents like that happen on a daily basis in Canada. In the whole history of Canada, two men have been killed by "terrorists". Compare the coverage. Compare the Harper reaction to each of them. Why do the difference? Think about it.

Section A almost never has any news. Why not? Partly because real news often requires a bit of digging by the reporter. But the Irving press doesn't have enough reporters to do the digging. One reason it doesn't have enough reporters is because the Irvings create as few jobs as they possibly can. A second reason they don't want any digging is because it might come their way, and in an embarrassing way - and they really don't want readers to know the truth. In short, the Irving press doesn't want people to know what's happening. It doesn't want them to think. So it happily maintains public ignorance and a sort of brain soaked in preservative.

The only exceptions to that rule are when it wants to lie or to spread propaganda.

That is largely true across North America and the western world. And that happens because almost all news  (and entertainment) sources are owned by a handful of billionaires. The Irving press is just one, backwoods version of the same thing.

The biggest and most respected newspapers are, most of them, like that. That includes even the New York Times. In Canada, it includes The Globe.  It's not just the gutter papers like National Post and Toronto Sun. Today, The Globe has a long story about the treaty end Iran's nuclear bomb development. The writer is very cautious about how trustworthy Iran is on this.

The story does not once mention that there IS NO Iranian nuclear bomb programme. It does not exist. These has been proven repeatedly by CIA and Israeli agents as well as UN inspectors. Iran has done nothing illegal. There was nothing to negotiate a treaty about.

As for being trustworthy, Iran has, in its whole history, rarely attacked anybody. (Its current attack on ISIS is unusual in the respect.) On the other hand, the US has attacked Iran, overthrown its elected government and installed a dictator and then, when, Iran had the nerve to kick out the dictator and elect its own government again, the US hired Saddam Hussein to invade Iran. It also put sanctions on Iran's trade that drove the country into dreadful poverty.  Contrary to The Globe report, it's the Iranians who have to watch their backs.

Across North America, the newspapers and radio stations and TV stations of the very rich  (which means almost all of them) are critical of the treaty. The Irving press is just a junior member of the club. They are all making the US and Israel the helpless victims of those terrible Iranians when, in fact, Israel is the one that is threatening to attack Iran with its nuclear bombs. And the US has been the world's most aggressive and murderous nation for fifty years and more.

You cannot trust most news media. They exist to keep you in the dark and to manipulate you. The British "The Guardian" is an exception only because it is not run by billionaires. It is funded by a trust foundation, so there is no owner. The result is that real journalists control it. That's why it's so good.

Israel's Haaretz is good. But I don't know much about its control system. Al Jazeera is good - far, far better than western journalism gives it credit for; and far, far better than any, major North American private news medium.

BBC news, under government pressure, has become terrible.

CBC has tried hard to remain a solid, professional news source, and is still the best in Canada. But Harper is doing his best to kill it.

Private radio? Forget it. It exists to make money. That means it can't afford to annoy advertisers. That means it's often owned by the very rich who don't want you to know anything. And it spends very little on reporters. I was many years on Montreal's largest and most profitable radio station. It had one reporter. He was good, He was honest. He was intelligent. (and, I guess) still is. But one reporter isn't much. Such stations prefer to spend their money on half-wits who come on the air to say, "Hey, gang. Come on in. We're here to play the tunes YOU want to hear." (memorize that, and you can get a good job at any private radio station.)

The editorial in today's TandT is the usual, money centred and not very intelligent boosterism for "events tourism".

Norbert's column is much the  same. People, society and their needs simply don't exist for Norbert or the editorial writer. Worse, Norbert dumps on education and health care - of which he knows nothing at all. Tell you what, Norby, if you think business methods would be so wonderful if applied to health care, then I suggest you go down to the states next time you're pregnant.

Nor do I see how health care i mediocre here. I have found it excellent. It's most of your news media I have found beneath contempt.

As for the schools being mediocre, I've seen no sign of that. And I know a hell of lot more about education than Norbert does. My cat knows more about education than Norbert does.

New Brunswickers certainly are intellectually mediocre. That's because not all education happens in the schools. It happens in daily life in a society. And the New Brunswick that our children grow up in is, intellectually, an appallingly mediocre place. And a major factor in creating that mediocrity is your utterly stinking newspaper. and you're miserably ass-kissing columns on subjects you know nothing about.

I see almost no evidence of adult participation in public discussion in the this province. I don't know whether they're afraid of it or are just intellectually lazy. But it just doesn't happen. That's the atmosphere that children of this province grow up in. Of course, students are not intellectual active. If they were active and inquiring and challenging, people like you would demand all the teachers be fired.

And remember, Norbert, everything we do is or should be for people. Money is a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. Start with people. Start with society. Decide on a philosophy of what society is about. Then decide on how much money you need and how to get it.

And please put an end to this crap about "business methods". Business methods are about making money. That's it. They are not about people - except as victims to get the money from.

Good column by Brent Mazerolle on the Senate. It's a serious problem.Senators are a huge drain on the economy for whatever they do. They're almost all political hacks who are there to do what they're told. I have known only a few of them who showed sparks of intelligence They are very, very loose, even criminal in their spending habits. They work very, very little. They are heavily biased - which is why Harper appoints them in the first place. I think particularly of one who was raised a rich, spoiled and unspeakably arrogant brat - like her mother. And neither of them ever outgrew it.

We really need to rethink the Senate. We don't need so many of them. We don't need them for more than a fraction of each year - but have to shell out high salaries, plus staff, plus offices, plus perks. This has to end.

Finance minister Melanson has a column at the bottom of p. A13. I didn't read it because I don't waste my time reading propaganda by politicians on a commentary page. Rod Allen, this is your page. Could you put a stop to this illegitimate use of the press?

Bill Belliveau, like Norbert, writes about the provincial budget. Like Norbert, it's all about dollars. But dollars is not the starting point in government. The starting point is people. Who are they? What is needed? Then you look at the problem of how you pay for it. And you also take a look at those things you should not pay - like Atcon which, as we all know, is not the only one.

And I notice that neither Bill nor Norbert mention the responsibility of the very, very rich to pay for their own investments, and to pay their share of taxes.

But he does have a funny paragraph - it's paragraph 6. He says there are some very intelligent people in the Liberal caucus, and some were in the last cabinet. Would those intelligent people be the half of the cabinet who voted to give away money to Atcon?

Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have any philosophy of the needs of a society or of our responsibilities to each other. And a very high proportion have been known to use their positions in government as stepping stones to getting comfy appointments to corporate boards, and even better.

(I'm not convinced that the NDP has given enough thought to its concept of what a society should be. And the Greens are narrow on that issue.)
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There is nothing in Canada&World unless you really, really care that maple syrup can make a non-sticky beer.

The biggest story, a full page, is "Tracking the Cuban Money Crisis". I stopped reading it a third of the way through because of its obviously loaded language, and its obviously propaganda message.

It refers, for example, to the uniquely incompetent chaos machine that is the Cuban economy. There is no mention that for some sixty years, the huge and rich and powerful US has used its power (illegally) to destroy the economy of tiny and poor Cuba. Nor is there any mention that tiny and poor Cuba with all its economic "chaos machine" has enabled Cuba to survive, and has created education and health care systems infinitely better than those of the US. And they're free. I'll bet that writer could get a job with Irving press.
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This is a newspaper that has almost nothing worth reading or talking about. So let's take a quick look at a story that is more important than it seems and, of course, didn't make the TandT.

In BC, there's a native chief who gets a million a year to be chief. The community of which he is chief has 85 people. Is this outrageous? Almost certainly. But let's not rush into jumping on somebody for this.

Here in New Brunswick, both French and English talk a great deal about preserving their cultures. But cultures are constantly changing. They have to - because culture (how we behave, what our values are)  are shaped by a world around us that is constantly changing.


My ancestors on the French side when Jean Decarie came here about 1651 were barely literate farmers who never heard of democracy. And they were Catholics. On the Scottish side at that time, my ancestors were quite illiterate, highland farm servants who lived and died in wretched poverty, who had no democracy. And they were severe Calvinists. I have no desire to live in either of those cultures.

I think we should be aware of our past, and should celebrate it. But we can't live in it.

There are parts of it we might well want to keep - such as language. My objection to nationalism in Quebec was not that the French wanted to preserve their right to use French. That's perfectly reasonable. My objection was that they wanted to destroy my right to use English. And now they want to preserve ----something ----by destroying the right of people to behave according to their religion.

I think Acadiens are quite right to demand the right to use French. What bothers me in New Brunswick is anglos who, just like Quebec nationalists, want to forbid the rights of others.

The greater problem comes when we destroy functioning societies, to destroy their social structures, their religions, the nature of their relationships, their sense of belonging to - anything.

And the western world has been doing that destruction ever since Columbus. They've done it all over the world. And, today, it's become an orgy of destruction focused on the Islamic world. And, even if we stop killing,  we can't just wave a magic wand make it all okay.

China was plunged into more than a century of poverty, chaos, slaughter by western conquest. It still has not recovered. The same is true all over Asia and Africa - and the Americas.

Native peoples here struggle to rediscover their culture - as they should. But, even as they struggle, they also have to adapt to our culture - or live forever in poverty. Very few societies have been able to make that transition - to be what they were, and also to be what they must be now to survive.


Residential schools didn't solve the problem. They made it worse. Missionaries didn't solve the problem. They made it worse. Of course they did. Residential schools and Christian missionaries were as destructive of native societies as our ancestors were. Certainly, treaties and reserves have not solved the problem. I won't even pretend that I have the answer because it's a question nobody has ever settled.

A guess might be that native people, for a start,  need to live in much larger territories than the size of a reserve. And they need far more independent status - equivalent at least to provinces. And they need several such territories because not all native peoples are the same. But it's a difficult problem - a problem created by the aggressive and greedy cultures of our ancestors. And nothing will make it easy.

In the same way, we have to let existing nations live their own lives. Right now, greed dictates is that they either live our lives or we kill them. Five hundred years of history should tell us that won't work.

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Sorry about the lead story I reprinted at the start of April 3s blog. Half of it got lost, and I'm still not sure why. I'll try to fix it for tomorrow.

April 5: It's a sad day of great memories....

Elmer Lach died yesterday at 97. Of course, readers of this blog in Russia and Germany and Ukraine and France will never have heard of him - and generations of readers even in Canada have never heard of him. But, long ago, in the great years of professional hockey in Canada, Elmer Lach at centre with Maurice Richard at right wing and Toe Blake at left were quite possibly the greatest forward line in the history of hockey, playing for the greatest team in the history of hockey, the Montreal Canadiens of the 1940s and 50s. Toward the end, they would be joined by another brilliant player, Jean Beliveau.

I actually met three of the four. Richard was a frequent guest at my uncle's house. (My uncle was his boxing coach.) Richard was a very pleasant man, very unassuming, very modest off the ice. Not at all the firebrand he was on ice.

I met Beliveau at Richard's funeral where we talked for an hour or so while we stood with the crowd outside the church. He was a thorough gentleman, and a very intelligent one. Then there was Lach.

I was twelve years old, and a caddy at a golf club. (seventy-five cents plus tip for 18 holes.) My client and I had stopped at the clubhouse when a  man came over to speak to him. It was Elmer Lach. As they finished their talk, Lach turned to me with a big smile, a big wave, and a big voice, "Hi, kid."

I paused, searching for le mot juste........"hi", I mumbled.

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Well, to the serious stuff.

This is Easter Sunday. Yesterday, Saturday's paper had an editorial all about Christ risen, and joy in heaven, and hope for mankind, all the sort of pseudo religious babble one can expect of an editor who works for owners who show no signs of any moral principles ever known to any religion in the history of the world.

Then I think of some of the greatest mass murderers in the history of the past 40 years or so.

President Johnson who killed millions, mostly civilians, in Vietnam and Cambodia for reasons that have never been explained belonged to a real, Hallelujah bunch called Disciples of Christ. George Bush Sr. who oversaw the killing of hundreds of thousands in Guatemala in order to keep costs down for the mining companies  was Episcopalian (that is, Anglican, the same church that blessed British troops that slaughtered, enslaved and robbed China, India, and a good deal of the rest of the world.)

George Bush jr., who created the war that killed over a million Iraqis, destroyed the country, impoverished it, looted it in order to please oil billionaires, and who started the killing in Afghanistan is a devout member of the United Methodist Church. Obama, the man who created the civil war in Syria, who bombed Libya, who still fights in Afghanistan and who has overseen the mass redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich under one of the world's most corrupt government attends an Episcopalian church.

Harper belongs to a real, jump up and clap hands for Jesus and hate homosexuals and the world is ending any day now and you're all going to hell outfit called the Church and Missionary Alliance. But it's okay to send Canadians to kill people in foreign countries to help out oil billionaires.

All of the people listed above profess belief in the principle of the separation of church and state. I believe in that, too - sort of. (it's an oversimplification. If a church believes that murder is wrong, how can it ignore it when its own people are doing the murdering? How can it bless the soldiers? And the bombs? Were Lutheran and Catholic churches right to bless Nazi armies, and to tell people God was on their side?)

The reality, surely, is that we do not separate religion and state. We never have. We have simply made religions the servants of whoever it is that runs the state. Thus that church billboard on St. George St., "Pray for OUR soldiers in Afghanistan."

Of course our religions should have some effect on what sort of state we want. If not, then why the hell bother having a religion in the first place? I don't suggest that any church should tell the state what to do. I do suggest that religions should have an effect on what politicians decide to to, and should have an effect on what we vote for.

When Reverend Tommy Douglas introduced medicare, he was not interfering with the state. He based his politics on the principles of his faith. He convinced Canadians - not of his personal religious views - but of his opinions as a result of those views. He didn't force people to become Baptists. He didn't have Baptists take over the government. But he did put his religious principles on the line.

So I turned to yesterday's Faith Page.for illumination. Some bloody hope. In this, one of the most cruel and dangerous periods the world has even seen - quite possibly the worst one - with greed running wild to spread the poverty that we cutely call "the wage gap", with greed running wild to starve and murder all over the world, and with religious groups which should be encouraging us to think of how to deal with this in the light of our religious beliefs, all we get is a sermonette that's another chorus of "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam".

Mind you, it's safe. If Jesus had been as wimpy as our religious leaders, nobody would have bothered to crucify Him.

Again, I'm not suggesting that religion should take over the state. What I am suggesting is that religious groups should be leading their followers to see their faith in relation to decisions they take in the real world, because the real world is what most religions are about.

There is no great risk in that. Despite the fact that some people go into fits because some religious women wear a veil, almost all religions boil down to the same principles. We all have far more in common than we do in difference.

No. I don't think any religion should take over the state. But I also don't believe any religion should become just a suck for the billionaires who have taken over the state.

I also have an aversion to hypocrites of any faith.

Faith should have a meaning in daily life. If not, we might as well all attend the Irving Family Chapel.

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As for the mess I made of yesterday's story on a woman in Peru,  the easiest solution is to google SumOfUs. The title of the article should come up on the first page, "This is the woman who scared a 10 biillion dollar...."

April 3: A story that isn't in the Irvng press..

The story below is not by me. It's a copy of an e mail I received. And it comes before the blog   because my computer says it does. This is also a repaired version. I hope it works. After losing in court, a giant mining corporation is bullying a indigenous Peruvian farmer in a fight to turn her land into an open-pit gold mine. Máxima is strong and leading her community’s fight. But she needs our help to win against the company's aggressive attacks. Tell Newmont Mining to stop its attacks against Máxima! Sign the petition The world's second biggest gold mining corporation is at war with an indigenous Peruvian farmer. Máxima Acuña de Chaupe has been fighting for years to save her land and her community. Newmont Mining is determined to destroy both for a massive, open-pit gold mine -- which would drain four mountain lakes in an arid farming region. Newmont Mining has already lost in court to Máxima, and her land should be safe. But now Newmont-backed security officers have invaded Máxima's house  and destroyed part of it. Máxima is strong, but she needs our support to win against Newmont's aggressive bullying tactics. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out now and tell the mining giant that we are watching Máxima's back, the corporate bully may finally  back off. Will you send a message to ensure Máxima's safety? Tell Newmont to stop its attacks against this indigenous female farmer and  respect the court's ruling. This isn't an isolated incident with this corporate bully. With operations on five continents,Newmont been accused of polluting the environment, damaging natural habitats, impacting the health of local communities, corruption, and bribery in locations around the world from Nevada to Indonesia. These unethical business practices can’t continue. The courts have already called  for an end to this harassment, and by standing behind Máxima we can finally make Newmont listen. We are teaming up with our friends at Earthworks to speak out  against this corporate bully. This strategy has worked before -- together with Earthworks, we convinced another multinational mining company, Rio Tinto,  to drop its investment in what would have been the biggest gold mine on earth -- a mine that would have destroyed half of the world's sockeye salmon population. Máxima has been fighting against this corporate bully for months. Let's speak out now to let her know that she is not alone in this fight. Sign the petition to Newmont Mining, demanding that the corporation leave  Máxima and her neighbors in peace! Thanks for all that you do, Taren, Angus, Ledys, and the team at SumOfUs ********** More information: Update: Peruvian farmer harassed after lawsuit win against Newmont, Earthworks,  4 February 2015 Police officials of mining company destroy home of Máxima Acuña Chaupe, Peru This Week, 4 February 2015 This story is typical of the behaviour of mining companies in Latin America. And  many, many of their stockholders and owners are Canadian. _______________________________________________________________ Skip the headline story "Tories accuse Liberals of running "hack-and-slash" government". Hack and slash doesn't really mean anything. Anyway, neither party has any concept of a philosophy of government. Both simply do what the boss tells them to. Big thrill  on A4. It's a suitable for framing photo of Robert K Irving who has been  named honorary chair of a fundraiser for military and RCMP families in need, particularly those families of veterans who suffered wounds that still cause them suffering.,. What's an honorary chair? An honorary chair is the one who doesn't  actually do anything. Mr. Irving says he feels humbled. And well he might. The story is a long one of pure gush. But to any thoughtful reader, it surely raises a question. With all that talk about what we owe our military and RCMP for their sacrifices, why the hell do our military and RCMP who need help because of those sacrifices have to get it from volunteer charities? If they're so keen on  helping, why don't they use their positions to talk to Harper about the responsibility of all of us to care for that need?. And then Robert Irving could set an example by volunteering to pay higher taxes to cover it. As usual in these social circles, the first fund-raiser will be a dinner at $175 a pop. The dinner will, of course, be a fine one - so not a whole lot of that $175 will ever enter the home of a needy veteran.  ...And then there's the cost of new dresses for the wives of the rich. I mean, they can't possibly wear something that people have seen them in before. The last paragraph of this boot-licking story tells us that JDIrving Ltd is a private company, etc. And that Brunswick News is a separate company owned by J.K. Irving. What does that have to do with the story? Oh, and Robert Irving is pro-chief executive officer of J.D.Irving Ltd. So he must be  read hard-working, a man who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, unlike the  rest of us stupid and lazy people who expect the government to support us. I wonder - does Does Robert Irving had any mining shares? In, say, Latin America?Robert Irving  The editorial is equally annoying. It's a smarmy and shallow sermonette on the holiness of Easter. Yes,   yes, it says, reach out to your neighbours. This comes from a  news paper which has done more than its share of preaching fear and hatred of Muslims and Russians and whoever else the flavour of the week is. This is a newspaper owned by people whose only gospel is to make  money, whatever that might do to others. And to hold on to their money, whatever the needs of their neighbours might be. Norbert's column is about the budget. As usual, it shows not the slightest knowledge  of or interest in what the people of the province need. It's all just dollar signs and, at that, it's shallow and, of course, makes no mention of the role of corporations in causing this financial crisis, and no responsibility for ending it.. So much for reaching out to your neighbout. Cole Hobson has a very long commentary in which, if you can stay awake to the end, he he says nothing about the restaurant business in Moncton. Fortunately, the page also has a column by David Suzuki about the water crisis which has largely gone unnoticed in our news media - though it has made large areas of the US southwest into desert - with worse to come. That has two warning for us. 1. It may not be a great idea to dump the waste from fracking and from oil fields into our water. 2. The situation in California -and some other states - is so serious that huge areas  are unproductive ( which means serious food shortages) and becoming uninhabitable. So what will the US do? It will ask Canada to sell it water. And when  that creates a crisis for us, and we want to stop selling it or to sell less, the US will say we're no being good neighbours. And then it will say we're terrorists. No. That's not an exaggeration. That is what the US has done and is still doing today all over the world. Never kid  yourself about that. If the Irvings, who live here, don't care about us, why would you think all the American Irvings would care? Alec Bruce has an excellent column the value to society of pre-schooling and child care. So far, our New Brunswick governments have thought only of cutting education budgets. There are things that are better to do - for both social and economic reasons. All it requires is politicians who have some philosophy of what government is about - and some brains. _____________________________________________________________ Canada&World. After the story yesterday that Trans-Canada Pipelines will not be building an oil export terminal in Quebec, but will extend to St. John, we get two stories that say much the same thing. And, again, both stories are told from the point  of view of the pipeline builders. We don't get a word about the reason for the decision - the potential destruction of Beluga whales. Is this concern just one of those silly ones that environmental terrorists always have? Or is there some solid reasoning behind it? And if the port would damage the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, why is it safe to locate a similar export terminal at St. John?  Is the water at St. John different? Oh, one of the headlines for this story is "Fallout over pipeline delay to impact economic projections". Somebody please tell editors at the Irving press that "impact"  is not a verb. It is a noun. There's a whole range of problems with fossil fuels. One is damage to our lands and waters. Another is climate change. Another is the killing we do to control the supply of fossil fuels. That's why at least a couple of million have been killed in the Middle East with many more to come. That's why so many of its people live in misery and terror. That's the reason Canadians are there to bomb. That's why the whole region could very soon blow up, and trigger a world war.Shale gas and oil come at a price, a very high price. So how come Harper hasn't lifted a finger to cut down on our dependence on them? And how come Robert Irving isn't  honorary chairman of a group studying the matter? B4 has a brief report at the bottom of the page, It's really an old story about Irving and friends paying $76 million settlement to the families of 47 killed in Lac-Megantic by a trainload of Irving oil. That's very generous. Obviously, it's all the engineer's fault because he went to bed after driving a train, alone, all day. If he had just stayed in the cab, and stayed awake  all night, this would not have happened. Anyway, he's in jail. And the Irvings aren't. On B6, the Irving press announces that the US has reached a deal with Iran. It has still not told us what this fuss was all about in the first place. It has told us that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. That's now just a mistake. It's  a lie. It has been known before all this started that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. We know that from statements by the CIA and by Israeli intelligence and by UN inspectors. So why is Obama lying? And why are Republicans all foaming at the mouth? Obama needed an excuse to negotiate with Iran. He was worried about Iran  developing oil trade ties with Russia and China. He was, and is, worried about the widespread attempt to displace the US dollar as the standard of international trade. The fact that there is any difficulty with Iran is entirely the fault of Britain and the US or, more accurately, the fault of British and US oil billionaires who were annoyed that the democratically elected government of Iran actually thought the oil belonged to the people of Iran. So they overthrew the government, and installed a brutal dictator. That was some 65  years ago. And that is what drove Muslims closer to their religious leadership. It was made worse when the US paid Saddam Hussein to  invade Iran in a very bloody war. That is what created an Iran government based on Islamic thought. It was a reaction to God bless America Christian slaughter and greed. And signing a treaty to discontinue a programme that did not exist, anyway, is not going to solve anything. Israel and Saudi Arabia both want a war with Iran. They claim that Iran is a threat to them. It isn't. Even if it wanted to be a threat to them, it couldn't  be. What Israel and Saudi Arabia both want is military dominance in the Middle East. It is now quite possible that Israel will bomb Iran - and that Saudi Arabia will, too. The other thing to watch for is a country that is really likely to be looking for nuclear bombs - Saudi Arabia. After all, both Saudi Arabia and Israel want dominance in the region. And Israel already has nuclear bombs. _______________________________________________________ My, this was a long one. I have one last item that didn't make our Irving-approved news. Remember Ferguson, Missouri, where a white policeman killed an unarmed teenager who was black? Well, it seems that Ferguson has something like 16,000 arrest warrants outstanding. That's in a population of just 21,000. And they have nothing to do with rioting. Ferguson, like many American cities, now uses its police to collect funds for the city. They do it by making all kinds of little things illegal, and with fines attached to them. It happens even in the schools. A boy was arrested and found guilty of writing on his desk. A girl of 12 was fined for smelling of perfume in school. In Ferguson, as in most American cities, the police are white. But the victims who get fined tend to be black - though the police also give special attention to poor whites. Of course, the poor often can't pay the fine, usually $150 or so. So they go to jail - which is okay because many of the jails are owned by private capitalists who also rent the prisoners out for cheap labour (a rent which the jail owner keeps). When the villains get out of jail, it's tough to get jobs because they now have criminal records.  And they still owe the fines - at high interest. A woman who couldn't pay $150 at her trial was jailed. After release, she made regular payments to a total of $500, but still owes $500 more. Well, it spares the very rich from paying taxes. A majority of American cities now make it a crime to sit down or to lie down in public. And, in many, it's a crime to beg for food or money. So, among other things, what happens to the many homeless in the US? Additionally, the army has been conducting exercises by invading towns and cities to practice for urban uprisings and other unrest. Funny how the Irving press missed all this. What we are watching is a nation and a society in terrible decline, a society torn by fears and hatreds and racism, a society in which democracy has ceased to exist, a society of dreadful exploitation - This is what the fall of a nation, an empire and an economic system look like. And it's next door.

April 2: A must-see in today's Times and Transcript....

...right in the middle of page A1. It's a photo of Roland Gaudet of the Moncton Model Railroad Society. Not only does he do impressive modelling but, just looking at the houses, you know this is Moncton. And I'm not being at all sarcastic in saying this is the best thing in the paper. It really is good.

Indeed, it reminded me of some disappointment when I visited our Resurgo Museum. It had some superb, large scale railway models. But there was very little sense of of Moncton, of its history, of what shaped it,  in that museum.  My hopes rose for just a moment at the sight of a very old, survey map on the wall because I was curious about the growth of Moncton and the locations of significant work sites, etc. over the years.

Alas! All it showed of Moncton was a tiny dot labelled Moncton. The development of a historical sense of this city would be cheap, easy, would be meaningful for locals and could attract tourists - for much less cost than an events centre.

The rest of the news section of A is mostly about restaurants opening or closing, a new kind of coffee at Time Horton's, and a news flash (again) that Target is closing.
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The editorial and Norbert's column are about the provincial budget. As usual, all they can think of are the dollar signs. There is not a word about the human needs of this society -even though that's why we have a government and a budget in the first place. Government, you arrogant twits, starts or should start with people. Yes, Cost is important. That's why we should start with people - to get a sense of priorities.

And in the process of cutting costs, they invariably talk only about what this population and its government and its government services cost. There is never a word about what the very rich cost us. How come the wealth of the very rich is soaring, has been for years, while everybody else's is falling? How come we ignore those who need help? Or, at best, leave their needs up to the cheerful charlies who appear in this paper regularly holding up giant cheques to show their generosity - with company logos above?

How must did it cost us to so generously hand over our forests to Irving Ltd?  What are we on the hook for to help out Irving shipyards? How much tax is it that we don't get because a)they hide it offshore and why do they have low, low tax rates in the first place?

Look, all you journalistic properties of Irving, government starts with people, with a society, with our obligations to each other, with our ideals of what a society should be. Then you work out the dollar signs. And, when you work out the dollar signs, you make sure the rich pay their share of the dollars.

And don't tell me that if we did that, the Irvings would get mad and move away. If they do - great. Let them pick the pockets of somebody else.

Norbert also says there is no indication that education will improve by spending more on it. Really? Could you quote some of your favourite 'experts' on that Norbert? Then he says the real education reforms come from new approaches. What an ignorant twit! Of course, education develops new approaches. It always has, And you, Norbert, don't know a damn thing about it. It also requires money. The lack of it is why African-American kids in their neglected, slum schools don't have a chance.

Norbert, you know nothing whatever about education. You are suggesting a slander of thousands of teachers based on information you don't have, and wouldn't understand if you got it. And you would wet your pants in fear of your master not agreeing with what you say. This is pure slime.

Their is, however, an excellent letter to the editor, "P3 projects rife with problems". P3s are, essentially, handing out government responsibilities, like road maintenance, to private companies. They're called public/private partnerships because the word partnership sounds pleasant and democratic and - just nice.

But they aren't nice. They are devices to rip off our tax money and put it into the pockets of the very, very rich. And they are not efficient. Private business has to make a profit. Government doesn't. As a matter of common sense it is usually cheaper for government to do a job than to hire a private company to do it. However, the chances of a New Brunswick government ever having the brains or the honesty to put an end to P3s seem remote.

Jody Dallaire's column on A 9 is the only item in this paper to take an informed look at the budget and what it should mean to us, the people of this society. And it's well done.

In fairness, Rod Allen takes a stab at a similar approach, talking about the impact of the budget on the people of rural communities. Unfortunately, it too often becomes pointless stories about himself. I suspect that, if he were to bear down on the subject of rural life, he could produce some pretty useful stuff.
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Canada&World- - well--- the lead story has a headline that lies. It says New Brunswick's new tax rate is the highest in Canada. But the story doesn't say that. That means the editor who wrote the headline is either lying or incompetent. What the story says is that the new tax on the rich is the highest in Canada.

And even that isn't true because it's only the lower class of the rich who will pay that. The very rich won't.

Then there's a big story that the moratorium on fracking has ruined Corridor's plans. But read the story. It's told entirely from the point of view of the fracking company. It ends by saying, in effect, that the people of New Brunswick are not nice - and Corridor is going to go away and not come back until we're nice to them. This could  have been written by Corridor's PR office. Maybe it was.

On the same page, New Brunswick universities are scrambling after the government has forced budget cuts on them. They should have started scrambling some 500 years ago when they should have realized they could not continue as only research institutions. They have to realize that teaching is at least as necessary as research. They have to realize that they are utterly incompetent as teaching institutions. They have to learn that they have to cut costs - and that giving status to the teaching role can save them lots of money.

But they won't. Just as 500 years ago, and in a pattern that is getting worse, egos and the lust for prestige will block the road. I taught in several universities in Canada, one in the Netherlands, and one in China. They're all the same, all dominated by self-adoring people who consider teaching to be beneath them.

Then there's the sad story of how we're stopping Trans-Canada pipelines from creating thousands of job and billions of tax dollars with an oil port they want to build on the St. Lawrence in eastern Quebec.

Apparently, some silly people were saying that such a port would eradicate the beluga whale population which is already down from 10,000 to 1,000.

There were also doubts about the claim of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for tax money out of the project. (Why do I think of the Moncton events centre?)

So they'll run the pipeline to St. John. Well, why not? The place is already barely habitable.

Scandals of spending by senators continue. They're only the tip of the iceberg. These are simply party hacks who get very high salaries and benefits for working (maybe) three months a year. I've had to appear before senate committees. They're a joke. Even the MPs are far, far more intelligent.

B5 has the story of Harper making the case for war in Iraq.

He says that the killings of two Canadians by people sympathetic to Jihad (though not actually committed to it) makes it necessary for us to go to war in the middle east at a cost of many billions of dollars and unpredictable loss of life - some of that loss certainly, to be innocent civilians and children. What an idiotic statement!

Two people who were not assigned by Jihadists, killed two Canadians some months ago. Traffic accidents kill more people than that every day. Nor have we been shown any connection between those killers and ISIL.

Then former foreign affairs minister John Baird is quoted as saying, "we must defend....human liberty and dignity - principles that have withstood the tests of fascism, communism, and now terrorism."

What an ass!

1. We did not take a stand against fascism until we were forced to. Until that time, we actively cooperated with fascists, helped them to power, and condemned Canadians who fought them. Baird, read some of that history you talk so glibly about.
2. We withstood communism? What war was that? Korea was, at best, at draw - and the communist side we fought is still in power.
3. Now we fight terrorism?
 We are terrorists. That's what war is about. Anybody who goes to war is a terrorist. In all wars of the last century, the major targets have been innocent civilians. All wars. Both sides. What was the slaughter of millions in Vietnam and Guatemala and Libya and Afghanistan about if not terror? And if Jihadis are such terrorists and they are so evil, how come our good friends in the US and Saudi Arabia supplied them with money and weapons?
4.We defend the principles of liberty and human dignity? What are you smoking John? If we fight to defend liberty, how come we left a dictator in charge of South Korea? Yes, in World War 2, we restored liberty to those Europeans countries which had liberty before 1939. But we stood by and cheered when Britain, France and The Netherlands refused to give liberty and human dignity to their colonies. Nor did we lift a finger when the US refused to permit freedom for those Latin American countries that suffered (and still suffer) under American dictators.
5. If we're so red hot about defending liberty and dignity, why didn't we invade the US when it was murdering millions and cooperating in killing the president and setting up a dictator in Vietnam? Why didn't we attack the US when Bush obviously lied his excuses for mass murder and inpoverishment in Iraq? Why didn't we bomb the US when a Canadian lay clergyman was murdered (with American leadership) in Guatemala?

John Baird is a man who has become rich out of kissing asses. And this is a good example of why they pay him. His idea of dignity is sitting on a corporation board, raising his hand to vote aye when he's told to, and having a good scotch.

Baird is also quoted referring to President Assad of Syria as a brutal dictator.
1.Gee. that's not at all like our good friend the King of Saudi Arabia.
2. If Assad is a brutal dictator, how come the people rally around him to defend Syria from rebel forces who are really mercenaries hired with US and Saudi money - and supplied by them?

Baird is as cheap and disgusting as they come. He's now on the board of CPR. Maybe - he might even become President of the CPR.

On the last page, a Canadian journalist working for Al Jazeera (a news company designed by a Canadian, and designed well) needs a Canadian passport. His passport was seized when he was arrested in Egypt. Now, he's in danger just walking on the street without it. He asked Canada to send him a duplicate. Harper refuses to lift a finger.

So much for liberty and human dignity.

Egypt, by the way, is essentially a military dictatorship. It did have an elected government. But the US didn't like it. So they got the generals to replace it.  I believe Baird was foreign minister at the time. But he didn't say anything about liberty and human dignity.

Some people are really beneath contempt.
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Okay. It's been a long one. And I promised yesterday to say something about the chances of nuclear war.
(I also have some good sources on this, and I'll try to give the sites.)

The US has been extremely aggressive in its reaction to the fighting in Ukraine. Obama has made many, many threats to attack Russia. Putin is no angel. But he's not looking for a war, Anything he has done up to now has been in reaction to Obama. For the last year, Obama has been stepping up the threats, with concentration of NATO forces and rockets close to Russia, with some 200 military exercises held close to Russia, with thousands of overflights. Obama wants a war. That's why the European Union has been getting nervous.

The purpose of such a war is the purpose of all the 200 or so wars the US has fought - to get economic dominance or what Obama has publicly called American Exceptionalism. The scale of death doesn't matter. That has surely been proven in Iraq and Vietnam. Nor does it matter who dies. Obama has immense power with the size and equipment of his military force

When he was elected, I expressed the opinion on air that he was a man of no substance. But that's part of the problem. He is the servant of the very, very rich in the US. They are the ones who don't care how many they kill. They are the ones whose greed has blinded them to any consideration of morality or even world survival.

Obama, himself, is still a man of no substance. But he is controlled by people as evil as any this world has ever known. And so Obama, the man of no substance, has become the worst president the US has ever seen and, quite possibly, the most dangerous person the world has ever seen.

And keep another kicker in mind. The US military, though huge and expensive, has not performed with much distinction since World War 2. Despite overwhelming force, it couldn't beat little Vietnam. Iraq was a much, much greater effort than it should have been. And, in fifteen years, it can't even beat a deeply divided and backward country like Afghanistan.

Now, think of all those US forces near the Russian border. Then think of how the US would react if Russia had similar forces carrying out war games on the Mexican border with Texas. Compared to what the American reaction would be, Putin has been playing it pretty cool with the US so bluntly threatening war. Putin does not want a war. Obama's handlers do.

Any war between Russia and the US would necessarily involve China. It cannot possibly allow the US to establish that sort of economic dominance on its borders. Nor can it possibly allow the US to hold territory on which it could plant nuclear weapons to attack China up close. And there are other countries in the same position. The US really does not have many friends left in this world.

The US military, however big it might be, cannot defeat Afghanistan. What do you think its chances would be in a conventional war against Russia and China? Or you can think back to World War 2, and the unmatched determination of Russians to accept unheard of casualties to defend their country. China would be the same. And China has no reason to have fond memories of any western power, including the US.

But big business in the US wants a war with Russia - and a conventional war would be one hell of a risk.
1. The temptation  for Russia and China to go nuclear immediately would be great. After all, it they wait, the US could go nuclear first.
2. The temptation for US to go nuclear immediately would also be great. After all, it if waits, Russia and China could go nuclear first.

The bottom line is that the chances of any such war being a conventional one are zero. Worse. Both sides are worried about the other making a pre-emptive strike before any opening of hostilities. That means both have to consider deciding on a pre-emptive strike.

We are lucky that Putin has been pretty careful so far, and has not allowed Obama to push him into a corner. But the aggressiveness of the US may force him to change his mind. It may force him to decide on a pre-emptive strike. The American government knows that, too, of course. And that may force it to decide on a pre-emptive strike.

The theory of nuclear weapons, never a very intelligent one, was that fear of their power would discourage countries from going to war. As we're seeing, the opposite is true. Fear of their power actually makes it more likely they would be used - first.

All of this is the result of the effective collapse of democracy as big business has taken over control of government (in Russia and China as well as here.) Capitalism, if uncontrolled, is one hell of a destructive force.

Nobody would be crazy enough to do this? At least two, very prominent Americans, both Republican, have openly called for an immediate nuclear strike on Russia. John Bolton was delegate to the UN under Bush. John McCain, another leading Republican, has done the same. And the polls show war fever is running high.

As for the sites - Paul Craig Roberts is an American journalist with a very impressive record, indeed. It's also outstanding common sense - something missing in most pages of the Irving press.


http://themindrenewed.com/interviews/2015/644-int-076

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/03/26/washingtons-warmongers-gallop-toward-war/