April 7: The fading story of the Panama Papers in the Irving press

Here's an opinion on the Panama Papers that I don't agree with. I'm not at all sure it was investigative journalism that revealed this story. And, certainly, investigation has never been the strong point of journalists. And, in New Brunswick, it has never existed at all.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/06/simon-jenkins-power-of-press-panama-papers-investigative-journalists

I think this one too easily accepts the official version that this was all done by Clark Kent-type journalists.  And, certainly, this is the one accepted by most western journalists (who should know better from their own, work experience.) This one is much better.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/rich-avoid-tax-panama-papers

As is this.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/06/making-money-is-not-a-vice-but-refusing-to-contribute-tax-is

The Guardian and other papers are still running multiple news and opinion colums about the Panama Papers. The Irving press has one, drab story that tells us less than yesterday's story did. It has published  no commentary on it at all.
So, let's start with the drab and boring world of the Irving press.
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The big, front page story is that Moncton is going to spend an extra 7.5 million on the 'events' centre. Isn't that nice that this province standing, we are told, on a financial cliff can spare well over a hundred million for a hockey rink?

For those who think that news means trivial gossip, A4 has "Burglar nabbed after going back to crime  scene for purse." Yes, the Irving has that one, and lots of stories about people you never heard of who are running for things like city council. All have exciting programmes like 'doing things for the future' - so much better than doing things for the past.

The only story worth reading is that St. Thomas University is ending its hockey programme. There are many, many good reasons for that. One is that it's not a university's job to train athletes for pro careers. Another is that it's very expensive, especially for an activity that has no academic value.

In fact, the only reason we have sports leagues for universities is because of a school in England called Rugby. In those days, it was a school for the very,  very rich. And the very, very rich were less interested in brains than in athletics. The reason for that is  that they identified themselves with the knights of old who constantly practiced hunting, horses, jousting, sword play. They believed it was these activities which shaped their characters, and made them superior to the rest of us. Brains were not important. What was important was something vaguely called character and leadership. And the key to that was sport.

Of course, this could not be the crude sports played by common people, usually without rules. No, they had to be sports played only by the gentlemanly class, the rich. Anybody who had to get paid to play was, by definition, not a gentleman. Under these conditions, Rugby introduced team sports as a major part of the curriculum.

That's why, back in the days when it was mostly the wealthy who could afford to send their children to university, the game of Rugby was brought here to ensure they would become gentlemen of the leadership class. (However, universtities in Canada and the U.S., in order to understand the game, had to re-invent it as Football.)

But, like hockey, it was for gentlemen only, not for the lower classes. That's why the Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup are, officially, for amateurs only.
Sports have nothing to do witih the purpose of a university. They're also very expensive to operate. Good for St. Thomas.

Norbert has a good column on this.

For the editorial writer, the big issue of the day is whether city councillors  should get a raise. After all, even the requested raise of four percent for firemen and police is dreadful. That is the great issue of the day.

 I look forward to the day I see a tough editorial on business executive salaries - and on their avoidance of taxes.

Rod Allen thinks the great issue of the day is the thrill of spending more on the 'events centre'.
The guest column is about the Ghomeshi trial. It's a decent column. But, really, -   where does it rank among all the issues facing this world?

Alec Bruce writes about the coming of WestJet to Montreal. Unfortunately, he has nothing, really, to say about it.

When are we going to get a commentary that takes us beyond trivia about Moncton Main Street?
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Canada&World (sigh).

Our provincial NDP leader Cardy is not going to support Mulcair for the national  leadership of the part. So bloody what?  Cardy's dismal record as provincial leader means that nobody cares who he doesn't support. And Mulcair is a gone goose, too.

We face huge crises - the theft of billions - even trillions of dollars by the very wealthy of this world - the growing gap between rich and poor - our failure to ensure living incomes - and empowerment of women that still has a long way to go - our lack of any progress on the issue of climate change ---these and many others.

The Liberals and Conservatives have already proven they won't do anything. The Greens are far too much a single-issue party to deal with all these. It's not just a matter protecting the environment. It's a matter of controlling those forces that care far more about profits than about human life. It's not just a matter of declaring what we are for. It's a matter of controlling that which we are against.
The NDP has drifted far, far to the right. At best, it promises to be a better Liberal party than the Liberal party is. And that's not good enough, not by a long shot.

Anyway, you cannot make change by simply going to where the thinking of the people is. Where that thinking is is what has created the crises we live in. People need to learn what the problems are and what the cures can be. A party cannot help people by adapting itself to what they think. It has to make them aware of what the problems are, and how it attempts to deal with them.

In other words, the NDP has been a failed adventure in trying to win by proposing band-aid solutions, and by trying to appear mainstream to get votes. It is not mainstream, and it should not be mainstream. It's not just a matter of winning votes. To start, it's necessary to convince the voters of what the problems are, and what they must do to fix them.

We are being robbed on the greatest scale in history. Read the Irving press. There's scarcely a word about it. We are facing irrepairable damage to the environment.  We are assured it's not going to happen; it IS happening. At the gentlest, that means migrations by the hundreds of millions - at least. It means threats to food and water supplies. It means wars over what's left. And we're just standing there with our faces hanging out.

The NDP should go back to what it was as the CCF. It should stand for changes, not for adjustments. And the Greens and the NDP should unite because the Green party's focus is too narrow ever to form a government. As well, it can never hope that any of its goals will be achieved without tackling the big obstable - the power of big money.

What's wrong is and has long been the uncontrolled, unregulated, irrresponsible and greedy behaviour of the very wealthy. If we don't fix that, we don't fix anything - not the environment, not poverty, not homelessness. If we don't fix that, we don't even survive.

I know. That's going to be tough in New Brunswick most people think the important thing is to think as much like other people as possible because that's respectable. But being a little bit unrespectable is a more intelligent way to go.
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A   couple of annoyances in the news.

Yesterday, the Irving press reffered to WestJet as a corporate citizen. Again -  there is no thing as a corporate citizen. A institution is not a citizen. A business is not a citizen. My cat is not a citizen. A fire engine is not a citizen. A citizen is a person. Nothing else in creation is a citizen. So why does the Irving press so often refer to corporate citizens?

Well, it sounds warm and mellow. And it can make us feel as if corporations are folks just like us. And it implies that, as citizens, corporations have rights - perhaps of a kind we don't have. So, if Gallant meets for an economic chat with Irving, well, he's just being friendly with a corporate citizen who, like us, just wants the best for this province. Yeah.

The other story was from a general whose name I have blessedly forgotten. He says the Canadians being sent to Syria are not on a combat mission. However, there could be combat involved. So it is, but it isn't. That's double talk.
The reality is that this is, under international law, a combat mission. You cannot just send troops to another country unless you have official permission from that country. When you don't have permission, that's an invasion. You can go there to give out free Maple Syrup. It's still an invasion. And it's still combat.

The government of Syria has not agreed to our visit. Syria has not attacked or even threatened Canada. Our situation would be illegal even if Parliament declared war. But we haven't done that either.

We are sending Canadians into a dangerous situation, and one that is illegal under the Canadian constitution and under International law. And if any get killed, we will hear sanctimonious speeches about how they died to spread freedom. And that will be a lie because freedom has nothing to do with what's going on in Syria.

Why are we doing it? We're doing it to please American oil billionaires so they can make bigger profits - which they won't pay taxes on. We pay and we risk Canadian lives to make them richer.

And, please, skip the crap that this is "Canada doing it's share". There is no reason whatever why we owe anybody any share in the mass murder and destruction of Syria.

There are many items that weren't important enough to make the Irvinig press - though it did have half a page to spare in Canada&World for a story about a sword-fighting academy in Vancouver.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/50000-iraqis-besieged-fallujah-face-starvation-160407131355399.html

Fallujah is also the city most brutally attack by the U.S. in the Iraq war.

And I have never seen a story in the Irving press about what Israel has been doing to Palestine. And this is only a small example of what's been happening.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/israel-ramps-demolitions-palestinian-structures-160407140314909.html

And this is about Syria where Canadian general somebody says our troops are not on a combat mission; but combat could happen.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/gunships-replace-jets-russias-air-campaign-syria-160407111014579.html
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When I  said earlier that, under international law, Assad is the legitimate ruler of Iraq, that did not suggest he's a sweetheart. Sweethearts don't live long in that region. As well, I  could write a much harsher indictment of, say, George Bush, of Obama, of British p.m. Cameron. However, none of that makes Assad any better than what he really is. Really, he's a reminder not to look for good guys and bad guys in current affairs. It's quite common to see bad guys on both sides. And the baddest guys are often the very wealthy ones like the Koch brothers who stay out of sight, but are the ones who order the killing. The people to feel sorry for are the ones caught in the middle. (By the way, ever see any mention of the Koch brothers in the Irving press? They are, perhaps, the most powerful men in the world.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/jewish-folktale-assad-160405112514673.html
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Here's a site that's unusual in that it's from India. I was intrigued by two things - how the people of India are going through many of the same problems we are - and how this site actually has more on nearby (to us)  Latin American than the Irving press has.

The U.S. impact on Latin America has been, for over a century,  brutal, murderous and thieving. But we rarely see any of that in North American news media.

http://www.countercurrents.org/peppe040416.htm
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And here's a story that will never make the pages of the Irving press. The Eastern Pipeline could threaten the drinking water of five million Canadians. And, as an act of punishment, that list includes the city of St. John.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/council-canadians/2016/04/energy-east-spill-could-reach-drinking-water-5-million-cana
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And here's something else the Irving press  hasn't told us. Canada has its own privately owned army for rent - like the American firm of Blackwater. These private armies are rented out for local communities to, say, beat up protesting students or strikers, and go all the way to fighting in wars for whoever will pay them.

It's more that a little disturbing to see their rise, especially  in the last 30 years or more. In effect, these are rentathugs for anybody who has the price. They've been prominent since the U.S. invasion of Iraq where they were regarded with dislike by many regular soldiers for their arrogance and thuggishness. They also developed quite a reputation for rape and for theft involving murder.
Nice to know Canada has them, too.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-engler/2016/04/private-security-firm-gardaworld-canadas-blackwater-danger-to-dem
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Who are the world leaders in executions? This isn't a major story. But, for many, it's a prime example of how news media and film affect our judgement of countries. We know all about Saudi Arabia's cruelties, and Iran and Pakistan killings are things we more or less expect. And certainly our news media do not hestitate to mention them.  But how often have you seen a news story about the American lust for executions?

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/04/06/us-among-world-leaders-in-death-penalty-surpassed-only-by-saudi-iran-pakistan-amnesty/
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April 6: What's going to happen in passionless New Brunswick

For those who have wondered why so few Americans were listed in the Panama Papers as tax evaders, here's why.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/06/panama-papers-us-tax-havens-delaware
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And here's the Trudeau government record on tax havens.   Zip.

http://ipolitics.ca/2016/01/22/a-clampdown-on-tax-havens-still-proves-elusive/
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And aother example of Trudeau's casual approach.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/16/corporate-tax-havens-canada_n_7293410.html
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And another example of Canada's casual approach.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/06/homegrown-loopholes-cost-canada-more-than-panama-tax-havens-walkom.html

According to this, there are 350 names of Canadian tax-evaders just in the  Panama Papers. My, it would be nice to see the Irving press publish those names.

Getting your own tax returns done? Better get them in on time or there'll be hell to pay.
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The CBC had several stories and comments on this. Here's a sample.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/inversions-panama-revenue-quandary-1.3521358
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Over much of the world, (but not New Brunswick) most of the news media have many stories and commentaries about the Panama Papers. Some say less than they should about the sums involved and what they mean. And few name the big killers, the corporate bosses who have put away an estimated 30 trillions dollars or more, possibly, much more.

But news most news media still give it a lot of coverage because this is a historic change in society - at least as big as the the fall of Rome - probably much bigger, and certainly bigger in extent. The very rich have always abused others, and have always built their wealth on that abuse.  One needs only to look at the industrial revolution in Britain, the industrialization of  the U.S. from 1850 on, the effective destruction of native peoples in the Americas,  the miserable lives and early deaths of the poor in  U.S. and Canadian slums, the murders of hundreds of thousands of innocent people (as in Guatemala) to keep them as cheap labour.

We and our news media should have known this story for decades at least. It was never a secret. When Castro got control of Cuba, none of our news media asked why he had done that and why the Cuban people cheered it. When he was able to provide free education all the way through university, nobody asked how he could do that when even the wealthy U.S. and Canada couldn't. And he could afford  a medicare system when the U.S. couldn't. And this was sustained through decades of trade sanctions that were a great  hardship on Cuba. How was that possible?

Because he because he nationalized all those blood-sucking corporations who had made themselves rich by making Cuba poor.

Our news media have known about tax havens for a very long time. Our politicians have known about them. Why are we suddenly hearing about it only now? We have been systematically robbed for many years by the greediest and most immoral people on this earth.  Because of them, millions have died of hunger, exposure, and poor health. And millions have died in wars to make the wealthy wealthier. No dictator has ever matched that rate of murder.

And it won't stop until they have all the money, and the rest of us have nothing. That's not an exaggeration. Rapists don't stop after the first time. We have to recognize that this is a turning point in  history. This is world conquest of a type and of a horror we have never before seen.

There are things we prefer not to see, things we just ignore or downplay. We  would be very foolish, indeed, to let this one pass with a shrug.

Of course, most people - being people - will dismiss all this as unimportant. So we'll forget about the the mass suffering and killing this will lead to. After all, we see (some of)  it now in Latin America and Africa and the Middile East. And we don't care.

So think of another reality. If we don't deal with this, we are going to see severe social breakdown in North America - and it's anybody's guess what  people will will lead the breakdown.

This is the biggest robbery in history. It's a severe robberty of almost all of us with much, much more of the same to come.
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But for the  editorial writer of the Irving press, the big story is that Westjet will 'create'  400 new jobs for New Brunwick.And we'll be partners because we're giving the 'job creators' a forgiveable loan.  For Norbert, the great issue of the day is the effect of legalizing marijuana. Brian Cormier does have a column on taxes. But it doesn't mention tax havens or any nasty stuff. Roughly, it says taxes are good for us because they get our streets cleared of snow. The guest commentary is one about a chemical used in cans to preserve foods. It says it might be bad for us. But we shouldn't do anything.  For Alec Bruce, the great issue of the day is whether it should be legal to smoke marijuana in a cafe. Very gripping and thought-provoking.

In section A news, there is nothing that anybody could possibly give a damn about.

Section B has one story on tax havens. It's from The Associated Press. And it says nothing whatever. I guess the paper couldn't spare a reporter to question Mr. Irving on the issue. Of course, he wouldn't have anything to do with tax havens. He's a phil-an-thro-pist. And he operates a church in summer. I'll bet Presbyterians are poppin' their buttons over that.
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(I inserted the Irving press in the middle of today's blog because my breakfast paper didn't arrive until noon.)

_Now, away from the mould and intellectual flab of the irving press to an opinion that really caught my eye.

When the Panama Papers story broke, I mentioned some reservations about it in my blog. I was suspicious of  some of the donors listed for the agency that released the story. The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations do not normally fund studies that are critical of big business. As well, no prominent Americans were in the story. The focus has been on Putin though, in fact, Putin is not mentioned in the Papers. It is acquaintances of his who are mentioned. This is like condemning Gallant and Trudeau for knowing Canadians who have tax havens. (It's like condemning me because I knew a man who had murdered and dissected one of his hookers. I also knew a mobster who went missing one day, and was found in a lake. He was wrapped in chains. So sue me.)

Of course, Putin would almost certainly have a good  deal of information on who has tax havens and where. After all, he has a huge spy nework. By the same token,   Obama must have known all about it. And  prime minister Cameron of Britain. And Justin Trudeau. And Stephen Harper.

It's very odd that this story happened to be about a tax haven with no prominent Americans involved, and with a high proportion of Russians and Chinese. It's odd that the reporting should focus on Putin when he isn't mentioned in the papers.

In sum, I think the Panama Papers story is true. I also think it's selectively true, and its release is really propaganda And I don't expect we're going to see any significant action from any government.

And, a safe bet, the Irving press will let this story die.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Dance-to-the-Panama-Papers-Limited-Hangout-Leak-20160405-0036.html
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Over 200 years ago, the industrial revolution took people off the land to put them into the new factories. It began in Britain where corporate bosses paid starvation wages for workers who had to live and to work in the middle of filth, hunger and the absence of sanitation. The Britain of the industrial revolution created the wealthiest men in the world of their time. For the rest, there were only some of the worst and most dangerous slums in history. And both Canada and the U.S. copied Britain in the nineteenth century.

We are now moving beyond that industrial age. We're in the age of bleeding all the world's money into the tax havens of a very few, the age of robotization of the work place which will be allowed to cut costs while impoverishing the general population or the world
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My grandmother grew up in one of the flats in The Gorbals of Glasgow, in a building with one toilet for 50 tenants, and with water available only from a pump on the street. Some buildings had just shack outhouses in the street. Such places could be found in British cities as late as the 1950s. Some people just used empty lots or dark corners. This was Britain at the height of its economic dominance in the world.

Google The Gorbals Glasgow. Most of the pictures are of a Gorbals that has been largely demolished and rebuilt. But the older pictures give a sense of the filth and poverty that existed a century and more ago. Notice the garbage on the streets. Notice the faces of the people.

The story of the the Panama Papers is not just another story. It's a warning of where we are going if we don't wake up.

Hint: voting Conservative in the next provincial election won't change anything. Nor will the NDP as it's presently structured.

Oh, and the New Brunswick habit of ignoring the problem won't make it go away.
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April 5: The Greatest Story Never Told

https://www.icij.org/#_ga=1.162088828.1749684605.1459878751

Above is the website of the organization that broke the story of the Panama Papers. It's a branch of the Center for Public Integrity whose home page is below.

https://www.publicintegrity.org/

I am a little concerned at the list of donors for these organizations. It includes, for example, the Rockefeller Foundation and similar types from families of questionable backgrounds. On the good side, it is a pretty full list of the donors. And some of its work has been pretty good.

I am still a little suspicious about the material released.  It seems odd that there are no American names, though Americans still lead the world in billionaires. It's possible that the papers they got just happened to include Russia. It's also questionable.

None of this is to suggest that Putin is innocent, and that he had no knowledge of what people associated with him were doing. In fact, it's  hard to believe that there is any leader of any industrial country in the world has not known of this from the start. And in this I would include the prime minister of Canada and the president of the U.S.

It's likely that the story is quite true. But the focus is largely on Putin and, certainly, our news media are playing it that way. This could be a  deliberate attempt to discredit Putin. This doesn't make it untrue. But it would make it a propaganda scheme rather than the whole truth.

To my surprise, the Irving press did run the story. Admittedly, it was a pretty low key presentaion. It didn't internew people in our provincial government - like the minister of finance. It didn't give Mr. Irving a ding on the phone. It simply bought the story from The Asssociated Press (one of the less honest of the new services). As well, the story, quite possibly the biggest story, of the year took a poor, second place in the Canada&World section.

Neither the editorial nor the commentaries touched it. In fact, the whole story was slightly shorter than "Man gets 10 years for attempted murder of kids".
Look, if this story is true - and I think it is true - this is only one of many such tax havens around the world. That means that all over the world, maybe even in New Brunswick,  the wealthy are hiding trillions of dollars from taxation. That means a very tiny group is getting enormous wealth and power by impoverishing, even starving, the rest of us. In this way, combined with trade treaties that make it impossible for us to run our own countries, make it possible for them to move industries wherever labour  is cheapest, and possible to destroy jobs and lower incomes here, we are watching a revolution by the wealthy that far greater than  the age of kings and aristrocrats - and us peasantry.

Understanding this and dealing with it are fundamental to our survival.
 Funny how professor Savoie and Norbert Cunningham have never noticed that. Funny how the press is playing this as though Putin were the major player. Funny how we have not yet heard a word about this from the likes of Justin Trudeau. If a group of reporters could reveal a corner of this, then surely governments could find out who their own cheats are.

This is not just another "tut-tut" story. We are living in the middle of the biggest revolution in history. It's a revolution that has already caused wars with millions of dead and tens of millions of refugees, of crippled and orphaned and starving and hundreds of millions of poor - just in the last fifty years. And there's worse to come.

But you aren't ever going to find that out through the Irving press.
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Section A is the usual easy and cheap stuff. "Lotto ticket thief gets six months". Even the photos are easy and cheap. Front page has a photo of city hall that adds nothing to the story of councillors getting a pay raise. They didn't even bother to take a new picture. Instead, it has an old one of the city hall deep in snow. It's probably a year or more old.

The editorial is stunningly ignorant. It praises former premier Frank McKenna who wanted the universities to work closely with the private sector, and badmouths professors for opposing this. Of course. The editorial writer does not realize that what he/she and McKenna mean by "working closely" is that universities become cheap research centres and propaganda agencies for corporations rather than being educational institutions.

The editorial writer also believes that university is essentially job-training. It's not. And weathy families should not get tuition help? Got news for you, kid. Most university students are not from wealthy homes. The wealthy of New Brunswick commonly send their children out of province.

And we can't afford free tuition?  Maybe. But first we should check whether we are getting all the tax money we should from the wealthy.

The commentaries are decent. But all are very local. The Irving press should learn their is a world beyond Main St., Moncton.
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Canada&World is its usual, sloppy self. The middle east, which has us on the brink of World War Three, isn't mentioned. There are three stories on the Panama Papers. Two of them tell us nothing about it. The one that tell us a bit gives of no sense of what this means. As usual, a whole page is given to people holding big cheques.

This is a great section for the terminally lonely and bored. There is no sense that the section editor has given the slightest thought to what news is important and what isn't.
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After a slow start, U.S. police are hitting their stride in killings.  Once again, American are under far, far greater danger from their police than they are from terrorists. Especially if they are black Americans.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-killings
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While the Irving press has just bland reports and no commentary on the Panama Papers, The Guardian is filled with reports, interviews, opinions. The British prime minister has been forced to announce he'll take action.

Of course, he probably won't. And any action taken by any country will be pretty bland stuff. We are dealing here with vast sums billions - and trillions - of dollars. I note, in the Irving press, that a man who stole a lottery ticket got six months in the prison. Just for a lottery ticket. How much time do you think our billionaires will get for their massive thefts?

http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/05/panama-papers-britain-house-order-cameron
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In Israel, racism still rules. It's the heritage from Adolf Hitler.We lie to ourselves constantly about that war. Canada, for example, did not oppose either fascism or Naziism. France, despite all the talk of the resistance, warmly embraced Naziism. Much of the Catholic church, especially in Quebec, openly supported Naziism. Large numbers from all over Europe volunteered to join the German armed forces. France willingly fought on the German side in North Africa. There were anti-Jewish demonstrations across Canada. I  often think of my Jewish friends in Montreal, and the atmosphere of terror they had to grow up in. That was true throughout the war, and for years after it.

There's a good book on this - about French Catholic Quebec - by Esther Delisle, 'Myths, Memories&Lies".  English Protestants were not very different.

It's not surprising, then, that Israel, itself, has become so racist.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712314?utm_content=%24sections%2F1.712314&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_source=SMARTFOCUS&utm_campaign=1339605&utm_term=20160403-02%3A04
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And here's another look at the real world.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/palestinians-changed-israeli-torture-160402074043912.html
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And to catch up on Paul Craig Roberts and our financial system......

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/03/08/the-financial-system-is-a-larger-threat-than-terrorism-paul-craig-roberts/

Our financial system is based on pure greed. Nothing else. It has created a parasitic class that lives off the rest of us while naives like Norbert babble about how it creates jobs.

The biggest threat, perhaps the final one, is tax havens -  the nuclear bombs of capitalism. Our governments have to put a stop to this. And that will happen only if we wake up.
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April 4: Wow!

The story below is told largely with its focus on Israel, China and Russia. But it's a story that covers the whole world. Yes, even Canada and, who would guess it? -even New Brunswick. And, toward the end there's reference to a book on the subject that looks worth reading.

This is about a revolution that is happening to all of us. It's about an economic system which has always been corrupt but is now so sophisticated in its corruption it is a threat to all of us. We're living through a period in which democracy is being destroyed, and in which the nation itself is becoming just a word. With tax havens and 'trade' deals and bought elections, our nations are becoming simply corrals that hold us for the slaughterhouse.

I don't think that has yet been grasped by the distinguished professors who advise our governments. Professor Savoie, who wrote his highly praised book about our economy going off a cliff should read this. So should Norbert Cunningham.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.712456?utm_content=%24sections%2F1.712456&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_source=SMARTFOCUS&utm_campaign=1390167&utm_term=20160403-21%3A04

What's going on is the biggest theft in world history. And the time to stop it is running short.

Unfortunately, the Irving press had no room for the story. It needed much of page 1 for a big  photo of the announcer for the cat show  (with his cat). This is continued on A4 with a half-page story on the Moncton Cat Show. And that's pretty much the high point for section A news.

Oh, there is a story that the government will be helping smaller communities to welcome Syrian refugees. Not a good idea. These are people who have had to leave the surroundings they had lived in all their lives. The now have to live in a diffferent language and in a society that is culturally and religiously different from what they have always known.

They will, of course, adjust to that, just as Japanese and Chinese and Ukrainians, Hindus and Poles and Czechs and Italians and Jews have been adjusting for well over a century. (Even English and Scots and Irish and French had adjustments to make). But....

....while they're adjusting they need some familiarity about them. A  church or a  mosque is a religious connection. It's also a social centre, and a place of familiarity. I grew up in a city in which each immigrant group was concentrated so that, in this strange land,  they kept in touch with what was familiar to them. I played with them in their nearby communities where each group was concentrated - Syrians, Italians, poles, Jews...

Within a generation, they moved away to blend into mixed communities. But they had needed that decade or two to adjust to Canada, and to feel at home here
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There's a big, gushing editorial about a burning issue of the day - the opening of a  farmers' market in Boutouche. (Incidentally, for the editorial writer, notice I put the apostrophe for farmers' AFTER the s. That's because the apostrophe before the s would indicate the whole market belongs to one farmer.) The editor thinks this market will be good for tourism.

But we have yet to see the Irving press editorial (or story or even casual mention) of another Buctouche story.  It's about Raoul Leger, the lay missionary from Bouctouche who was murdered by American-supported troops in Guatemala in 1981.

But therre's a good reason for not mentioning it. It wouldn't do any good for our tourist business. So tell us more about the market.

Both Norbert Cunningham and Alec Bruce are critical  of Premier Gallant's failure to develop any economic growth plan. And they're critical with good reason. Putting forward any plan to do anything about anything does not seem to be Mr. Gallant's strong point.

Steve Malloy and Craig Bastock have reasonable comments to make but, like must of this newspaper, they are not great issues of the day.
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And what's happening in Canada&World? Well, a car went off a cliff in Newfoundland; but the driver survived. Two people were killed in Pennsylvania when a train hit a backhoe.  Lots of people went to see Trudeau at a market in Halifax. A Halifax school needs more money to deal witht he refugee children is receiving. Nova Scotia wants federal funding for a hospital. Yep. Lots happening in the world, too much to cram into 4 pages; so the editors need to  choose what's really important.

Again,  then, they leave out Yemen. But who gives a damn? And there's a certain amount of friction going on with China, the U.S., the two Koreas and Japan in the Pacific.  Africa and South America are both undergoing terrible environmental damage, exploitation, social violence... But, well, you couldn't get all that into four pages, anyway.

The most exciting part of this section in the statement in red letters at the top of the page.

Up-to-the-minute-breaking-news-each-day.  Wow! Ex-cite-ment!
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The Royal Bank of Canada is mentioned in the news story I started with, the one about the Panama Papers and tax evasion. But it has officially denied the story. So it's okay. Anyway, here in Canada, we don't call them tax evaders. We call them philanthropists.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/panama-papers-business-reaction-1.3519525

Anyway, it's a quite natural product of capitalism. That's why capitalism doesn't work unless it's tightly controlled.   It's also interesting in that it might shed light on how Russia and China, both late entrants into the game of capitalism, already have so many multi-billionaires. China, especially, has at least 320.Apparently, it doesn't take years of toil and blood and sweat to become a billionaire. What it takes is pure greed.

What do you figure the chances of an editorial on this subject are for the Irving press?
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The Irving press had too many really big stories to cover to pay any attention to the Panama Papers. But the Guardian had time for it. And it's worth noting part of The Guardian story. These Panama Papers are just a glimpse of a world of kleptocracy by the very rich.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/04/tax-havens-reformed-outlawed-panama-papers
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The Irving press does have the story of refugees that Europe is deporting to Turkey. But it tells nothing of the horror Europe is sending them to. This is one of those dreadful moments in history that the world prefers to pretend isn't really happening. And all of this so that a small group of billionaires can keep their grip on the profits of middle east oil.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/turkey-safe-haven-refugees-shoots-border-illegal-deportations-syrians
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The next one is --- different. Giles Fraser is a regular columnist for The Guardian. He's also an Anglican priest in a notoriously poor and decaying part of London. I am not an anglican and not, in any sense, a conventional believer, not in any church. But it was warming to see a clergyman whose faith is firmly connected to the world of daily life.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2016/mar/31/the-resurrection-isnt-an-argument-its-the-christian-word-for-defiance
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And again, another look at the Panama Papers and tax havens, this one by a writer who is quite expert on the subject. In fact, just about every government in the world has known about this for many, many years. They know that we have been robbed on a massive scale. They know that scale of theft has had a major impact through causing starvation and death. They know it has caused poverty and suffering all over the world. But not one has lifted a finger to do anything about it. Estimates are that more than thirty TRILLION dollars  could be hidden from taxation.

And let's not kid ourselves that its being done just by bad guys in Russia and China. It was being done before - long before - Russia and China went capitalist.. And it was being done by our side.

As other newspapers have noted, this could be the story that defines the immense damage to the world by a capitalism that has been allowed to run wild. And there is worse being planned. Capitalism has been allowed to become a raging, thrashing beast that will destroy all of us - and itself by its pure greed.

And guess who own most of the news media that should be warning us about this.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/panama-papers-care-160404093556156.html
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Over the years, I have found the columns, articles and books by Paul Craig Roberts to be consistently intelligent and honest. And now I have found his site. Here's an article from it. (you may have to scroll down a bit to see it.)

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/03/30/how-they-brainwash-us-paul-craig-roberts/

There are quite a few articles at this site - all worth reading. just go to  'articles' and scroll down. It's good reading all the way.
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And here's an article about the Latin America we never read about in the Irving press. This is about the routine arrest, beatings, murders of farmers in Colombia. It all starts with so much of Latin America becoming a part of the American empire over the last 150 years or so. Ever since then, it has been terrorized  by American, Canadian and other 'inestors' who are attracted by the natural resources,the lack of social services(it keeps government cheap) and the cheap labour.

The environmental destruction has been massive since the rigged elections usually produce political leaders who are in bed with the investors.
Free trade deals have enormously worsened this situation. Cuba tried to get out, but was crippled by trade sanctions. Haiti tried to get out after years of American corporate dictators; but the U.S. broke that with a "peacekeeping" invasion.
Generally, Latin America is the American/Canadian version of the social and economic destruction created by the British, French, Belgian, and Dutch empires in Asia and Africa.

Thus, farmers in Colombia live under the threat of arrest, torture, beatings, murder. But don't be jealous. If the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership goes through, life in the U.S. and Canada will come to resemble Latin America. (In fact, if  you read Canadian and American history, All of this was happening in the U.S. and Canada at least from the 1850s through the 1920s and 30s.

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/04/criminalizing-farmers-activism-colombia
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None of this by the way, is to suggest that anybody - capitalist, socialist, communist, rich, poor, Asian, African - is born either good or bad. No. The problem is that we are all born human. So we can't afford to let any of us to run wild. No. Not even the rich ones.

April 3: Change of pace on a Sunday

The sermonette on yesterday's Faith page talks about the leading role Christianity  has played in bringing social equality to women.  I'm suprised that it didn't mention Pope Joan, the woman of 1200 years ago who pretended to be a man in order to be ordained as a priest. She eventually, it is said, became pope, but was found out when she had a spontaneous birth of a child during a church procession. (The story almost certainly isn't true. But the sermonette is - um - misleading, anyway.)

Certainly,  women of the time of Christ were profoundly repressed. That was true over most of the world. It was certainly true in Israel where they were subordinate to their husbands  They resembled today's women of the most orthodox forms of Islam. And that's scarcely surprising since Judaism and Islam have much in common, including their region of origin. To both groups, a woman was, as the writer says, more a possession than a person.
The writer goes on to point out that Jesus treated women with the same respect He had for men. He spread his teachings to them. Women were permitted to become His followers. He treated them as equals before God. Quite so -

--now, give me the name of a female disciple. Tell me the gospel of a woman disciple. Tell me about the women who were ordained in the church. Tell me about the women bishops and cardinals, the women elders who governed Protestant churches.

It took churches and synagogues some two thousand years to bring some sense of equality to their treatment of women. That's quite a lag. And it hasn't happened yet in many institutions. Commonly, orthodox Jewish women are still just property of their men. They don't even get to choose who they will marry.

Among more liberal Jews, female rabbis have just begun to appear.

In Protestant churches, the very concept of ordained women has been with us for less than a century, and really noticeable only in the past fifty years - and ordination of men still dominates.

Roman Catholics still live in pre-Pope Joan days.

It has taken the Christian churches 2000 years to get even to this point. Nor is there any evidence that the teaching of the churches played any role in the process. The change come from women who pioneered their own way into politics, professions such as medecine and law, and through unions - and did it before the churches had lifted a finger.

That's a problem wih our churches - and most of the Faith page. They talk a great game. But the rubber never hits the road.

And that takes us to the last sentence of the sermonette which can be used as a hint to the nature of the problem with our churches.

"As individuals and as churches, let us seek to live out the values of Christ in all our relationships, particularly in our relationships with women."

Why did it take us two thousand years to begin that? Why do we still not live out the values we claim to believe in, not just in equality for women, but in much, perhaps most, of our daily lives?

Why have we accepted an economic system rewards greed and punishes the majority who just never have the opportunity to benefit from greed. Why do we virtually guarantee that the children of the poor will remain poor and the children of the rich will become richer?

Why do we vote for political parties that have no principles whatever? (Why are we stuck with a newspaper that thinks constantly about money, and never about the needs of people?)

Why are the most honoured people in our society so often the ones who do the least for society while saving the most for themselves?

Why do we claim to believe that killing is wrong, but spent much of our time killing and selling weapons to other killers? Why is our closest ally the world's leading killer?

And that's where we come to the problem of our churches. "As individuals and as churches,  let us seek to live out the values of Christ......"   In most sermonettes I have read and most sermons I have heard, we seek such values only in the abstract, never in the real world. But the rubber never hits the road.

When did you last hear a sermon on the Canadian sale of armoured cars to Saudi Arabia? On the Canadian bombing of Libya, Iraq and Syria?  On the sending of Canadian troops to Afghanistan? On the morality  (or otherwise) of a political party? On the Christian values (or lack of them) in corporations?

Oh, I know. I know.  The church has no right to interfere in the state. But that's really a sloppy statement that misuses the word 'interfere' instead of the correct 'dictate'.

I pass lightly over the fact that billionaires have no right to dictate to the state, either.  But we let them do it all the time. However, it's true that churches (and billionaires) have no right to dictate to the state. And I'm not suggesting that churches should  dictate to anybody. State decisions have to (or should) reflect the wishes of the voting public. But churches have the right and the responsibility  to encourage thought and discussion of moral values that are involved in the decisions of the public.

To take an extreme example, if a party were to run for election on a platform of murdering all homeless people,  a church should surely discuss how its  moral values relate to that issue. We badly need moral guides for our directions in health care, education, war, homelessness, poverty....

These are not interferences. Just as the news media should (but don't) provide us with essential information in our political thinking regarding voting, churches should (but don't)  encourage us to think about our (supposed) moral thinking.
Instead, both our news media and our churches keep us in ignorance - one in ignorance of what's happening, and the other in ignorance of how our moral values are reflected (or not) in  our world. Together, the two have pushed us to act in conformity with the status quo, and to go downhill from there.

Together, they encourage us to  conform, to be respectable. And respectable means thinking what everybody else does and doing what everybody else does. In 1930s Germany, Naziis were very respectable (and church-going).

As the   writer of the sermonette says, when Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath, he was attacked for 'working' on the Sabbath. Jesus was not respectable in  his world.  He wouldn't be respectable in our world, either. We shouldn't be respectable, either. That's not what church was supposed to be about.

Respectable - to stand outside the Dumont hospital holding up signs to protest against abortion.

Unrespectable - to protest against the murder by starvation and bombs of babies in the middle east.
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A reader sent me the item below. It's a VERY important one.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thehouse/ei-controversy-and-the-ndp-s-future-1.3514222/nobel-prize-winning-economist-joseph-stiglitz-warns-canada-against-tpp-1.3514739
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And here's another CBC story that the Irving press will feel is unsuitable for publication.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tax-expenditures-giveaways-neil-macdonald-1.3515484
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Here's another site I've only recently learned about. This is a useful item on the propaganda game.

http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz020416.htm

I don't know what to  make of this site yet. I shall have to read a good deal more to get a sense of what it is all about. For example, it has a story that Saudi Arabia has used a "tactical" nuclear bomb in Yemen. (This is a nuclear device of much less power than the strategic ones. It can be used to destroyed deep, underground positions or relatively small areas.) This is possible; the Saudis could have bought it from Israel which could have it because it is a type useful against neighbouring countries. And there are alliances within alliances in the region.. So an Israeli-Saudi link is possible. But I would like to know more about countercurrents before I can feel some trust in it.
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The following is a quite gruesome account of what modern war is like. It's about the American attack on the city of Fallujah in Iraq, a city which received special attention as a centre of opposition to the invasion. The photos are the ones our news media didn't publish.

http://off-guardian.org/2015/09/15/fallujah-the-hidden-massacre/
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And this opinion, I very much fear, is right. Israel is the product of centuries of bigotry and abuse by most of the Christian world. And it's not an attractive product. There could be room for a sermonette on that.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.712319
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And this one is - different. It caught my attention because the parents of many of my Jewish friends in Montreal got their start in the clothing industry (the 'Schmata' trade). It's a vile trade. But they got caught up in it because most employers of the time discriminated against Jews. In the depression years, their mothers had worked at home all day and often into the evening to sew shirts for  the T.Eaton Department stores. Their pay might be a couple of dollars a week.  (In Toronto, there's a very big and expensive church named after Mr. Eaton.)

In New York,  women in the schmata trade commonly worked in high rise factories where the doors were locked to make sure employees didn't take any time off. In a fire, dozens were killed jumping out of upper storey windows.
Now, we send the jobs out to third world countries where the pay is lower and the conditions worse. That's where Joe Fresh comes from.

http://www.haaretz.com/life/.premium-1.712038

April 2: a child in Yemen. And you and me.

Yesterday evening, I watched BBC News.  It opened with some of the most dreadful footage I have ever seen. It was of the children of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. There was a picture of a baby with the hideous facial bloating and the dead eyes that can come from malnutrition. There was a boy of 9 or 10. His eyes were dead. His body was very thin and hideously scarred - as were his legs which were also twisted, crippled    - and will be for the rest of his life.

I saw a school class - in a school missing most of it walls and ceilings. The children, perhaps of grade 5 or so, were unnaturally thin and small; and their eyes had the deadness of the scarred and twisted boy I  had just seen.
One told of the bombs that had fallen the night before, destroying an outer wall of his home, killing his grandfather and two uncles who lived with him. These are the children of Yemen.

They, and their parents, are deliberately being starved and bombed to death. Their medical supplies have long been cut off by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Their hospitals are death traps. The U.S. supplies the bombs, many tons of them cluster bombs that will go on killing after most of those chldren dead. The bombers are assisted by U.S.  drones that have, for years, been bombing Yemen, guided by just-pretend pilots in safe and distant rooms - and who will be honoured every year for their gallant service to their country. There are also medals for these heroes of the skies who never leave the ground.

These heroes are assisted in their work by the  generous British and French manufacturers  who supply weapons to Saudi Arabia. And by Canada. And that is  curious because the U.S., Britain, France and Canada have all, long ago, signed an agreement not to supply weapons to countries with bad human rights records. And Saudi Arabia has one of the worst records in the world.
Remember that the next time you see that nice Mr. Trudeau schmoozing with President Obama and smiling for the cameras. He is the man who refused to cut off our weapons sales to the Saudis. (Don't he and his wife look just lovely on TV? I'll bet the children of Yemen would be impressed.)

We are watching (and taking part in) what could be a slaughter of millions of the poorest people on earth. And even the survivors will scarcely be human, physically or mentally, for the rest of their lives. Watch for the latest developments in the Irving press. (But be patient. It hasn't mentioned Yemen more than two or three times so far this year. And it has never told us what this war is about or why Canada is supporting it.)

But, oh, did you see that wonderful picture of Justin Trudeau doing a yoga exercise? It makes me so proud to be a Canadian.
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And, in all the stories about 'terrorist' attacks in Paris and Brussels and others, have you ever seen a report that gave a reason for the attacks?

Oh, I know, it's because Muslims are evil.

Well, maybe, but even evil people have reasons for what they do.

Our side had reasons for the terror bombing of Germany in world war two. Our terror bombing was that bombing aimed quite deliberately at residential areas. It was repeated in Laos,  Cambodia, Korea - and others. The purpose of it was to kill so many civilians that normal functions of the society became impossible, creating fear, hysteria, social breakdown. General Curtis Lemay called it "bombing them back into the stone age".

Obviously, that worked. But it worked only because of massive and intense bombings by very large air forces.

What we now call 'terror bombings' are neither massive nor intense. The worst, by far, was 9/11. But the there was never the slightest possibility that 9/11 would defeat the U.S. Any such defeat would require resources far, far beyond the capacities of any present day 'terrorist group'.

Terrorist bombings in Brussels, Paris, London and other cities could and did create fear and hysteria. But there was never a possibility they would defeat Belgium, France or Britain. To do that would require at least a half million suicide bombers for each of those countries - something far beyond the capacity of any nation to do, not to mention the difficulties of slipping half a million suicide bombers into each country.

Terrorism can be a factor in winning a war, but only with the addition of a very powerful. conventional military behind it. And even that may not work. The U.S. in Vietnam put on the greatest show of terrorism in history - combined with a massive superiority in military forces and equipment ---and it still lost.

No. Terrorism does not win wars all by itself. And terrorists have been well aware of that for at least fifty years. They learned that during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan  when the CIA was training Taliban terrorists.
So what are these terrorist attacks all about? We're not finding out from our news media because most of them are interested only in spreading fear and hatred. Nor can I pretend to have any inside information on this. (You'ld be surprised how few terrorists live in my neighbourhood.) But here's a guess I have some confidence in.

1. Most Muslims, like most of us, are not enthusiastic about wars. You don't see millions of Mulsims rushing to join the fighting in the middle east. The millions are rushing the other way.

2. The West has, for over a century, now, created support for war with propaganda that creates the fear and hatred necessary to make people kill and what to be killed. And the big money which owns our private news media also has the political power to drive us into war.

3. For many reasons, these factors are much less powerful in the Muslim world.

4. The result is that the majority of Muslims,  by far, have no enthusiasm for war. They know, from long experience, it offers no glory but only suffering and death.

5. The recent terrorist attacks have been to confuse and divide that Muslim majority. They are meant to create fear and hatred of Muslims in the western world - and they have done so brilliantly in the U.S., and are doing so now in Europe. But the majority of Muslims do not support extreme Islamic positions any more than you would support the clergy who carried out the Spanish Inquisition.

6. The purpose of attacks on the west is to drive moderate Muslims into the arms of the extremists, to expose them to western hatreds and attacks, to exacerbate the refugee crisis so that the only choice the majority have is to support the extremists. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton are the answers to a terrorist dream.
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From all this, you might guess that there isn't much in the Irving press. And there isn't.

In fairness, the lead story is a real one. Police and firefighters are angry at  government legislation that would seriously undercut their bargaining power to get better wages. This is also in the works for other bargaining agents. The theory is to prevent employees from getting 'excessive' wages. And guess who gets to decide what is excessive?

For our own good, we need to support our police and firefighters in this because, in the long run, it's aimed at all of us.

Tell you what, Mr. Gallant, let's start at the other end. Let's put a cap on the salaries of Mr. Irving and all his overpaid flunkies. And, if we find that it works, then we can move down the scale.

But there's an even bigger, Irving press kind of story in A3.  The government wants jail time for a woman who threw coffee containers at police. Beside it is another thrilling story is that an armed robbery suspect will remain in custody. (Gee. I thought for sure they'd let him out.)
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The editorial is better than usual, but stops short of being good. Norbert Cunningham has a quite sensible column arguing that the government should be listening to the expert advice of medical doctors in planning its health services. For some reason, he then wanders off into "liberal ideology" and "conservative ideology".  But there are no such things in our traditional parties which have no ideologies of any sort. That's why the party of John A. Macdonald was NOT called the Conservative partyl. It was the Liberal-Conservative Party.

Brian Murphy writes well, but always in the style of the Faith page, with platitudes guaranteed not to offend man or beast. This reads like the column of a man who is seriously thinking of going back into politics.

The guest column on greater local powers for rural New Brunswick deals with an important issue. But it reads like a formal paper on "The incidence of negative nuclear diffusion among stone age megalairiums" Not one reader in a hundred is going to understand this. This is obviously by a person who has been deeply engrossed in his subject. But readers have not been so engrossed. Everything here is vague and in bureaucratize.  You have to write for your readers. Otherwise, you end up talking to yourself.

Alec Bruce has an excellent and common sense column about fracking. Unlike the editorials on this subject, it lives in the real world.
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And what's going on across Canada and the World? The big story is that 4 New Brunswick liquor stores are offering a new app to help you choose the right vintage.

There's virtually nothing on the rest of the world - and certainly nothing, yet again, on Yemen. Nothing on the the high proportion of union leaders and other  'trouble-makers' who are routinely murdered in Latin America to keep our mining stocks booming. Nothing on the very severe   worsening of the refugee crisis in Europe. Nothing on the surprise agreements by the U.S. and Russia on Syria.

The only item worth reading is about the discovery of what might have been a Viking settlement in southern Newfoundland.

I'll look at the Faith page tomorrow. It's about the "high regard for women" among us Christians. Right.
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Obama has been very successful in promoting himself as a moderate voice. That's amazing, considering he has not be moderate in his action..

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/obama-claims-nuclear-weapons-reductions-start-treaty
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Here's a site recommended by Ralph Nader for hints about personal spending, credit cards, selling frauds, etc. It's written for an American audience, but should also prove useful for Canadians and others.

http://www.foolproofme.com/
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Tom Feeley, of Information Clearing House, should be out of the hospital and back to his news site again. As I was checking this, I thought of accounts I had seen of government and, possibly, mob interference with him, including some very serious threats. On a quick check, I found this one of some years ago. I have read of others, but can't find them on the web.

As a gentler example or government interference, his  item on the number of Americans killed by police, is routinely erased, usually within a second or less of your opening of the site.

http://blog.inoodle.com/2008/08/tom-feeley-ich-editor-family-threatened.html

But don't worry. The staff of the Irving press is in no danger.
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This one looks like the beginning of a very interesting series. Drones maybe the cutting edge of a  whole, new concept of warfare.     For young people, it can simply be an extension  video gaming, with an impersonal killing of the enemy - or whoever has the bad luck to be in the way, a giant step in indiscriminate murder.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2016/03/drone-cia-secret-drone-war-160330081229214.html
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President Obama has warned the Nuclear summit that 'madmen' must be prevented from getting nuclear weapons. He's quite right. And he should know.

The only madmen who were ever insane enough to use them were the government and military leaders of the U.S. in 1945. People in the Marshall Islands, to this day, are dying from the nuclear tests those madmen later carried out on their homeland. And no counntry has been more reluctant than the U.S. to reduce its stockpile even thouh it has enough to destroy the whole planet many times over. In more than 70 years since Hiroshima, the U.S. has not lifted a finger to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. And Obama will certainly not step up to be the first to do so.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/obama-isil-madmen-launch-nuclear-attacks-160401181706905.html
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The next story  is one I came across by accident. It's a couple of weeks old. But, gee, it's about the major newspaper in Halifax - and rather an important story. The Chronicle-Herald is not what anyone would call a good newspaper. In fact, it is only barely better than the Irving press. But it is, after all, the biggest paper in the maritime region. Why the silence about the trouble it has been going through?

This report is biased, and probably rates the journalists higher than it should. But the basic elements of it are sound.

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/03/responsible-journalism-under-attack-nova-scotia
_________________________________________________________________And I see I've run overtime again. Ah, tomorrow....

April 1: you have to learn to hate...

...luckily, it's easy to teach.

Section A has its usual display of non-news - like court reports, government announcements that it's getting ready to do something. It's trivial; but it's cheap; and it requires no digging at all for information.

As for the editorial, well, if you missed yesterday's propaganda 'news' that the Atlantic Insitute of Market Studies (an institute with a history of Irving connections) says we  should lower taxes, the editorial repeats it for us. And it adds the old, rallying cry for all the workers of this province who depend on government medicare, free public education, roads, police services, etc. And, it says, most of us resent seeing our hard-earned money being taxed away.

Damn right. We'd rather spend ten times as much to get private services for all that. Meanwhile, the Irving press should run a  full edition of photos of the calloused hands of the billionaires and millionaires of this province, painfully worn out by shuffling their money into tax havens. Or maybe photos of the callouses on their rear ends from their intense hours of sitting.

I have known more than a few of that crowd. Their attitude is that they earned that big money, so they should be allowed to keep it, all of it. That justifies the demand for very low taxes for themselves - and also for hidden bank accounts. People need excuses for even (especially) the most cruel and selfish things they do. That's why the British and French needed to be racist to justify building their empires. That's why the U.S. has to hate muslims.

This editorial is beneath contempt.

Norbert again moans about the debt of this province without once mentioning the role of the wealthy in creating that debt.

Cole Hobson has his usual, pointless tale about a local man who wore a bunny suit while riding a bicicyle on Easter Sunday.    Talk about tough, two-fisted, commentary.

Then there's a guest column by the President and Vice-Chancellor of University of New Brunswick. (Well, it says its by him. But the writing style is very much that of a PR man). And it's not really a commentary. It's an advertisement. More disturbing, it's largely about what wonderful work UNB is doing in partnership with private industry.

The latter bit might sound nice. But the function of a university is not to be 'partners' with any commercial enterprise. It is not to provide cheap research and relatively cheap labour for big business. University presidents might usefully give a bit of thought to what a university is supposed to be.

Alec Bruce has a column that seems to be about Trump then, over half way through, becomes one about the need for more jobs in New Brunswick. Alas, we already know that, and this adds nothing to our understanding.

And I must take exception to  one of his lines. "...governments don't, in fact, create jobs." That simply isn't true. Governments all over the world have been creating jobs for centuries; and not just within government circles, either. For a start, the whole Canadian war industry of World War Two was created and closely controlled by government. And it was extremely effective.  In a shadier example of that, many, many jobs in the U.S. depend on government corruption to create a war industry that is now a major factor in the U.S. employment picture. And, oh, what would all those poor, jobless Irvings do without government gifts - like our forest?

There is not a thing in section A worth reading.
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Canada&World section is its usually sloppy, lazy and indifferent self.

The lead story is that New Brunswick ranks low in its proportion of university graduates. In fact, dismally low.The academics, business people, etc. that the paper reports on don't even come close to understanding the problem.

The will to go to university is profoundly dependent on social class. The poor don't go - not because they're stupid but because they've grown up believing that this is not for their sort. Then New Brunswick adds another inhibition. This province has an extremely low level of intellectual activity. So many children grow up not realizing there is any such thing as intellectual activity. There is very little open discussion or debate. And to disagree with what most people think is an act of horror. Learning is very low priority in this province.

Nor are the universities much of a big, fat help. University teachers, almost all of them, have no training whatever in how to teach. Nor do must of them discuss it or read about it - or care about it. They're hungry for prestige; and there's no prestige in knowing how to teach. They still think of themselves as twelfth-century philosophers sitting on rocks while eager minds cluster at their feet to hear any pearls of wisdom that drop.  In the community, they're virtually invisible unless giving speeches and interviews that Mr.Irving approves of.

Fixing this is a big job that needs everybody's help. And it's not going to get any help out of academics or big business. They live in their own worlds that are all about themselves.

The last page has a story worth noting. Terrorist violence in Europe has become the kiss of life for politicians so far to the right they can safely be called fascists and racists. There's a whole generation of them rising to power. Hitler is, once again, mainstream.

The reality in the U.S. is that one is  far less likely to be killed by a terrorist than to be killed by a policeman or a drunk driver. (U.S. police, alone, are heading for another thousand plus year of kiling.)

Somehow, it all reminds me of the day Hitler was in his very luxurious private train, He was returning from a visit to his generals who were fighting the Russians. The train had made an extended stop at a station. Hitler used the opportunity to sit at his dining table with flowers, excellent wine, servants and a damn, fine meal.

A train pulled up beside his, also for an extended stop. Hitler glanced at his sparkling windows to see that in the other train were hundreds of pairs of hollow eyes in faces shrunken by hunger, and staring at the wonder of their leader's luxury. They were wounded soldiers from the German armies in Russia.

Always a quick thinker, and eager to ease the pain he saw in those eyes, Hitler ordered an intendent to close the curtains on the windows. Then he turned back to the meal and the wine, satisfied he had done his bit for his followers.

The Irving press would probably have labelled him a 'philanthropist'.
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This is an interesting item on climate change - you know, that process that the editorial writer for the Irving press has assured us is nothing to worry about.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever
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In what may seem to be a trivial story, China's movie industry has financially surpassed that of the U.S. It's a hint that China, some day soon, will replace the U.S. as a world leader in this industry. And which country dominates that industry has a profound effect on how the world sees it, and itself. This is a lot more important than it may seem.

(Do not be turned off by the photo of the mermaid. I'm sure China can find a better one.)

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/01/chinas-box-office-certain-to-overtake-us-as-takings-up-50-in-2016s-first-quarter
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And this one is because it's nice to read something nice about Canada.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/31/vision-of-progressive-britain-called-canada-justin-trudeau-trudeaumania
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I haven't shown much about the American leadership races because I don't think it matters a whole lot who wins.

These are  races in which only one candidate, Bernie Sanders, has mentioned the alarming, domestic problems the U.S. faces - a hopelessly expensive medical system, an education system in sharp decline, severe unemployment coupled with a crippling of social services....

Among all of the candidates, I have not heard a whisper about the disastrous failures of American foreign policy over the last 16 years, the extreme jeopardy of the crisis in the middle east, the military failures that have been a feature of American wars for over   50 years, the extreme corruption of the defence industries, the collapse of American democracy...

Sanders is the only one who has anything useful to say about anything. But, as president, he would be close to helpless in the face of a congress that has long since been bought.

Trump has no  opinions, only news clips. In any case, he would have to toe the line as president - just as Bush and Obama did. The U.S. has bigger billionaires than Trump.  Cruz and Clinton are both bought, and will stay bought. The days after the election will result either in social collapse or a  collapse masked by fear and hatred.

But, just because I have to put in something about the leadership races, here it is.

http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2016/03/insults-mudslinging-sink-republican-race-lows-160329181601334.html
The insults and mudslinging are coming from people who really have nothing else to offer.
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Yesterday, I criticized those who put all the blame on the Israeli military officer who deliberately shot and killed an already helpless and wounded Palestinian. When I first read the piece below in Haaretz, I thought it disagreed with what I said. In fact, though still heaping all the bad words on the officer, the focus of this opinion is on the people of Israel. And there we are in complete agreement.

We kill people in numbers and in ways we could not have imagined just over a century ago. We murder civilians in huge numbers, men, women and children, and with enthusiasm, something that would have been questioned just generations ago.

Israel has pretty much abandoned all but the formal rites of Judaism. Much the same is true of Christianity - and we're now seeing it in Islam. Capitalism, never angelic, has become ruthless in its greed, and so destructive it is even destroying itself. As for the churches, I note that the Irving chapel has no problem in hiring a prestigious rentarev each summer. And I can just guess which sins he will NOT mention.

In almost every part of the world, we have been watching a general collapse in moral standards. Like the columnist for Haaretz, I think that the act of killing a helpless man was terribly wrong. I just don't blame the killer. I blame all the killers. And they include us. We have encouraged the racism and hatreds that made this possible.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.711888?utm_content=%24sections%2F1.711888&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_source=SMARTFOCUS&utm_campaign=1339605&utm_term=20160331-12%3A03
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