May 14: Three cheers for Norbert - Hip, hip....

Yes, indeed. At least three big cheers for Norbert.

I began reading today's Irving press with the usual sense of despair. The news section  (the usual trivia) seemed to confirm it. Then there was the editorial on the crucial question of the day. Should provinces be allowed to charge a tariff on imported beer?

(The editorial treats  free trade - as do most newspapers in the industrialized world - as being a 'good', almost holy, thing. In fact, in the early days of industrialization, they all opposed free trade, and they did so with the full support of the capitalists in their population who didn't want to face foreign competition. That's what the U.S. civil war was about. The agricultural south wanted free trade; the industrializing north wanted a tariff. Slavery was a side-issue.  Canada's Conservative party, which now treats free trade almost as a religious faith, was founded on the basis of a tariff as holy writ.)

Brian Murphy's column, once again, is one that wouldn't bring a blush to a maiden's cheek,  couldn't possibly offend anyone, and says nothing. This looks very much like a column by a man who wants to return to politics.

Once again, we  get a column from Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, the organization that never met an Irving it didn't like. In brief, the commentary take the position that free trade is good. That's because New Brunswick capitalists no longer need it as they used to. Of course, it doesn't say that. No. It says free trade is a right guaranteed to ALL Canadians. Very egalitarian.

Alec Bruce's column seems pointless and vague. Somehow. he connects fracking with cybersecurity - and uses them to suggest that people who don't agree with him on everything are just part of a mindless rabble.

Then, Norbert saves the whole paper - and in a manner I have never before seen in the Irving press. He attacks yesterday's AIMS report that much greater use of the computer will improve education. I think he's right. I think the column is well argued. But more important (and rare) for the Irving press is that Norbert shows the integrity and courage to be critical of the work of an Irving mouthpiece.
Our choice of media in life is a fundamental one. Into the 1950s, radio was dominant. Sometimes, that was good because talk radio and theatre radio require the listener to concentrate, to use imagination to picture what he or she hears. So compelling was it that movie theatres had to swich to sound only when a popular radio show came on. On the other hand, it played a major role in reducing church attendance as Sunday evening became prime time for radio theatre.

TV was quite the reverse. It made no demands on imagination or any other intellectual power. It did everything for us. TV was (and is) for dumbing down. It was also a major factor in destroying communication between people, that interaction that helps us to understand others and how to relate to them. An example of this was the decline of community groups as people stayed home to watch TV. Among the casualties were organizatons like Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

Today, many young people live in computer stupors, relating only to the computer rather than to people or to print. They are being desocialized, less capable of learning than can be gained only though human interchange. I'm not at all sure it's wise for schools to rush into e learning or computerized courses. Learning is an interactive experience. And computers don't interact.

Good on you, Norbert.
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Canada&World has a  big story on Fort McMurray. The trouble is that most people know there was a fire. We know it was terrible. We have known this from the start. What we need to know now is what this means. And I've yet to see a word on that in the Irving press.

The fire is a result of climate change. The region is getting hot and dry. B.C. is having the same experience. Now is the time to ask some questions. How do we prepare for what could be a new world of such fires? (They are, after all, happening in other parts of the world, too.)

Does this have a message for us? After all, we have a forest. We are getting warmer weather.   (Which reminds me, how come Alec Bruce, in his defence of fracking, has never mentioned the fires caused by fracking in the U.S., and how the U.S. government has had to tighten fracking regulations?)

What does this mean to New Brunswick? to Moncton? News isn't just information. it's giving meaning to information.

Most of the news in Section B is trivial (somebody defaced a statue in Halirax. Who cares?). It's at least a day old so, even if it is important, most readers already know about it from TV or radio. (or computer.) And news by itself is meaningless. We need informed commentary to get some understanding of it.
The Irving press is not only unethical and trivial. It also, like most newspapers, is hopelessly out of date as a mean of communicating news. What it needs is a section B of informed commentary. It needs, for example, a Gwynne Dyer.
What it doesn't need is yet more trivia, fluff, and shallowness.
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I have received my May edition of The Brief, a 2 page flyer put out by nbmediacoop.org. Yes, it's small, but big enough for two, important commentaries that you won't find in the Irving press.

One is by Pamela Palmater, a lawyer from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. The headline, "Trudeau's promises of 'renewed relationship' with First Nations evaporated with budget" gives a pretty clear idea of what it's about.
She also has a blog that I shall have to look at - Indigenous Nationhood.

And there's another excellent commentary (on the Energy East pipeline) by Lynaya Astephen in Red Head, N.B.
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This next story doesn't tell us much - but it puts us on notice of something to watch for. A troubled government in Venezuela is blaming the growth of violence in the country on the U.S. So far, the evidence is slim. But it's quite possible.

The government is left wing and, historically, the U.S. has commonly created political unrest, murdered leaders, sponsored rebellions and even invaded South American countries that voted in ways displeasing to American billionaires.
This, it seems certain, is what has just happened in Brazil, too - though there's wrongdoing on both sides; and the new government will not change that.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/14/venezuela-president-declares-60-day-state-of-emergency-blaming-us-for-instability
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Here is a story that has been brewing for many years - if not in the Irving press. It also raises the essential issue in understanding current events. There are no such things as friends between nations. Each nation acts out of its own interests (or, more likely, out of the interests of its wealthiest class.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/13/911-commission-saudi-arabia-terrorism-finance
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I have recently travelled from Moncton to Ottawa and Montreal to Moncton. I found the Montreal line-up pretty bad. But I'm just a spoiled Canadian who didn't know that it was like to fly in the U.S. In dollars, as in hysteria, this has all been a tremendous victory for terrorism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUVR04CMBU
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I found the following article annoying for its seemingly biased admiration of the USSR. (It is true, though, that the western powers, including Canada, did intervene in Russia on the side of the old, Tsarist monarchy. Funny how that's never mentioned on Nov. 11 or in most history books.)

It's biased on the side of the Soviet Union. But its portrait of the U.S. is pretty accurate.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/13/the-great-leap-backward-americas-illegal-wars-on-the-world/

Canada, by the way, has illegally attacked two countries in recent years - Libya and Syria. And its sending of 'non-combat' troops to Syria is also illegal.
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The following is from a British source, so  it concentrates its criticism on British papers - including The Guardian and The Independent. I would not be so harsh on these two as the writer is. But I have been troubled by signs of propaganda that have appeared in The Guardian in recent months.

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/818-anatomy-of-a-propaganda-blitz-part-1.html
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And here's another look at what's happening in Brazil. It's not as simple as a case of the president misusing money - or of  right wingers taking over. But the latter is certainly the reason why American big money is smiling.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44646.htm
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This next one, awful as it is, is quite true. This (including our side) is a world as cruel and barbaric as it has ever been in  recorded history. It's a world that embraces torture, mass murder of civilians, unlimited greed.... But Christians have no need to worry. Their clergy will not even notice any of it - and they certainly won't have the indecency to mention it in a service.

Interesting. Jesus usually spoke of our behaviour in this world. Our Faith Page never does.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44650.htm
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And this article is fascinating.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/04/alternative-homeless-160426114544289.html
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Finally, who do you think is the candidate in the U.S. leadership race who  has the best odds of winning in a federal election?

No. It's not Trump. He stirs up hatred as much as he gathers support.

No. It's not Clinton. Too many people recognize her for the vicious tool of big business and the corrupt person she is.

Actually, it's Sanders. Polls show him stronger against Trump than Clinton is.

Too bad he won't win the leadership race. There's no way the Democrat brass will allow an honest person to win the party leadership.

May 13: Christopher Plummer, Oscar Peterson, and me.

This may be a little short because I got bogged down at the library, reading the autobiography of Christopher Plummer. It caught me because Plummer and I were (almost) classmates in high school.

Plummer was from a VERY wealthy family, and went to high school at Montreal High. This was in the school's last days as the school for Montreal's anglo elite. Indeed, the unthinkable was already happening. One of Plummer's best friends at school was Oscar Peterson. (This was the time when blacks lived in a  ghetto not far from Montreal High; but few were permitted to enter its sacred halls.)

I was a few years behind Plummer and Peterson. They were already legends. But the school was well into social decline, reduced to accepting scruff like me from the north end. And my class,  the A stream, was already heavily Jewish. In fact, I would live most of my life in Jewish circles.

But on to the Irving press. On to p. A7. "Report says provincial schools lag behind on e-learning." This report comes from the Atlantic Insitute for Market Studies.

What is this institute? Does it give you a vision of high-minded, intellectually distinguished scholars?
      
Forget it. Its patrons have been Irvings and their buddies, going back to Kenneth Irving who first bankrolled it. It's a copy of the "think tanks" all over the western world. and almost all of them designed to kiss up to the interests of the weatlhy.
Typically, they are against anything publicly owned - like public schools and medicare. They are designed by people who do not think of human need but only of personal profit.Perhaps they can properly be called ideologically far, far right. That would be a nice way to say they represent greed in our society. Typically, they are backed by people like the Irvings, like big drug companies. Typically, they are dishonest because they their conclusions almost invariably are designed to benefit the wealthy.

Brain Lee Cowley, presently head honcho at AIMS also does work for a similar outfit called The Fraser Institute. And he's a member of an ideologically far, far right wing outfit called Cavitas with was founded by Stephen Harper's campaign manager.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being right wing if that is what you believe in. But no matter what wing you are, you should be honest. Most of these think tanks are not honest. In their reports, ideology trumps honesty and logic.
Journalists know what these outfits really are.  journalists know that their objective is to spread propaganda to make the rich richer. And newspapers publish it because the people who own these propaganda houses are the same ones who own newspapers.

Even at that, it would be all right to publish this stuff - if the newspapers told their readers exactly what kind of people these 'reports' are coming from. But the Irving press won't do that.

And that's damned bad journalism.

(I was reluctant to criticize this report because it was written by a person I know to be well-informed and honest. But I think he's keeping very bad company.)

And, as usual, there's another one of these propaganda pieces, this one from the Fraser Institute. on the commentary page. And, as usual, the Irving press does not tell us what kind of an outfit this is. This 'report' is harmless, though. They do that, occasionally, to look honest.

The opinion page has an excellent letter from a reader who has noticed something that the Irving press hotshots have not.  The Fort McMurray fire was caused by climate change - something that Fort McMurray has been a great contributor to.

Then, Alec Bruce has another booster shot for the 'events' centre. It's an old one that the centre will attract business to Main St. No. It won't. To even begin to think of reviving Main St., we have to remember why it died. And it wasn't because of the lack of an events centre.

A big item in Canada&World news is that the Quebec government is going to regulate the taxi and Uber industries. The irving press really knows how to spot the important stories in the world.

There's a story of the pending impeachment of the President of Brazil. But it gives very little sense of what this is all about.  It has a lot to do with the desire of corporations to make Brazil a more  profitable place to do business.
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The Guardian has a report on government change in Brazil that explains much more than the Irving press does. Note the comment that, in a very mixed country, the new cabinet is all white. That's because most of the wealthy are white.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/13/michel-temer-brazil-president-rebuild-impeachment
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Here's another opinion on Brazil to counter the grade-school journalism we get from the Irving press.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/13/brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeachment-michel-temer-cabinet
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Here's something the Irving press has never mentioned.

Our cruelty (yes, Canada's too) that has spun off into the even greater cruelty of creating millions of refugees, millions of starving, millions of destroyed families that we haven't done much to help with. Europe and Canada are doing as little as possible. Here, in New Brunswick, refugees are accepted 1. because there aren't many of them and 2. they're portrayed by our press and our political leaders as economic assets.

The U.S., the biggest killer, starver, home and family destroyer of them all, tries to accept none if possible. They're afraid it would dilute U.S. Christianity.
What U.S. Christianity?

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/13/why-is-the-cost-of-hosting-refugees-falling-on-poorest-states-kenya-dadaab-closing

Why did Canada send aircraft to take part in this destruction? Why has it now sent troops to Syria? Is it all to show solidarity with American oil billionaires? Or to show we're just as Christian as Americans are?
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This next opinion is aimed largely at Britain. But it could as well have been aimed at the U.S. and Canada. Corruption is a world phenomenon. It doesn't just happen in poor countries. In fact, it almost certainly happens more in rich ones. It happens with government contracts, with special deals for the rich. It involve the very best families. (Well, of course, it does. The poor and most of the middle class can't afford to be corrupt.)

Too bad the Irving press has ignored this problem, especially after its very brief treatment of the Panama Papers, and the failure of its crusading knight, Sir Norbert, to write a column critical of corruption.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/10/corruption-developing-world-problem-london-summit-panama-papers
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Speaking of corruption, we have the Clintons...

http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/11/exclusive-persian-gulf-sheikhs-gave-bill-hillary-100-million/
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I find this next item more strongly worded than I like - perhaps because I have many friends who are both Jewish and Zionist. But its criticism of the Israel lobby in the U.S. is well-founded. It rang a bell for me because of my run-in with the Israeli lobby in Montreal.

For fourteen years, I had given monthly talks at a Jewish library in Montreal. It was usually a capacity audience of 300 or so. Then,  I retired - and gave my last talk.

Now, I had sometimes been critical of Israel - just as I was sometimes critical of the U.S. or Canada or Russia.... That caused no problems because my largely Jewish audience knew me. They knew I wasn't anti-Israel - and they often agreed with my criticism. However, the so-called Israel lobby in Montreal was not happy.

As it happened, the chief librarian retired shortly before I did. And, though I didn't know it at the time,  the Israel lobby pulled strings to get a librarian more to their liking.

When I went in to stand on the podium, the new librarian interrupted me. "Let me speak first."

Of course, I thought. She wants to thank me for fourteen years of talks. She rose to the podium, and took the mike.

"Just wait till you hear who your new speaker is. You're going to forget all about Graeme Decarie."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44634.htm
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Yes, I know the next one is a Russian. But that's not why I chose him. I'm just back from a trip to Montreal, seeing old friends who, as many Montrealers do, commonly go to the U.S. for a day - usually to Vermont. I often used to, as well. That's why I was shocked at what I heard.

Poverty is openly on the rise. Drug use is both common and public. It's common in public washrooms to see druggies sleeping it off on the floor - or on the streets. Other friends who travel more widely in the US told me it's like that everywhere. They saw people shooting up in parks and on street corners.
The U.S. is sinking into hopelessness. This is why a Trump can attract the angry. This is why Sanders can call himself a socialist, and still be a contender.
We're heading into some very unstable times.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44632.htm
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Finally, I was drawn to this one because I really cannot tolerate TV. It's brainless. It encourages brainlessness. It has played a huge role in destroying 'talk' radio, leaving radio listeners as detached from reality as TV watchers because all there is to hear is the babble of announcers, "Hey, gang. We're here with the music YOU like to hear... and we're going to starty with a golden oldie from last week."
You really have to wonder what has happened to the minds of people who watch poker or bingo on TV, and how it is possible for anyone above moron level to take pro wrestling seriously?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/the-need-for-progressive_b_9859890.html

May 12: The Irving Press - Brains in Idle.

When the Panama Papers gave us some insight into the meaning of "tax haven", they revealed the greatest theft in history. And that's only one, small piece of a much larger story of tax havens and other avoidance schemes. But, for the Irving press (and many other newspaper chains), the big, world news story was Jian Gomeshi's apology for a sexual assault.

We've read many, many stories about Jian Gomeshi and other meaningless people. A man named Oland springs to mind. But, after the first announcement, not a word about this 'tip of the iceberg' story called the Panama Papers. It is now estimated that wealthy Canadians have over three hundred billion dollars hidden from taxation. And Canada's share in that is far, far below that of the whole world.

This is actually quite a bit more important than Gomeshi or even Oland. For all of us, it has meant severe restrictions on spending for education, for health.  For a great many, it has meant declining   income, declining opportunity, declining purchasing power.

You'ld think that the corporation world would be concerned about that decline in purchasing power. After all, if people don't have the money, they can't buy corporation goods. However, the corporate world has some compensation in the form of cheap labour and resources all over the world - though even those will prove to be of lessening value in a world of sharply decreasing incomes. Remembering that, this is one, short-sighted policy.

 I have a very wealthy friend (yes, I do). He sits on corporate boards, was a senior partner in Canada's largest law firm - all the good things. I once asked him about the short-sightedness of the very wealthy.

"Graeme," he said, "you have to understand. These people don't think long term. Their idea of long term is three months, from one quarterly report to the next. The long term, in any real sense, simply doesn't exist for them."

The failure has created the anger we now see in the U.S. as that anger has created the phenomenon of Donald Trump. Trump himself has shown not the slightest grasp of any long term plans for the U.S. Everything is now. Of course. Trump is a product of the business world. Though his supporters don't know it, Trump is part of what they're angry at.

And now Canada's wealthy are driving us into poverty by stealing our money. If this were a local woman shoplifting at Walmart, we'd be getting the whole story in detail - and she'd be in court. But, hey, steal billions and the Irving press and all the others just let it pass.
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This business world with its short term views and it's lack of interest in anything but making money is what has taken over our universities. They call it making donations to encourage research. It's really turning the universities away from education and free research to convert them into  cheap research centres (and, sometimes, propaganda agencies) for corporations.

There's a recent book on this by Janice Newson and Claire Polster called "A Penny for your thoughts; How Corporatizations Undervalue Research, Teaching, and Public Service in Canada's Universities. In some cases, as with Enbridge and University of Calgary, it has gone so far as creating partnerships between corporations and universities. The terms of these partnerships, and sometimes even the existence of them, are kept secret from the public and from faculty members.

In the U.S., corporations are taking over the public schools from kindergarten to grade 12 with their offers of 'help'. The price for this help can involve the choice of school texts, the teaching methods of teachers, and the subtle peddling of a very right wing ideology. This is revealed in a book by Megan Erikson, "Class War: The Privatization of Childhood."

I had some experience of this.  In my university teaching years, I also did radio and some TV for CBC, and then for private networks. That's when I sometimes got approached by corporations to do talks that told the story of what a great bunch of guys oil billionaires were. And when I was approached to be president of my university, I dealt entirely with big business leaders and their many lawyers. Not a single academic was involved in the process. That's when it really hit home to me that big business ran the universities.

That may explain why tiny Cuba,  held down in poverty by fifty years of American dictators, then savagely kept poor by American trade embargoes for its next fifty years, was still able to do what the rich US could not do - provide excellent medicare for all its people, free education all the way through university for all (and to train 10,000 doctors for South America).

Don't worry about invasions by ISIS or Russia or China or even Iraq because they aren't going to happen. What has happened, what has long since destroyed democracy, what is now creating poverty in Canada and the U.S. is our corporation world - and the little robots it churns out of its university programmes in Business Administration.
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Oh, there are two more books worth looking at. One is Gabriel Zucman, "The Hidden Wealth of Nations:The Scourge of Tax Havens". The author admits that his figures for tax evasion are very low. The real figure is something like $20 trillion. For Canada, just the tax havens have $300 billion of our money. And it is our money, just as surely as if it had been picked out of our pockets.
Then there's Yves Engler,  "Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation". It's a real eye-opener about the major role played by Canadian capitalism in looting and murder in that continent. One incident quite surprised me. In 1960, President Lumumba of Congo was murdered. It happened while Canada was in Congo as a UN peace mission. And the man who set up the murder was...

....a colonel in the Canadian peace mission.
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I took the time to add this section because there's really no news in the Irvinig press to discuess. As well, news stories aren't much help without editorials and commentary columns to explain them. But few of the commentaries and none of the editorials in the Irving press explain anything. One of the commentaries is as usual, a right wing view, this time on the right of the people of Alberta to have a voice in their energy future. The people of Alberta do have such a voice. But, also, we all have a voice in what Alberta is doing to our environment, too. Nobody has ever questioned Alberta's right to have a voice.  But this commentator feels free to attack our right to have one. And the page editor was dumb enough to accept this political jabber as something that explains the news.
The Canada and World section, mostly Canada, has no news worth explaining.  And a full half of the section is made up of of ads and the regular, goofy picture page of grinning people holding up cheques.

So let's go to the real world.
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Here's an excellent article on how we have made ISIS a winner in the middle east and beyond, on who most of the dead are, of how ISIS is not primarily a religious organization. And how our arrogance and killing created ISIS.  (No. It does not say that ISIS are nice guys. But it does show them as humans - and more like us than we might like to think.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44621.htm
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Then there's this one by a man who used to be good enough to write for the Irving press.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44622.htm
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Theh, there's an amusing little piece, but quite true. Us humans believe in all sorts of things that were never true.These false things we believe come from history books, fake news stories, bigotry..

I was taught in elementary school in Quebec that the Catholic church was a central fact in the life of colonial Quebec. In fact, it wasn't. That wouldn't happen  until the early 19th century. Indeed, at least one Quebec bishop never even came to Quebec. He stayed in France where the cooking was much better.

Americans are smothered in stories of how they lead the world in freedom and libery - this in a country with a domestic spy system that listens in on phone calls, computer messages, that has the highest prison rate in the world... their revolution was NOT fought for freedom and democracy. The American constitution did NOT make all people equal; it didn't even make all white men equal. George Washington did NOT believe all people were equal. He regarded most of those who fought for him as scum of the earth.

Today, millions of Americans believe that the British seized men, women and children in one district, shoved them into a church, and set fire to it. In fact, that was invented for a movie scene, and copied from a Nazi act in World War Two.
We all have strong beliefs that are quite false. And almost all are used by propagandists to keep us obedient.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44630.htm
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The following story also appeared in Financial Times; but the FT site was too dark to read.

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/05/12/465277/Middle-class-shrinks-in-9-of-10-US-cities

Now, wouldn't it be interesting to see a similar study in Canada? Perhaps in the Irving press?

Of course, the middle class is shrinking. One can't steal money and hide it in  tax havens without somebody paying the price.
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Brazil (on its way to becoming a major power) has been controlled for most of its modern history by British and American capitalists who like obedient governments - like the one of New Brunswick. However, in recent years, power has gone to a left wing party. Capitalists are not happy. So the big money seems to have organized herhttp://www.countercurrents.org/mccauley120516.htm overthrow. Here's the story on it you won't see in the Irving press.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44625.htm

Almost all of Information Clearinig House is pretty good, today.
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Here's an objective look at the Brazil situation - one we're not likely to get in the Irving press.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/09/dilma-rousseff-brazil-impeachment-fight-congress-vote
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And here's a story about the Fort McMurray fire that you aren't going to read in any New Brunswick paper.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2016/may/12/the-arsonists-of-fort-mcmurray-have-a-name
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This is an old item I came across - but still worth a read.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2013/aug/22/canada-oil-pipeline-swindle
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And here's a story on what Germany is doing about renewable energy. So -  what's Canada doing?

http://www.countercurrents.org/

May 11: a humbling experience...

I've just returned from a visit to Montreal. There,  I saw a copy of The Gazette. It was always a stodgy paper with a heavy bias - though the bias never showed as crudely as it does in the Irving press. But I was shocked by The Gazette's similarity now  to our very own Irving press. It's become a thinner paper, with news that is mostly trivial, and not much of it. There was only one column of commentary, and it wasn't worth reading. The editorial was brainless.

The whole thing might have been very slightly better than the Irving press. But not much. And this seems to be true of most newspapers all over the western world. They aren't nearly as profitable as they used to be. They don't have adequate news staff. They can't afford commentators. And most are owned and closely controlled by the wealthy who have always used them as propaganda sheets.

In the years I wrote for newspapers, I was able to say what I believed, and got fired only once for doing so. But today, much journalism has become nothing but trash. That's true  of most of our print journalism. Most radio journalism is even worse because private radio can't afford enough news staff. (Mostly, private radio just gets its news from the day's paper.)
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There was no news in Montreal about the New Brunswick civic elections, so I had to settle for the news about the dreadful fire in Fort McMurray. If we think back, last summer was a warning for what was to come with its forest fires, especially in B.C.  And all that could well bring us back to the our own civic elections.

Climate change has implications for us. Its combination of heat and dryness could soon be felt here, too. And New Brunswick has lots and lots of forest, a good deal of which comes deep into the city of Moncton - a city of wooden houses.

Did any of the candidates for mayor or city council mention that? This surely has implications for city planning, and for some review of the requirements of housing.
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The thought that bothered me most through my 'away' days is one that has never received much attention from any of our news media. It's the web site for 'Project for the New American Century'.

What this means is very clear. This is a blueprint for world conquest by the United States. Now, we thought this was pretty serious when we thought Hitler was trying for it. (He actually wasn't.) So why do we hear and read so little about it when the U.S. adopted it?

Let's go back to world wars one and two. The world had never before experienced the killing and destruction of those two wars. Everyone realized we could not afford to continue on this road. We needed some form of world cooperation, of international law, to prevent this. We needed law. We needed an agency to enforce it. Obviously, this was not going to be achieved overnight. It was going to take, perhaps, a century to get it fully operational. But it had to be done.

The first try was the League of Nations. It didn't work because the major powers wouldn't allow it to interfere with their looting of the world. In fact, they used it to continue the looting - most notably in the oil fields.

But lessons were learned from that So, after World War Two, a more honest and sophisticated attempt was made in the form of United Nations. An international legal system was established. Aid was extended to those countries in need. This was the seed that was to establish a world government. Again, it would take a long time to mature - perhaps a century. But it was essential to create a livable world.

To some degree, the transition was eased with the collapse of the European powers which had been the world's major war makers. But, now, American capitalists had the military power behind them to loot the world. So the U.S. went on to hold its empire in Latin America, The Phillipines.... It eased its way into the Middle East via Iran  (where it established a dictatorship). It had hoped to replace the French in Vietnam and the British in China, too.

 Late in the war, it warned the British and French not to liberate Hong Kong or Hanoi. The British ignored the warning, (they had too many ships in the Pacific to be brushed aside), and occupied Hong Kong, the key to the China trade. But France had only a few, small ships. When it sent them into Hanoi harbour, the U.S. heavily bombed them. However, the French returned  - only to meet defeat by the Vietnamese.

Generally, the U.S. was a U.N. supporter when other countries broke international law. For example, when the British and French invaded Egypt to re-establish their power in the Middle East, Eisenhower firmly slapped their wrists. (After all, the U.S. intended to dominate that whole region.)

Generally, by the 1980s or so, American big business had become impatient with international law. It wanted dominance of the world, a dominance that could be established only by using military power, and using it illegally against countries that were no threat to the U.S. Those who supported this programme of world conquest for profit were called neocons. They were, at first, to be found in the Republican party, but  soon had a following among Democrats.

These are the people who put forward the Project for the New American Century. They were supported by big money that had long been annoyed by a UN that was too concerned for the rights of people to have adequate respect for the greed of 'entrepreneurs'.

George Bush Jr. was their choice for president as a puppet whose strings would be pulled by the VP Dick Cheney - an ardent neocon. Thus followed the wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria.  None of these was a threat to the U.S. so these were not wars of self-defence. All of those wars were planned well before 9/11.  That attack was simply what gave the US the excuse to officially start its wars of world conquest. They were illegal under international law - and used weapons that were illegal under international law. But the neocons had covered themselves for that. They invented a new principle. It was called 'American exceptionalism'; and it meant that American leaders were above the law. Both Bush and Obama have publicly proclaimed acceptance of American exceptionalism. Both have used illegal detention, illegal invasion, illegal torture, illegal drones (illegal since they are used against countries the U.S. is not even at war with, and which are no threat to the U.S.).

The wars we now follow are wars of old fashioned, imperial conquest. - except that the U.S. record in such wars has been a weak one for the last 50 years. It's most faithful servants have been Britain, Canada, Australia. (It is illegal for Canada to have troops - combat or non-combat - in Syria. It was illegal for Canadian aircraft to bomb Syria and Libya. Countries which aren't obedient servants ( like France) get ridiculed - as when France refused to  help in Iraq. ( The American Senate renamed french fries as liberty fries. And the penalties can be far, far worse than a bit of childish ridicule.)

So where does all of this take us?

We are in World War Three, the war for the universal American empire. The costs of this war, largely because of corruption, are the greatest war costs in history. They are driving millions of Americans into deep poverty. They are destroying education in the U.S. They have created the hysteria that allows politicians to ignore the real problems of the U.S.  And they are taking the U.S. into very serious civil disorder.

The war is very real because U.S. capitalists don't have much time to make their play. That's why the U.S. has military bases and missile sites right up on the Russian border. That's why it maintains large naval and air patrols off the China coasts. That's one reason it so badly wanted control of Afghanistan. (Ever notice that China and Russia don't maintain such patrols and missile sites along American borders?)

It is all so insane it cannot be debated in public. That's partly why Trump and Clinton have little of any intelligence to say. That's why the U.S. has to run on fears and hatreds.

And the U.N.? It might well be history. For some time, many countries, recognizing the failure of world order, have been moving to alternatives - like uniting many countries into one, big one. The European Union, though presently a reluctant tool of American power, may well become a very large nation called Europe. And it might, possibly, include Russia. Something similar is being developed for Africa.

The U.N. having  failed them, many countries are becoming mega-countries to resist bullying by major powers. (Imagine one, big country of South America.) Imagine a U.S., with its southern half no longer able (due to climate) to support a large population extending its northern border to the Arctic for land and fresh water.

How all this will work out can only be  speculation, of course. For the time being, we are feelling the results of one of the worst foreign affairs blunders in history - the invasion of Iraq. It was probably to establish Iraq as the centrpiece of  American expansion and control in the region and, not coincidentally, a base for attacks of Syria and Iran.
                    
But it has all turned into an economic, military, policy, and human disaster. It has been a major encouragement for those people we call terrorists. In fact, without a U.S. being so murderous in the Middle East,  terrorism would not exist. The reason ISIS launches terrorist attacks in the west is  because it draws terrorist recruits from a population that has suffered nothing but indiscriminate killing, starvation, destruction and horrible flight from homes. ISIS wants westerners to hate Muslims.That attacks in France and Britain obviously are not going to defeat France and Britain. They're not intended to. The intent is to attract more brutal attacks on Mulisms. That way ISIS hopes (probably incorrectly) to win the support of the whole, Muslim world.

The middle east has become a swamp created by the U.S., and from which it seemingly cannot escape. And our, Canadian prime minister, in his wisdom, is sending Canadian troops into this swamp. In fairness, though, if he didn't send them, the Senate    would have renamed Canadian maple syrup as Liberty syrup.
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Well - a long time on that. But there was really nothing in the Irving press to talk about. And, certainly, the Irving press is never going to make comments similar to those above.
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Here's an opinion column that supports the view that Europe is going to become one nation. I think it's a little gentle on the reasons for that happening. It's not just recognition of something culturally reasonable. It's a essential for survival.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/06/barack-obama-highlight-europes-greatest-strength
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We rarely hear about drones in our news; few are aware of how commonly they are used, how indiscriminate they are in their killing, and how many thousands of innocent people get killed by them every year. So far, only a half dozen or so countries use them. But they are not scientifically challenging, and the materials are easy to gather. We really have to get control over these things.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/11/the-guardian-view-on-armed-drones-a-new-code-for-a-new-form-of-warfare

Of course, if we did get the UN to enact an international law governing their use, the U.S. would (without doubt) ignore the law, citing American exceptionalism.
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This opinion offers a lighter touch - or maybe a darker one.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/commentisfree
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For some days, I have not been able to get The Counted The Guardian. This is the only site in the world - so far as I know - that gives something like an accurate count of the number of Americans killed by American police throughout a year. The site used to appear on information clearing house; but it has long since been blocked by some American agency. Now, I can't get it on The Guardian site, either. "Sweet land liberty, Of thee I sing..." "Let freedom ring." I can't even get it by going to search on The Guardian site.

Of course, this could be Canada's very own thought control agency kicking in. No doubt there will be an editorial in the Irving press demanding full freedom of information.
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I just couldn't resist this one. Just imagine. The Norse people of almost 4,000 years ago had ships capable of reaching Cyprus and carrying on a trade with the people of the middle east. So much for Columbus!

DNA tests showed me I had traces of west Asian barbarian in my bloodline. Our ancient ancestors got around a lot more than we think they did.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.719125
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This next one, by Noam Chomsky, is very long. But it's worth the time it takes to read.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44613.htm
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And this one is impressive because it's about  a most impressive person.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44618.htm

Reverend Berrigan, SJ. never made the Faith Page of the Irving press. Nor did his ideas. And don't even imagine you will ever hear such a person at the Irving Chapel.
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And this story of democracy in action.

https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/lobbyists-dnc-2016-convention/
Actually, all of this site is worth a look.
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This is about New York's public use of a Monsanto spray that is linked to cancer.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/monsanto-spraying-big-apple-cancer-linked-weed-killer

I wonder -  JDIrving is using massive amounts of such a spray on New Brunswick - and on us. I look forward to the tough, investigave reporters at the Irving press who will take a look at this.

May 4: Call me forgetful...

As I write this, I am preparing for a very busy week starting in an hour or so. That means this blog is not likely to appear again until May 11. I remembered only last night that this busy period was starting today.

Accordingly, today's blog is likely to be a short one. And we'll start by skipping the Irving press because it is always its same, miserable self.
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An item to watch for in The Guardian will be any news about a proposed vote in Britain to leave the European Union. (It's referred to, in brief, as brexit.) If Britain were to do so it would be likely to have very serious consequences.
The European Union is a structure, along with NATO, that is essential to U.S. power, both economic and military, in Europe. President Obama is alarmed enough so that he has issued a rare, public statement while in Britain opposing the exit. This amounts to a public interference in British domestic politics, somethinig that is just not done to an ally.

Should the British vote to exit, that would almost certainly lead to Scotland declarinig its independence of Britain. It could also lead to more departures from the EU, especially as the refugee crisis grows.

As well, it is possible that some European nations will come to see good relations with Russia as more important that good relations with the U.S. After all, should the U.S. push for a war with Russia, Eastern Europe would be in the front line. In fact, all of Europe would be in the front line.

The place to follow this is in the UK edition of The Guardian.
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It looks as though Trump has sewn up the Republican leadership. At this point, any attempt by party bosses to rig the vote would be even more damaging to it than letting Trump win. I think all the most terrible things said about him are true. But I think Hillary Clinton is even worse. And, in any case, I'm not at all sure she can defeat Trump in a national election. In fact, it's more likely that Sanders could beat him. But the big money is almost certain to block Sanders' bid for leadership.

The election will certainly be exciting with Trump against Clinton, with Trump erratic, shallow and irresponsible, and Clinton greedy and really, quite evil.
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Here the story of the collapse of government in Iraq, the one the Irving press didn't bother to look at.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44574.htm
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Here's  some outstanding common sense on the confrontations between Russia and the U.S. along the Russian borders. Europe may very well decide there is nothing in it from these U.S. pressures on Russia. And that may well lead to a breakdown of NATO and the European Union.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44573.htm
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There are lots of stories about Detroit that don't make the news. This once-prosperous city became a victim of free trade when auto-makers pulled out to re-establish in regions without unions and with very, very low pay.

Much of the city is abandoned, much of it unemployed, and violent. The city has made it worse by cutting off even basic services like water. (Just recently, it cut off water for drinking, bathing, sewage, everything to another 20,000 places.) The country which is said to have spent, in recent years, a trillion dollars on nuclear weapons and trillions on 'defence', the country in which executives can make millions just in bonusses every year, and in which the wealthy can avoid taxes through the use of 'tax havens' cannot afford to feed or house the rising numbers of its poor or supply them with water.

Now, the state of Michigan has come very close to closing its schools in Detroit so it won't have to pay its teachers. It has now bent a little on that - for a price. Teachers will not get salary increases, and will not be permitted to strike.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-detroit-education-idUSKCN0XU1KG
The article doesn't mention privatized schools. But I'd be willing to bet they didn't get any cuts.
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And now, time is knocking on my head. See ya.

May 3: The no news for New Brunswick

The Canada&World section never fails to amaze me. One of the big stories is that an RCMP officer had to shoot a bear because it was coming to toward him. Another - Prince Harry is in Toronto to shake hands with people.  (of course. What else is there to do in Toronto?) It was exactly one year ago that premier Notley of Alberta defeated the conservatives. (who could possibly care?) Okay, give it a couple of lines. But a half page?  And people flying economy class don't like those flying first class. So bloody what?

On page 4 of a six-page section, we're still not out of Canada. And almost every word in those six pages is trivial. Then there are two pages that tell us nothing much - closing with the polar bear getting shot.

 The Canada and World section is too bad to be simply  the result of stupidity and incompetence. After all,  you have to work to find news as irrelevant as this.This is just trash. As it happens, a reader sent me some stories that really are important
So here are the reader's stories.

I think it was yesterday that the Irving press carried the news that the Syrian government had used sarin, an illegal chemical agent, against the rebels. But according to Seymour Hersh, who beats anybody on the Irving staff, the sarin had been captured by the U.S. in Libya. It was then sent to Syria - but to the "rebels", not to Assad. And the person who signed the approval for that was - Hillary Clinton.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html

Then there's this item. Note from its wording that it is sympathetic to the U.S. position, so this isn't just some anti-American attack. It's not anti-American at all. But it's a sample of the tremendous dangers that face us, dangers that the Irving press doesn't seem to notice in its lah-dee-dah news gathering.

http://atimes.com/2016/05/the-dangers-presented-by-chinas-hypersonic-weapons-build-up/

Wars very seldom work out as they are supposed to. The world went to war in 1914 with little sense of the impact the machine gun would have, and how it and barbed wire would bog down  both sides. In 1939, the British, Americans and, at the start, the Germans, had little idea of how to use tanks or what performance in speed,  gun power and armour was needed. Hitler lost the Battle of Britain because he had not anticipated the need for heavy bombers and long-range fighters. Vietnam and Iraq were supposed to be fast and easy wars. So was Afghanistan. But it's still being fought after fifteen years.

Planning a war is rarely a sure thing. It's rather more like playing Russian roulette with a revolver.
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Section A is  not as good as Canada&World. It has a long story on mayoral candidates in Dieppe without telling us anything useful about either of them. A men's wear store in Moncton has new owners. Who could possibly care? An upper class hotel in London, England serves McCain's french fries. Be still, my heart.

The editorial and Norbert's column are about topics that have long since been talked to death.

The guest commentary, calling for povincial help for the Bas-Caraquet boatyard, is by the CEO of a shipping company. What a surprise! It is not, to put it gently, a very convincing commentary, partly because of its lack of evidence.

For some, probably bizarre, reason, the picture over the boatyard commentary is of a monster cruise-liner that looks like a high-rise hotel. I'm quite sure that picture was not taken at the Bas Caraquet boatyard; and I'm quite sure the boatyard will not be building those. So what's the point of the picture?

Alec Bruce again chooses to write about nothing.

Louis Glibert's column "seniority rules" is, as always, a useful one. But it's not really a commentary. It should be on an advice page.
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John Kerry has backed himself (and maybe the world) into a terrible corner. He wants to separate terrorist groups, like al Quaeda from the Syrian 'rebels', and also to stop the help they've been getting from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others. One of the problems of that is, of course, Saudi Arabia and others don't want such a separation. And the problem was created by the U.S. in the first place because it initiated the policy of secretly supplying money, weapons and other help to these groups as well as to ISIS. That happened because the U.S. wanted to get rid of Assad. Originally, the plan was that the 'rebels' would take care of that. But the rebels failed, partly because they have little support within Syria. As well, many of them are mercenaries and/or have close ties to terrorist groups.
The U.S. still wants to get rid of Assad. But the Russian entry into the war has pretty much forced the rebels and ISIS out of the picture. Tough luck. The U.S. really has nobody else to deal with to get rid of Assad. It's Russia or nobody.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave..."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44570.htm
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The overthrow of South American governments by invasion, assassination, mass murder is common practice for American governments. It's done to keep South America as easy pickings for American (and Canadian) corporations in agriculture (like Dole), in mining, and other fields. That's what the killing in Guatemala was about ( several times), the long hostility to Cuba, the invasion of Haiti, the assassination of the president of Chile....

For some reason, the Irving press never mentions these. I wonder why.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44567.htm
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And here's some news on the big trade deal that the Irving press seems never to have heard of.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/01/leaked-ttip-documents-cast-doubt-on-eu-us-trade-deal?CMP=share_btn_fb
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And one more on that latin world that never exists in the pages of the Irving press.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/03/cuba-puerto-rico-us-relations-poverty-debt-corruption-cold-war
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And here is a report that New Brunswickers should take seriously, very seriously. There is no hope for this province as long as its people are afraid to be different - afraid to disagree.

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship/
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Norbert Cunningham wrote recently that he finds the CBC lacking in the high quality journalism that he is accustomed to. He should lower himself to listen to it more often. Here's a story we haven't seen in the Irving press. But it's an important one. The 'hotline' connecting Washington and Moscow has been restored This takes us back to cold war days. And that means we're again just a step from a world war.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-nato-ukraine-hotline-1.3559628
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Putin has established himself as the decisive figure in the fighting in Syria. The U.S., which has been specializing in foreign policy blunders for at least 15 years, is now only a bit player with limited influence even among its allies.This decline of U.S. power goes back at least to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and, of course, the policies of George Bush so closely followed by the same policies under Obama.

But the policies were not set by either Bush or Obama. They were set by a much older problem - the dominance of billionaires in setting foreign policy. Their only interest in foreign policy arises from their greed - and they have made some very bad decisions as a result.

George Bush Sr. understood that. That's why he was very much opposed to his son's foreign policy. (But then, the father always had more brains than either of his sons.)

http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-1.717469

There's good book by a man who undersood early what was going wrong. He wrote a book on it in 2004 which still holds up well. It's Gwynne Dyer, Future Tense: The Coming World Order.

But - a caution. It can be depressing.
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Now, for your spritual moment. There are many similarities between  Islam and Christianity. That's hardly surprising  since both come from much the same people in the same region. Both believe in the End Times - the end of the world. Both believe that Jesus will return to the world at that time. The only difference is that Muslims say he will then get married. Both believe in the  resurrection of the dead, the clash with the anti-Christ, the judgement for heaven or hell....
As to  behaviour, there are also similarities. There was a point when the Catholic church took a back seat to nobody in torture and killing - the latter often by beheading, just like ISIS. Discrimination against Jews was common in the Christian world - including in Canada and the U.S. There was many a Christian (including  Hitler) who played a leading role in the holocaust.

I don't know many Muslims, so I really don't know how many look forward to the 'end times'. But I have known many Christians who are. (There was a time when I often conducted services on Sunday - and many, many times that I spoke in synagogues (though not conducting the service.)

Christians, especially fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible was dictated by God, often look forward with great joy to the end times. (Because they're going to heaven - and you aren't.) And the belief that these are the end times has been particularly strong in the last fifty years or so. That's why Israel suffers a plague of evangelists going knocking on doors and handing out pamphlets to Israelis warning them to convert - fast.

I   wonder how much these beliefs have affected our views of the world and what's happening to it?

http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Islam-Bible/4Islambeliefs/
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May 2: Double-talk in the news.

Elie Wiesel's story of his early childhood in the Buchenwald death camp, of how the people around him, including his own family, were starved, brutalized and murdered is the most moving book I have ever read. It's called "Night". The New York Times called it a 'terrifying book'. It's actually somehing even worse than that.

That's why the story below, from "Haaretz" came as a shock to me. Unfortunately, the story doesn't tell us nearly enough to get the meaning of all this.

One of the most terrible parts is Wiesel's reference to countries that knew what was happening to Jews long before, and during, the war - and didn't lift a finger to help. These were countnries like Britain, France, the United States and,   right up with the worst of them, Canada.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/.premium-1.717093?utm_content=%24sections%2F1.717093&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_source=SMARTFOCUS&utm_campaign=1339605&utm_term=20160501-03%3A05

Today, the Jews of Israel are in a very dangerous position again. While they have their own country, their situation is a very difficult one.  Their nuclear weapons are not the final word that most people think they are, and they live a hostile environment, partly their own fault, partly the fault of us who should have known what a  dangerous situation we were setting up when we created Israel. It's so dangerous that Israel is losing its Jewish citizens, many of them to return to the European homelands they had fled from.
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The big headline and long story for the day in the Irving press is that the president of NB Liquor spent more on travel costs this year than last. There's no hint of anything improper. So why such a big story? Well, it fills a lot of space.
There could have been a big story rather than the small one for yesterday's celebration of Battle of the Atlantic day. (Actually, Battle of the North Atlantic).  For example, it's the only theatre of war  in which Canada had supreme command.

One veteran at the ceremony spoke of the hardhips of crossing the North Atlantic in winter in tiny corvettes with the water in the ship often up to the sailors' knees.  It was unspeakably miserable. When the war ended and my father came home, his first move was to take down a picture of the Bluenose in heavy weather that the hung in his bedroom. And, for the rest of his life, the only water travel he would do was in a canoe on a small lake.

The editorial and Norbert Cunningham columns will offend nobody That's the best that can be said for them. Craig Babstock's column "Elections just like your future; both are entirely in your hands" is pointless drivel. Everything it has to say is in the headline which is not only useless information - but wrong. Our futures are not entirely in our hands. There are huge differences in opportunity. Elections are - sort of - in our hands; but only in the sense that everybody has a share. None of us can elect someone all by ourselves.

More to the point is Steve Malloy who is disgusted by the ugliness of the election posters on our streets, and disgusted that we have no idea who these people are or what they stand for.  There's a reason for that.

This newspaper has given us almost no indication of the major issues facing this city - except, of course,  for finishing the events centre. We have no information of the big problems we have to prepare for - NOW. There are big ones in housing development, for example,  and public transit.

And we have no idea what those faces on the billboards stand for. The total contribution to the Irving press on this has been two columns by candidates who told us nothing. With that kind of information service, how is it possible for anyone to know who to vote for?

Cananda&World is a lousy, 4 pages. One of the stories you really need to know is  that inmates of Newfoundland prisons don't like their new, orange uniforms.

There are only two stories worth reading - for quite different reasons.

Mike Duffy returns to the Senate this week. But the senate leaders, who refused to continue his pay after he was charged, insist they will not  not  give him  his back pay. Now, I dislike Duffy and everything he stands for. But he was found innocent of the charges. He should get his back pay. To stop it is a demonstration of petty vengefulness by the Conservative leadership.

Then there's the lead story. This is a prime example of how our news media use 'news' as propaganda.

The U.S. as asked Russia to stop the bombing of Aleppo in Syria. Why? Two reasons. One is to restore the truce talks between the warring sides. The other, we are told, is because the U.S. is concerned about the civilian death toll. The first reason is a good one. The second reason is a lie.

1. The U.S. killed about a million civilians, possibly more, in Iraq.

2. It has deliberately killed civilians as the major target, sometimes the only target, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Cuba (a civilian airliner), Irag, Afghanistan, Libya; and the U.S. with Canada and Britain has been supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia to kill civilians.

3. It created the civil war in Syria in the first place. It recruited and supplied the so-called 'rebels' (who are often terrorists). It has been helping ISIS in Syria by allowing its oil on the market, by conducting very feeble attacks on it,  and by actually supplying ISIS.

It's quite true that Russia is killing civilians. But it's also true that the U.S. couldn't care less about that. In fact, the U.S. is, and has been for some time, the world's leading killer of civilians.

And, of course, the story tells us all about the eagerness of the US  to deal with this through the UN. In fact, the United Nations has been virtually destroyed - largely at the hands of the US government. Anyone who has read the speeches, etc. of those leading Republicans who are called 'neocons' (George Bush Jr., Dick Cheney, Ted Cruz...) knows their hatred for the UN.

The UN was intended not to rule the world but to provide some level of law that would prevent major wars. The U.S. destroyed that. It's drone attacks are illegal under international law. It's invasion of Iraq was illegal. Torture of prisoners was illegal. The U.S. constantly ignores the UN. And for reason.

The U.S. wants to rule the world. That's what American Exceptionalism means. That's what the Project for the New American Century means. The U.S. wants the power to rule the world (no elections) as the ultimate imperial power.  (Which means the wealthiest Americans would rule the world.) And the law would be whatever the U.S. wealthy want it to be.

What can the UN do? It can scarcely call on the rest of the world to invade the U.S.  After all, the role of the UN is to maintain peace, not to create war.
So the U.S. has, for decades, been making the UN more and more ineffective. Canada rides with the U.S. on this because it has no choice.

Europe does have choices. watch for a splintering as some Europeans decide to opt for partnership with Russia. Watch as New Zealand edges away from a U.S. partnership that could soom be less useful than one with, say, China.
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On the day World War 2 ended, I had been sent home from school for being late. My mother took me to downtown Montreal to see the crowds on St. Catherine St. Stunned, I watched the cheering mobs, then wandered down the street to look at the signs in the store windows. They were the ones I was used to from the war years -  V... __ for victory, Loose Lips Sink Ships. Then I saw a new one.  "We've won the war," it said. That stopped me. It looked good. We've won the war. Yeah.

 Then I read the rest. "Now we've got to win the peace."

 That was crazy.

I mean, we'd won the war. So, of course, we must have won the peace.
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I was astonished that the following story did not appear in the Irving press. There was time to get it in. How could they miss such an uprising in Iraq while Iraq is fighting a war? I don't know who edits world news in the Irving press. It must be the office cat.

What has happened is that the 'democratic' government imposed by the U.S. is not democratic at all. Most Iraqis associate it with a U.S. they dislike at least as much as they dislike ISIS.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/01/viability-of-iraq-baghdad-green-zone-moqtada-al-sadr
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Here's another version of the story of the bombing in Aleppo as well as other parts of Syria. Read it, and watch for the information given here which is not in the Irving press story of the same event.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44561.htm
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Here's a   variation on the Canadian line that Canadian troops are on a non-combat mission in Iraq - but there might be combat.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44556.htm
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And here's a good explanation of the double-talk we often call news.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44565.htm
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The next one is going to sound pretty radical. It is. But, according to Oxfam, just 62 people - remember that  62 - own half all all the wealth in the world. I think that's pretty radical, too. And those 62 could very well drive the world into nuclear war. That's not propaganda. That's reality.

Uncontrolled capitalism does not work. While uncounted millions starve, 62 people who could feed the world - don't. But they want even more. They will always want more.  And the thrust for that even more has us on the edge of world nuclear war.

Consider, too, that those people are almost certainly not paying taxes. So they are pulling out money from all over the world -   which simply increases poverty in the world.

I've found, over the years, that Paul Craig Roberts is one of the best commentators in the world. So get a good look at the picture he's drawing.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44560.htm

And, no, I'm not advocating marxism. Marxism is an idea that presumes a mature and principled society. Us humans aren't that. And I suspect we never shall be.
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This story, on the fifth anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden comes as a surprise. I have no inside information on this. But Seymour Hersh is one, impressive reporter.

http://video.aljazeera.com/channels/eng/videos/seymour-hersh:-bin-laden-story-is-a-fantasy/4874642247001
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There are a number of stories about Hitler making a deal with Britain and the U.S. to deport German Jews to Israel (Palestine) in the 1930s. I don't know whether it's true; but it doesn't tell us much. Britain, the U.S. a and virtually all of Europe were anti-semitic. They found Hitler's ideas quite acceptable, and would happily have supported such a deportation. There's a reason why Israel is so distrustful of us.

To this day, we get almost no information on the Nazism that still infects much of Europe And, certainly, our news media have given no sense of the prominence of Naziis in Ukraine. Or of the Nazi (or, at least, fascist) principles in our 'democratic' governments.

There's no reason why this next  item should cause any surprise. With the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, we're on the edge of a revolutionary change with corporations becoming completely apart from government and, in fact, taking over what are now government functions.

If you're looking for the next revolution, forget communism. This is far more sweeping than communism - and more brutal. And I would not trust Trudeau on this one at all.

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse020516.htm
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