August 8: Eden Must Have Been a Lot Nicer Than This.

Let's begin today with some items sent by readers. The first two are the horror that international bankers have made of Greece through their usual assassination team called the  International Monetay Fund. Greece has been driven into massive poverty and unemployment - with no end to it in sight.

It's not the only one. Spain and Ireland and Ukraine, to give just a few examples are going a similar route. it has nothing to do with economics, everything to do with greed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/28/imf-admits-disastrous-love-affair-with-euro-apologises-for-the-i/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/yanis-varoufakis/imf-confesses-it-immolated-greece-on-behalf-of-eurogroup?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ad7257b308-DAILY_NEWSLETTER_MAILCHIMP&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_717bc5d86d-ad7257b308-407396303
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This one, from Halifax,  Nova Scotia, is not news. But it seems a wonderful idea in a world that does not usually encourage thinking.

http://www.halifaxthinks.ca/
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Like many people, I get lots of requests to sign petitions. I have never passed one on in this blog. I now make an exception because a husband and wife and their adopted child are being put through hell by an uncaring Canadian government.

https://www.change.org/p/the-honorable-john-mccallum-bring-mansi-rana-home/share?card=message&tk=oe9rYx71Zr2BfXVV_qbfig-tZle_mWChnhyUbrQcMZU&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt&utm_campaign=new_signature
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And here's Ralph Nader on the waste, corruption and great danger of investing in nuclear power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/wake-up-these-unneeded-in_b_11356684.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Em
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And here's one that I don't think I've run before.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/david-harvey-neoliberalism-capitalism-labor-crisis-resistance/
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Then there's the irving press (sigh!)

For section A, the big story and, really, the only story is that lots of illegal tobacco goes through Moncton.

The editorial and the Cunningham column are both about the economy. They talk of our economic problems, of taxes, of government policies.... And they do it without writing the word irving.  That's like talking about winter without mentioning snow and the dangers of walking on ice.

The commentary page has a column about the energy east hearings to be held by the National Energy Board. The commentary was written by the vice-president of Strategic Communications (chief propagandist) for the NEB.

Somewhere - I can't find it right now - I have a dismaying article about the close relationship between our (independent) NEB and the oil industry. I shall try to find it. I have no trust in the board, no trust in the oil industry, no trust in the New Brunswick government or the federal one, no trust in the reporting we're going to see in the irving press. This has all the smell of a scam to please the oil bosses. Significantly, the hearings will begin in the irving idea of heaven, St. John, New Brunswick.

Incidentally, the Liberals and Conservatives across Canada are enjoying a boom in donations - largely from the wealthy. (The parties have collectors for this. They're called bagmen. They go to visit the wealthy. Requests are made. Demands are made. Deals are made. Money for the party is handed over.) The bagman is usually a very senior member of the government. So let's play a game.
Guess who the bagman for New Brunswick is. Guess who he deals with. Guess what the NEB will decide. Guess what Trudeau will decide.
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For Canada and world, the big, opening story is that the provincial Conservative party is arguing over rules for its convention.( Be still, my heart.) Actually, that was also the lead story on Saturday.

Another story that has the world in a dither is that passenger-carrying balloons need stricter rules.

There have been numerous sightings of sharks in Nova Scotia waters. Many feel that this is a result of climate change. That's obviously silly because, as oil leaders have assured us, climate change isn't happening.

The biggest story, by far, in words is that the Amish people of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, will vote for Trump. (Why would Amish  live in a town called Intercourse?) And, anyway, who could possible care how they will vote?
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The next, from The Guardian, is not really a news story at all. But it's a very touching story, and well-written. It's about Leonard Cohen, and it brought  back a vivid image as I last saw him,sitting on the steps of Montreal's downtown YMCA, chatting with anybody who wanted to chat.

(Why didn't he sit on the steps of the YMHA? After all, he is Jewish. Alas. the YMHA is on a street with few passersby.)

://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/08/leonard-cohen-letter-to-marianne-ihlen-was-poetic-and-candid
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There are estimated to be 46 million slaves in the world today; a high proportion or them are women. And this is nowhere more noticeable than in the streets of Christian Europe where African women are lured into the control of sex trade "enterpreneurs'.

The next page has several articles about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2016/aug/08/freeing-girls-trafficked-to-italy-for-sex-from-nigeria-you-will-not-be-a-slave-for-ever-video
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Incidentally, a story that I did not see in the irving press is that a shot was fired into the Olympic stadium in Rio. It seemed to come from the neighbouring favela (a   slum neighbourhood), I expect this is an Olympics to be long-remembered - and not just for doping scandals. Rio, and all of Brazil, is a scandal. And its government is a scandal. And its wealthy are a scandal.
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Here is a comment on a touch of good news - but it is happening in the context of terrible news.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45248.htm
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The failure of the coup in Turkey may be a turning point in world history. The coup was almost certainly planned by the U.S. And that could shake up the whole middle east - and the rest of the world.

The irving press has fed us a sort of pabulum as its account of what happened. It made to no attempt to go beyond the superficial.

So here's more about it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45250.htm

And here's similar view, but more cautioius and more willing to recognize that Erdogan has his own faults.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45254.htm
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On a similar but broader theme, here is a story that includes a danger spot that Canada is sendiing troops to. They are there to kill and to die for-----what?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44496.htm
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And here's another you won't find in the irving press.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/08/05/losing-to-russia-in-syria-washington-bombs-libya.html
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Here's a story about Israel and a Christian aid organization called World Vision. The story has appeared in the mainstream western press -   but in a heavily loaded fashion - and only briefly at that. Israel's treatment of Palestinians has gone far beyond shameful. Nor can it be justified by pointing fingers at the Naziis of World War Two.

And, in fairness, one should also not blame the native Jews of Israel. They are quite different, even in appearance, from the European Jews who dominate Israel. It's the European Jews in Israel who have taken the lead in killing, impoverishing, imprisoning Palestinians. It's the European Jews who, in effect, invaded what is now Israel,  invaded a land that had belonged not only to Palestinians but to native Jews who had lived there for thousands of years, and who were quite happy to live with Palestinians.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/08/israel-and-the-world-vision-crime-sham/
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People of all countries have their currents events views shaped by a notion of their history that that is largely false. (New Bruswickers seem to think their province was a major factor in creating the confederation that is Canada. Bunk.) Americans are caught up in a history of their goodness and kindness (and Christianity). Here's a corrective.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/07/hiroshima-nagasaki-and-u-s-mythology/
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Rabble.ca is a pretty good source of material on Canada. It also has a great deal, very professionally done, on the rest of the world. This one, on Canadian myths is true and, if anthing, kind to Canada.

http://rabble.ca/news/2016/08/six-pervasive-myths-about-canada-we-must-stop-believing

The feature writer is a retired CBC journalist, Karl Nerenberg,  who is superb - particularly on Canadian politics.
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And, oh, there's so much more.

August 6: This is the real news. Don't blame me for it.

In New Brunswick, the name Irving is closely identified with the championing of the Christian faith - drawing in the faithful and the wannabe faithful to the Irving chapel with its sacred coffee and fellowship in the barn. (fellowship? Isn't that a little sexist?) And it also has what used to be a two-page spread every Saturday with a sermonette, church announcements and religious news.

Alas, the commercial world has forced its way in. The two pages of faith are now just half a page of faith with the the other page and a half devoted to the worship of Mammon.  But today,  there is a bigger change. The sermonette talks about Christian attitudes in the real world - this time about Gay Pride.

It's good column though, curiously, it does not mention the connection of this issue with faith. It's a faith column about gay pride (which is eminently sensible)  But with no mention of any connection of Gay Pride with the faith.

Incidentally, the proportion of men who are gay - in varying degrees - is estimated to run as high as 20%, an estimate that includes world figures of some eminence.
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The big, blazing  headline for Section A of the irving press is that employment increased by over 5,000 jobs in July. Curiously, it also says the labour force grew by 3,200. So what does all this mean? The story doesn't say. But a safe guess would be that much of the growth is due to July being a summer month.
Then there's the good news that the city  is hiring a consultant for advice on creating affordable housing. But that sentence is all I can tell you. The rest of the story  is about a tent city somewhere in Moncton.

Please, city council, the homeless are certainly a problem. But they are not the only ones who suffer from a lack affordable and safe housing in this city. Building a new rooming house isn't going to solve the problem.

And that's it for section A news.

The editorial seems to begin by talking about the importance the Cape Jourmain lighthouse to the history of New Brunswick. It appeals for government help to save it. But it turns out the reason has little to do with history. It's about attracting tourists.

Norbert has a rant - but a quite justifiable one - about the economic zero that the Gallant government has turned out to be. But I really don't see how anyone can write about the economic condition of this province and its debt and the performance of its governments without mentioning the word irving.

Brian Murphy, yet again, contributes a column that isn't really a commentary on any issue, but which  will warm hearts and is guaranteed to offend no-one.   Or to cause anyone to think.

Below Murphy is a passionate and well-written commentary (a real one) about government interference in health care. I don't know enough to comment on the validity of the commentary. But it does what a real commentary should do - cause us to think.

Alec Bruce does the same, dealing with the often false priorities our children are trained to have.

The big, world news story is that the provincial Conservatives are all in a tizzy about rules for their convention. Sigh.

The real, if still local, news is that the provincial government has backed down on a free tuition progamme for provincial colleges and universities, and is willing to discuss extending it to cover privately-owned institutions. Interestingly, there is no mention of the names of those private institutions the tax payer is being asked to subsidize.

We subsidize public universities and colleges because they are ours. That's why they are called public and designed to service the public. Private colleges and universities are owned by - you know - entrepreneurs, those fearless people who invest their own money and don't go looking for handouts. They represent the spirit of free enterprise, risk taking. Why, if we give them public money, we'll be destroying their individualism. And I'm sure they wouldn't like that. Certainly, the irvings of this world would never dream of accepting taxpayers' money.

The other big story is that a Canadian clothier is selling ties that say 'dump Trump'. It is in honour of Captain Khan, an American Muslim who was slain (not killed, slain) while in Iraq slaying (not killing) Iraqis. including children. Just like good ol' Americans, he was trained to be patriotic more than he was religious. God and Allah are okay. But it's more important to hold your hand over your heart and recite, "My country, right or wrong. but my country."
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And here's a story that did not appear in the irving press, and that never will. It's a story  about the moral corruption of oil companies, and the National Energy Board, and with a prominent role for Jean Charest, former conservative cabinet minister under Mulroney, and then Liberal prime minister of Quebec.

Charest's presence in this story as a master of sleaze is not surprising. He studied uner sleazemaster Brian Mulroney.

All of this is remarkably similar to what is going on in the New Brunswick government - and which will continue to go on if NB elects Conseravtives next time. It's time to wake up and sniff the sleaze. Start with a sniff of the irving press.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/08/04/news/canada-pipeline-panel-apologizes-releases-records-meeting-charest
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The story of American nuclear missiles on the Russian border is absent from almost all western news media. So is the story of the American surrounding of China with warships and military bases.

It was just over 50 years ago that the Soviet Union tried that with the U.S., using Cuba as a base. The U.S. immediately threatened a nuclear war. The news media went mad in covering the story. It was the lead story in every western news medium. And the Soviet Union was always the villain. The whole western world was in terror. I can remember some of my students crying in their fear.

Where the hell is the story on what the U.S. is doing to Russia and China? The irving press newspapers - and almost all other western media - haven't said a word about it. Nor has it been mentioned in  the election debates. There, the press is too busy covering sotries about what a devoted couple Bill and Hillary are, and how Trump has a funny haircut.

We are very close to a world nuclear war that is being deliberately encouraged by the U.S. Canada has sent some 800 soldiers to be wiped out in the opening minutes of such a war.

Is there no gutter too deep and too foul for our news media?
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This next story will not appear in any New Brunswick paper. As you read it, have someone beside you to speak common sense to you over and over..."a pipeline will create jobs..a pipeline will..."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/06/global-warming-target-miss-scientists-warn

I thought the following was the most important story in today's Guardian. It says a great deal about humans and how they treat each other in general.

://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/05/morocco-teenage-rape-victim-dies
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American intervention in the middle east has not only created jihadism and murdered millions. It has pretty effectively destroyed any societies that existed in the region. There will never be a full recovery from this. Even Israel will never recover as a truly Judaic state. That's what the greed of oill billionaires does.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-coup-attempt-erdogan-isis-middle-east-weak-and-unstable-a7162236.html
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Gee. Ten thousand people turned out on a  brutally hot day in Philadelphia (95 F) to protest the day before the Democratic convention about the failure to act on climate change. That's almost as exciting as Moncton. Funny the irving press never mentioned it.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/06/clean-energy-revolution-in-philadelphia-a-photo-essay/
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Speaking of the way we treat people in our crumbling democracies, here is a prime example. It never made the irving press. Compare this with  the coverage given in the irving press  to a wealthy man who was convicted of beating his father to death.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/06/the-biggest-elephant-in-our-rooms-stands-52-tall-and-her-name-is-chelsea/
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This story is about Africa and the collapse of a political party But it's much more than that - and it's something t o act on. It's something called globalism. Roughly, that refers to the rise of very wealthy private business owners who have become dominant forces in most of the world, effectively destroying democracy - and us. (And, eventually, itself.)

The greatest evil facing us is not terrorism. It's the rise of the very rich. (You know, the ones who own most of the news media.)

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/06/is-globalization-responsible-for-anc-decline-in-south-africa-local-elections/
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George Bush and Obama have attacked 37 countries since 2001. (Actually, the number is higher since it does not include special ops killer squads.) All of these killing expediitions were illegal under international law since the countries targeted were no threat to the U.S. But the U.S. adopted a special law in 2001 that gave it the right to kill anybody, anywhere, and time it felt like it.

http://www.alternet.org/world/obama-has-relied-flimsiest-rationale-launching-attacks-countries-across-planet
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Here's a  very brief one on killings by police in the U.S. They hold the world record, by far. The figure used here  (for dramatic reasons) is the early part of 2015. But 2016 is on track for another record.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/07/09/us-police-hold-world-record-for-murdering-civilians/

This is very clear sign not only of a democracy in collapse, but of a whole society in collapse.
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There's much more. But I'm hungry, and it's way past supper time.

August 5: Our passive land -z-z-z-z

The Irving Chapel ad is back. There will be a service this Sunday with special music  (rock hymns played on a gazoo?) and with a top-drawer Rev. Dr. in the pulpit. None of your plain Rev. trash. This should beat the Sermon on the Mount. After all, Jesus didn't even have a high school leaving certificate.

For those whose religious needs differ from those of the average person, here's an alternative place of worship.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-29/bill-clinton-was-here-elite-one-percent%E2%80%99s-orgy-island-exposed

The Clintons pronounced themselves broke in 1900 when Clinton's presidency ended. They are now worth uncounted hundreds of millions thanks to gifts from thoughtul oil and defence industry admirers.

There is no c hoice in the U.S. election. Americans will get a president who is, by reasons of his delusions and self-serving ambition incapable of the job. Or, it will get a president  who is vicious, corrupt, and in the employ of the world's most corrupt and destructive business leaders.

American voters know what they don't want. But, thanks to a century of a lying press, they have no idea what they do want. And the whole world is going to pay a heavy price for that.
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Section A of the irving press is the usual  and trivial village chatter.
The editorial has a stirring heacline. "Let pipeline hearings be led by facts, pragmatism." Gee. Who has said it should be led by lies and misconceptions? Anyway, it doesn't matter. The editorial is really another propaganda pitch for the pipeline.

Quite apart from being ignorant rants kissing up to mr. irving, the editorials are almost always about money - not about people and their needs. Dear Editor - Could you please learn to make your kiss=ups less obvious? And this is a community of communities.New Brunswick is about people and how they live. Could you please show at least  some awareness of that?

Norbert is ranting again. He thinks that the government gives many businesses excessive support. He blames the government for it all. Norbert - what about the business leaders who pay our politicians to give them our money? What about your paper that doesn't tell us much about that? What about New Brunswickers who have been foolish enough to vote for the same parties since 1867 - knowing that they are both getting paid off.

Why not give us a specific example of businessmen who get government handouts? The owner of your newspaper springs to mind. And what about tax  havens. Why don't you write a column on those?

Then he ends on a mealy-mouthed note that we "talk" to Quebec and a certain electric car company to make a "mutually beneficial' deal for the car's production. Norbert - that is exactly what your column was supposed to be attacking.

Commentary has a propaganda piece from Fraser Institute.

Alec Bruce is back in form with a column that is both amusing and true.
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The Canada&World section's big news is about --New Brunswick. Way to give us the big picture, baby. The provincial government has a growth plan that will require New Brunswickers to work longer before retiring.

This is 1929 all over again. The economy is weak? Make the poor and the middle class pay. Don't tax the wealthy. Ignore their tax money hidden in tax havens. Keep giving the rich "mutually beneficial" deals.

The only story in Section B worth even a quick look is one that is interesting only because its headline is so bad.'Trump-Ryan conflict  overshadows attack on Clinton foreign policy.' What attack? What foreign policy? The only  mention of foreign policy is in a couple of sentences on a relatively minor issue. Editors write the headlines. They should know how to do it.

 We are very close to nuclear war with China and Russia. Yawn! There's no mention of it in the irving press. So we'll just drift along, and see what happens.
 Out of its hundreds of millions of people, the U.S. can produce only a deluded man and a   corrupt and murderous woman to run for president. New Brunswick can produce only a series of hacks and irving stooges. Most of the news media, which should make us think, just produce stupor.

"This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang, but a whimper."

And, for some reason, that reminds me of the New Brunswick NDP under Dominic Cardy.
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U.S. police have killed 640 Americans so far this year. How many Americans have been killed by 'terrorists'? Well, there were the 49 in Orlanada in what might or might not have been a terrorist attack. That's it.

The U.S. spends hundreds of billions to protect  Americans against terrorists. So far, anything spent on police has been to arm them more heavily.

North American news media go wild over terrorist killings. They're a major issue of the presidential race. Police killings rarely even appear in the media. And not a word has been said about them in the election campaigns.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-killings

(web sites are extremely misleading on this subject. But even if we include all the wilder claims, terrorists in the U.S. kill far fewer than police do. Most of the sites are also heavily biased. One sarcastically referred to Islam as the religion of peace. I might remind the writer that so is Christianity the religion of peace,  and, for centuries now, Christians have been far, far ahead in the mass murder of innocent people.)
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The Guardian has pretty thin stuff today. But this outline of what is happening in Brazil as the Olympics start covers ground that North American news media have ignored.

//www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/05/rio-2016-brazil-political-crisis-games
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The following site might shock you by its name. But it's more honest than all those newspapers that never tell you they're part of the World Capitalist News.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/03/hous-a03.html
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The U.S. is at war with Libya. It is bombing, and it has special ops troops on the ground. The war is illegal under international law. It has no UN approval. It wasn't even voted on or  discussed by the U.S. congress.

But who cares about laws? right? And who cares about the obligations of a government of a democracy?

And who cares about the killing of civilians, and the creations of hordes of terrified refugees?

And who cares that this will increase the number of Muslims who are being forced to take the side of ISIS against a U.S. that doesn't give a damn about who or how many it kills?

The foreign news editor at irving press didn't consider this story important enough to print.

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/01/u-s-says-new-bombing-campaign-against-isis-in-libya-has-no-end-point-at-this-particular-moment/
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Here's another story that sharp, editorial eyes at the irving press never noticed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45242.htm

And here's a related view of the same issue.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45244.htm
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And here's a story you will never see in the irving press.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45243.htm
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This is a fascinating piece on what environmentalists are doing wrong. I agree. But I think the path to change is a more difficult one than the article might suggest.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/the-climate-activist-mistake-and-what-is-needed-now/

Us humans seem, most of us, to be born passive and conformist. That's why we don't much criticize our economic system which is one that is progressively bleeding us. And if we get mad at a politician, we elect the leader of the other party which is just like the party we are voting against. That's why we tolerate monstrous robbery by billionaires  (but not shoplifting by  the poor).

Most of our news media (which are owned by the wealthy) deliberately encourage us to be passive. Protesting isn't enough. We need to work at changing the way we and others think. The enemy is our passivity. I'm not sure how to do that. But that's what has to be done. And we don't have much time.
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And here's another one that will never appear in the irving press.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article192782.html
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And yet another story that won't make the irving press.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-us-silent-massacre-drug-uses-philippines
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And a very good one by Ralph Nader.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/hillarys-convention-con_b_11295928.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2
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Maybe tomorrow's Faith page will have a sermonette about breaking a passivity that makes us decidedly unChristian and victims of the powerful

Maybe.

But not bloody likely.

August 4: The mad season is on us.

Last night, I flicked through the TV channels to watch the news. I generally dislike TV news because TV does not lend itself to serious discussion. There are too many distractions in the form of changing camera angles, the visual appearance of faces that take up much of our attention but tell us little, the artificial excitement and breathless speaking which gets in the way of understanding....

As well, the control of owners over the content of news and analysis has become increasingly obvious. I sat, listening to news in hyper-excited voices, and analysis that was shallow and even lying.

Terms like left wing and right wing are thrown about without any understanding of what they mean. In fact, there is no left wing or right wing in the U.S. There is only the very wealthy and what they want - now. The Democrats have no platform of any significance. Clinton will do what she's told to do, and become personally even richer as a result. Trump won't do what he's told to do - but his political thinking is very, very similar to that of the farthest right of the Republican party. But, again, it's really not fair to call it right wing. It's just greed.

The big story of this election is  the disappearance of political parties. A party is supposed to be an organization based on a set of moral and economic principles. The Republicans, Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives are not such organizations. In fact, they never have been. It's just become increasingly obvious. Indeed, our whole political system is moving back to the middle ages - with just one difference.

In the middle ages, us peasants were ruled by aristocracies. (Knights were simply the hired thugs for the aristocrats.)  It was a society designed solely to benefit the aristocrats. And that aristocracy was inherited by birth - much as our present day one is.  The difference between that and our present-day aristocracy of billionaires is that the old, aristocracy was under a king. The new one has no king. The aristocracy simply runs wild.

We'll see much more of that running wild as recent trade deals that our news media are telling us nothing about go through.

The Green Party, by the way, is a real party - but far too narrow in its platform. The NDP used to be a real party, back when it was called the CCF. But it needed money to win elections - and it didn't get money from the only source of the big money - the wealthy. That's why it adopted policies much closer to the those of the established parties, and changed its name to the NDP - a strategy that has proven disastrous.

Our election funding system is guaranteed to keep the wealthy in control. Even Trump is now reduced to campaign funcing that is less than one percent of what Clinton has.

Any party that hopes to make real change has to change the thinking of people who have only the irving press for information. That's going to be tough when Liberals and Conservatives across Canada and the U.S. have the advantage of billions in payoffs and in corporate ownership of news media that are really propaganda agencies for the new aristocracy.

Thus endeth the reading.
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The tough, inquiring reporters and the shrewd editors of the irving press have produced a front page that tells it like it is. Let the chips fall where they may. The front page tells us there are a lot of cranes at work in Moncton. (Gee. I hadn't noticed. Thanks.)  And construction of a new food store might begin on Monday.
Building on that, there's a story that the mayor is eating a dog biscuit for charity. A bank sign fell down. A new Tweens fashion store will soon open. And Moncton has a new take-out food stand that has hot dogs and chili sauce and everything.

One article could have been a useful one. The universities, like universities across Canada, are in financial trouble. Unfortunately, the research on the story is so shallow that we get no sense of what the cause of the trouble is. Nor, alas, do the universities know. This needs government action. It also needs universities to take a break and figure out what it is they are supposed to be doing - and the wasteful sloppiness of their approach to education.

Gee - sorta makes ya wonder, don't it? How could a tiny and poor country like Cuba offer free university education? Many other countries do, too. And how come we have such piles of money we can let irving skip taxes on some of his large holdings in St. John?

The opinion page is okay. Commentary page is not. Rod Allen is Rod Allen. Alec Bruce continues his pointless, holiday column series.
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In Section B, the big news for Canada and the World is that irving wants to buy a  refinery in Ireland. Then there's the flash that Air Canada is going to make it easier for the visually-impaired to see its in-flight TV shows.  In even more shattering world news, a man in PEI is campaigning door-to-door to get a seat in the senate.

And North Korea has fired a missile  (a dummy) that came down close to Japanese territorial waters. The U.S. is indignant. I guess the U.S. has forgotten that it not only fired loaded missiles at Japan, killing hundreds of thousands, it also tested them in the Pacific, loaded ones, in the Solomon Islands as tests. The result, to this day, is a not very healthy Solomon Islands.

Look, let me suggest some stories for the irving press....
1. City council is said to be planning the future pattern of development in Moncton. Good idea. But they seem to be planning it on the assumption that the future will be just like now. It won't.

The city of now was designed for the fossil fuel age. That's why it is so sprawling. This is a dreadfully expensive sort of plan for services - like fresh water and sewage and snow clearing. And the end of the fossil fuel age is in sight, like it or not.

What does this mean for city planning? I've seen no mention of this, and have no reason to believe that council has even thought of a different sort of future. The city as we know it is based on a concept that is seventy years old. It's been a horrendously expensive concept. And it's one whose time has passed.

2.The Panama Papers revealed that the nations of the world are being robbed by the wealthy who hide their money in tax havens. We're talking here of money so big that whole nations are falling into hopeless debt. So where's the follow-up? Where are the intrepid editors and reporters of the irving press. Really - they could probably find out just by asking the boss.

We have seen a massive redistribution of money from everybody else to the very rich. And there is no sign of any end to it. We are being robbed by tax havens. A grain of sense should tell us this can end only in disaster for everyone. This is really far more important. This is, i'm sure, more important than the opening of a new fast-food outlet.

3. We are on the edge of nuclear war with both Russia and China. The slightest misjudgement could set it off even as I write this. That's probably more important foreign news than Irving Oil planning to buy an Irish oil refinery.

4. We are spending $105 million on an events centre - based on the theory this will attract business and population to develop around it. If so, it must be possible to get a list of cities where events centres have had that effect. I have seen many such centres in various parts of the world. But I never saw one  notable as a big draw for stores and residents.
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The lead story in The Guardian is that 12 tourists (British, American, German) took a tour operated by a company that specialized in tours to countries at war. This one was in Afghanistan. They were attacked, and five of them were wounded.

This is the most important story of the day? The Guardian is starting to look like the irving press.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/04/foreign-tourists-attacked-in-western-afghanistan-says-officials

More space is wasted with a story that Trump's hands are, indeed, smaller than the average for a man.
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Information Clearing House is a blank today, as it was yesterday. This might be associated with Tom Feeley's recent stroke - but, in such a case,  there would normally be a posted explanation. This has none. One has to consider something that has happened before. An American government agency has blocked the transmission. It's not unusual. That's the kind of world we have created since the great war for freedom.
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Here's an interesting item dealing with the gospel of efficiency, and how it has affected the people and the environment of British Colunbia. Maybe editor Rod Allen could do some similar research  on the situation in New Brunswick.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/efficiency-and-the-commons/
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This is a story that I missed when it first appeared in The Guardian a year ago. But it still has plenty of meaning.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/whistle-blower-chelsea-manning-i-became-very-very-sad-during-torture/

The U.S. is a police state, just as Hitler's Germany  was. It uses torture, even for civilian prisoners. But I've never seen any of this in our newspapers.
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So it's come to this in the American election - a choice between an egomaniac and a hired mass killer.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/americas-oligarchs-support-clinton-almost-unanimously/
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The American war against affordable health care.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/will-insurance-companies-kill-obamacare
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Sometimes, nobody is in the right. Our news media went all ga-ga when Dr. Khan, a Muslim, used the death of his son while serving in the American army in Iraq as the basis for an attack on Trump. Now, what Trump said was, without question, loutish.

But not everyone sees Dr. Khan as a hero. People who are victims of American mass murder may see it quite differently. I see no merit in a man who would participate in the illegal slaugher that was carried out in Iraq. Certainly,  the word hero does not spring to mind. Being patriotic is not necessarily a good quality. The Germans who slaughtered Jews were being patriotic. The Japanese who massacred Chinese civilians were being patriotic. The Americans who carpet bombed cities in Laos and Cambodia. who covered Vietnam in Agent Orange, who supply weapons to the Saudis and help them to keep the people of Yemen starving to death are patriots.  I don't admire them for that. I thought Dr. Khan showed ignorance of his own religion as much as most Americans show ignorance of Christianity.

If we hope to survive, we'll have to learn the difference between faith and patriotism - and decide which to follow.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/04/patriotic-muslim-dad-hails-dead-sons-participation-in-us-crime-against-humanity-in-iraq/
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Also consider this. The U.S. is looking for wars. Just like the empires that preceded it, the U.S. wealthy need wars to get wealthier. And they need wars particularly against Russia and China. And they need them soon, before China gets too powerful. That raises several problems.

1. Any conventional war with Russia and China would be a long one with heavy casualties on both sides. The U.S. public has shown  (in the Vietnam war) that it will not support a war with heavy casualties on the U.S. side. Killing foreigners is okay. But deaths on the American side are not acceptable.

2. The U.S. military, though the most expensive in the world, has performed dismally for over fifty years. In fifteen years, it has not been able to conquer Afghanistan - though it is fighting only a part of the population, and has the support of the Afghan army - and has spent over a trillion dollars.

3. A conventional war against Russia and China is, because of the above, probably unwinnable. But the U.S. is still surrounding Russia and China with missiles and troops. It is looking for a war.

And any such war would go nuclear within minutes no matter what the plan would be. American military planners certainly can figure that out as easily as I can.

ergo - the U.S. is looking for a nuclear war.

August 3: We'll start with a small dose of religion....

During one of the party leadership races, a candidate announced that, if he became president, he would declare the US officially a Christian nation. We'll leave aside for the moment the awkward fact that "Christian" America has been murdering and torturing on a monstrous scale for generations. We'll settle for the statement that the largest group of church attenders in the U.S. is made up of Christians.

The same is true of the whole, western world - including Russia. However in much of Africa and Asia and the middle east, the dominant faith is Muslim. India is largely Hindu. China,  until 1950 or so, was largely Taoist and Confucist.
Now, isn't it odd we should find faiths in such lumps? People say they believe. I'm sure they do. But does it make sense they should believe in the form of huge, geographic blocs? How do they arrive at the faith of their choice? Do they read about faiths all over the world? Do schools in Moncton teach Taoism and Confucianism and Hinduism and all the rest? And then do the children discuss it and decide what faith each will adopt?

I haven't seen much of that. Normally, the children adopt the faith of their parents, and the parents, usually, are people of the same faith. And the grandparents. And the great grandparents.

Then they go on to belittle and even hate those of other faiths -and even to kill them. The American wars in  Latin America were fought largely by Christians on each side. So were the European wars. In World Wars One and Two, we fought against German and Italian Christians. Hitler was a practicing Catholic.
How do we decide what we believe in? And why do we so often act in contradiction of it?

Understand that I am not suggesting any of this as a criticism of faith, any faith. I'm trying to understand how us humans think, and why we think as we do.
And at least one part of this seems obvious. We believe in the faith we do, for the most part, because it is the faith of our families and/or our community. To put it less gently, we choose our faith to be seen as an act of conformity. We choose our faith in much the same way we choose our clothes or decide to get a tatoo. And we think we believe in what we're doing.

But, generally, our thinking about our faith is pretty shallow. A fundamental article of faith for Christians (as for most religions) is "Thou shalt not kill". But we Christians, like other faiths, have killed over a hundred million people in the past century. I really don't think that is what Jesus had in mind. Most of the world suffers under an economic system that is based on greed and that causes enormous death and suffering. I have seen nothing in the writings of Christianity or Judaism that advocates this.

We hate, we kill, we torture, we impoverish, we enslave.  (George Washington was the biggest slave owner in the U.S. He was also an Anglican, though there are long debates about his religous beliefs. George Bush attacked Iraq to steal its oil. He killed at least a million people. He's still a respected Methodist.)

In war, our churches, mosques, synagogues, temples are almost always on side with our governments. The sermonettes in the irving press never criticize the murder and plundering that the Christian world indulges in. No. They play it safe with tales of how loving Jesus will help you to sleep better. And they wring their hands in joy at the thought of billions of people who will go to hell because they were born in a region that didn't believe in Jesus.

(As I wrote the above, i thought of the Israeli rabbi who recently said it was okay to rape muslim women during a war.)

Religion, all over the world, is immersed in conformism, that need we have to be just like our neighbours, our fear of being different and excluded. And what it comes down to is that most people don't practice the substance of any religion at all.

That's not a criticism of religion. That's a criticism of us people. Us people need religion. But we're weak on it all over the world. And most (almost all) of us don't have any religious values at all - just a superficial conformity.
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Section A news has one item worth reading. It's about the generosity of our provincial government. "Firm got over $5 million despite missed target".

Then there's another big one about how a boy's bike was stolen in broad daylight - while his family was at a home!!!! And there's a police photo of a robbery suspect. All you can see is a tiny part of the forehead. But, it you see a person with a forehead like that, call the police.

Shockingly, there is no ad for this sunday's service at the irving chapel. The space was filled with an ad for a sandal sale. What will irving church-goers do? A sandal sale might be too intellectually challenging for the sort of person who goes for coffee and tea in the irving  barn.

Commentary and opinion pages are - well... Norbert does an okay column on drunk driving.

Then there's a column on the high debt of prairie farmers. This comes from Canada West which, like AIMS, is a propaganda house owned by big money. This one has nothing to say. It seems, though, from its final line, to be an ad to get people to become connected with it. For more information about Canada West, check out -

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/donald-gutstein/2012/02/canada-west-foundation-rewrites-history-think-tank-tracker

Following that are two, pointless stories (Brian Cormier and Alec Bruce) that have nothing to say at all.

The Canada&World section is the best I have ever seen in the irving press. It has three stories worth reading. - though none of them is about the world. Two stories are about the dangerous decline in Canada's fish stocks - a decline that threatens not only our supply,  but also the decline of those larger sea creatures that feed on them.

And, the Yukon salmon - a major food item for thousands of years - are pretty much gone. So salmon for food now has to be flown in.

The U.S. air force has now announced the problem-plagued and way over budget F-35 fighter is ready for service. I doubt whether that's an intirely honest statement. But watch now for the pressure on Canada to buy this extraordinarilly priced and problem plagued aircraft. And watch for Justin to buy it.

This aircraft, by the way, is something we (might) need for a conventional war with Russia or China. But any such war would last only minutes before going nuclear. In short, the F35 is useless for any Canadian purpose. is it possible the makers would bribe Canadian officials?

 Of course. That's what the defence industry does with all 'customers'.
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Here is an item well worth reading. And this opinion (believe me) does not come from the our leaders and philosophers in the oil industry.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/03/climate-crisis-media-relegates-greatest-challenge-hurtle-us-collapse-planet
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I enclose the following column only because it's such a bad one, and indicative of what seems to be happening to The Guardian. The writer is, I think, an American who throws around terms like leftwing and the 'new generation of Americans' with no sense whatever of what those words mean. He writes that Assange denies having had any contact with Russia in producing his wikkileaks. But he adds that  the FBI thinks he did - and concludes that Assange must be lying. This is a column of sloppy thinking, and no definitions at all.

As to his belief that Americans should be outraged by Putin interference with American politics, can he think of any major power in history that has NOT interfered with the politics of other countries? And the U.S., if anything, has set world records in intefering.

//www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/03/russia-putin-trump-us-politics-sanders-supporters-response
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I was drawn to this one by its catchy title. Turns out it's an excellent article on the state of U.S. society - and it is not overstatement to suggest it may develop into severe violence. Canada is next door - and so closely tied to the U.S. economically and in the tendency to be a police state - that we, too, could become part of the North American basket case.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45228.htm
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The U.S. is at war with Libya - though you wouldn't guess it reading the irving press. And it is not a coincidence that Libya is a major oil producer. This is another phase in the American war to conquer the world for the benefit of a handful of U.S. billionaires.

Oh, it's all perfectly legitimate. It was invited to bomb by the government of Libya (which was largely created by the U.S.) The bombing is daily and, as bombing does, it is killing civilians. Then, we can send in Christian missionaries.

Or we could go to the heart of the problem, and send missionaries to U.S. oil billionaires.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/03/more-airstrikes-in-new-us-war-in-libya/
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Countercurrents.org is based in India; so much of its coverage is of India. But here's a story from India that has bearings on daily life in New Brunswick - as in forest spraying.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/03/monsanto-in-india-meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/

I'm finding that countercurrents.org is, in general, an excellent source. And, for broader coverage, there are sections on globalization, climate, world news.....
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The next is an opinion the irving press has not mentioned - and won't. The source, rabble.ca, has the best of Canadian commentators and journalists.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/rafe-mair/2016/08/trudeau-rich-climate-change-rhetoric-poor-courage-to-follow-through

Expect more of  this sort of thing from Justin.
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And here's an interesting pair of stories about how the nation state is going out of existence with all of us becoming ruled by international corporations.
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/chinese-couple-million-dollar-donation-jeb-bush-super-pac/

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-money-us-elections/

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I don't recall seeing this Canadian story in the irving press. Nor have I seen any reaction from the Canadian government. Isn't it kind of serious when our own police set people up for long prison terms? This is very American, I know. But hasn't Trudeau realized that he governs Canada? Or does he know the difference?

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/court-throws-out-terrorism-conviction-in-canada-citing-police-entrapment/
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I shall follow the irving press closely to see whether irving will defy the materialism of the sandal sale and open his chapel to worshippers this Sunday.

August 2: This may be a short blog...

...I am starting it late due to a series of computer disasters. Fortunately, there's really nothing to say about today irving press.

Zip-bang headline for the lead story of the day is that some people get injured driving recreational vehicles. Who woulda guessed?

 The editorial is about how we like maple syrup. And how we could use it to make more money. I notice the editorials are almost always about making money, and only rarely about human needs.

Norbert writes about a problem we don't have - police officers shooting large numbers of innocent people. That's in the U.S.  Norbert. His openinging suggestion is to colour all toy guns pink. Then he sobers a little, and suggests geting tougher on fireams ownership. That's certainly more sensible. So why didn't he or anybody else raise this obvious point when three of our police officers were murdered? And why did the irving papers, several times run full page ads for guns that were clearly designed for frustrated machos? We're going to have to deal with this. The National Rifle Association is gaining influence in Canada.

The commentary page has a piece of propaganda by an oil exec on how an oil pipeline would be good for us. Alec Bruce has a pointless story. The only readable item in the whole section is one on food banks.

And the big, exciting news from Canada and the rest of the whole world? Jason Kenny is campaigning for the Alberta Conservative leadership. Wow! Then there's a big story on  how two people killed several days ago in a Texas balloon crash were celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary. A rancher in Alberta doesn't like herds of elk. An Arizona couple are accused of leaving their child alone while playing Pokemon-Go. An eight-year old boy in California died after being named an honorary marine. Celine Dion is visitng Quebec, and is happy to be home.

The isn't news. This is filler for the trash tabloids at the check-out counter - (Elvis is alive, and living as a woman in China).

This isn't only a stinking newspaper. It operates on the cheap. And all it gives us is cheap sensationalism and trivia. And, of course, irving propaganda. And they have the nerve to charge us for this.
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I read an article recently about the children of Donald Trump. Most of them work, and have done very well in business. Of course. They work for companies that daddy owns. And I'm sure you'll find the name Irving on many of the more expensive desks in the irving Empire. You'll find that in many if not most of the big business houses of Canada and the US. And, no, it's not because the children are intellectually gifted. You would have found the same thing among the British aristocracy, especially in the 19th and early 20th century - except much of it was done through the government.

The sons of the aristocracy, especially the slow ones, were forced on the army as officers. With their connections, they soon rose  to generals - and that makes the reading of British military history from about 1850 to 1920  into a study of incompetence. Field Marshal Earl Haig commanded the British army in World War 1 so badly that the British government desperately wanted to fire him and appoint a Canadian. But Haig had friends at the royal court - and a lot of Imperial soldiers died because of that.

For those who did not enter the army and who were incapable of holding any decent job, their life task was to find a wealthy American wife - as Winston Churchill's father did.

The corporate bosses are our aristocracy. Luckily for us, they show no interest in the military. But they have guaranteed careers working daddy's empire.
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I did not comment on a recent story in the irving press, the one about how irving is spraying our forest. So here's the whole story with blanks I'm sure you can fill in.

1. Irving is spraying our forest (and us and our wildlife) with a spray that contains glysophate. It makes the forest more profitable for generations of irvings yet to come.
2. Our very respected chief medical officer was fired for no given reason.
3. It happens she was very concerned about the dangers of glysophate.
4. Our government, which has never been known to annoy anybody named irving in any way, appointed a committee to study the question. (Has a committee appointed by any New Brunswick government in the last 75 years or so every reported anything that irving ears do not want to hear?)
5. It also appointed a new chief medical officer who looks kindly, or at least silently, on glyphosate.
6. The committee of the government reported that glysophate is good for you.
7. I just love a story with a happy ending. Is it possible this was all done honestly and above-board? Maybe. But it's up to the Irving press to prove that.  And it doesn't.
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In recent months, I have found The Guardian to be less impressive than it used to be. The lead story (on Erdogan) was not as truthful as it might have been. For example, the story quotes a person who accuses Turkey's president of being anti-democratic because he might bring back the death penallty.

He certainly is anti-democratic. But shouldn't the reporter know that the "democratic" U.S. not only has the death penalty, but the U.S. president has (and uses) the power to jail people without charge or trial? It also kills innocent people all over the world with drones and special ops killers.

And erdogan might torture people? Gee. Is there any country that doesn't? (Canada has been involved in torture.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/02/the-west-is-supporting-terrorism-against-turkey-claims-erdogan

It's quite possible that the U.S. is supporting terrorism against against Turkey. We know it supported Afghan terrorists against Russia. We know it has supported terrorists against Syria. We also know that, since World War Two, the U.S. air force has specialized in terrorism in the form of area bombing, napalm, Agent Orange, and mines.

It's certainly possible that the U.S. was behind the attempted coup in Turkey. It's something the U.S. has done many, many times. They even have a special term for it. They call it 'regime change' when they do it. It's not just possible; it's close to a certainty.  Here was an attempt that involved thousands of people. And U.S. intelligence didn't know? Israeli intelligence didn't know?

Some months ago, in March, I believe, the U.S. announced that all families of airmen at the base in Turkey would be flown back to the U.S.
What a coincidence!
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Here's a story about life in Rio, Brazil, especially in the favelas - the neighbourhoods of the poor. You won't find in the irving press. (I suspect its editors would have trouble finding South American on a map.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/02/olympic-legacy-repression-war-rio-favela
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I include the next item not because it's good but because it's a sample of the partisanship of The Guardian. The story is about Obama saying Tump is unfit to be president. Fair enough. He is unfit. But I have seen almost no criticism of Clinton or, for that matter, of Obama.

I well remember being on radio when Obama was elected, and saying that he would be a disaster. Since then, he has done exactly as we should have expected. He took over Bush's foreign policy - and made it even worse. He got tangled in Syria for the same, bad reason that Bush got tangled in Iraq - to get control of the oilfields for American oil billionaires. he promised to end the Afghuanistan war. Eight years later, the war is still going on, costing the U.S. immense sums of money even as it goes on losing the war. He did not close Guantanamo. The torturers there and in other places didn't get even a slap on the wrist. He has now created the biggest crisis the world has ever seen. He has planted troops and nuclear missiles on the Russian border. This is a crisis far, far worse than the Cuban missile crisis. And once one country, any country, fires one, everybody will have to join in.

Obamacare? It's a fraud. It hits tax payers hard because it leaves the whole health industry in private hands and operating at stunningly high profits. So tax payers are getting hit to pay costs plus exaggerated profits to the  health industries.  (The rich don't care because they don't pay taxes.)

In his term, unemployment has risen, an increasing share of the wealth has gone to the rich, homelessness is on the rise, home ownership is at the lowest level in recorded history. Help for  the poor has been reduced, and the military-industrial complex has run wild.

Trump is unfit to be president. Obama is unfit to be president. Clinton, too is a copy of Bush. She's also extremely greedy, has been bought by the big money to become a very wealthy woman. I don't see anybody there fit to be president. But the Guardian, just like the U.S. papers which are all owned by big money, attacks only Trump.

Incidentally, note that Obama has never investigated Bush's lies that were used to kill a million people in Iraq. There has been no investigation,and not even a mention of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/02/barack-obama-donald-trump-president-republican-party
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While I'm in this foul mood, read this opinion column from The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/31/forces-aleppo-mourns-terror-assad-victims-syrian-anger-isis

Assad is brutal and cruel? Well,  yes, he is. But Assad did not start that war. It was started by the U.S. and Britain who supplied money, weapons and mercenaries to stage a rebellion against Assad.  And when it comes to murdering civilians, Assad is way down the list from the U.S. and Britain. So why nail him as the cause of the problem?

And, if the U.S. and Britain do as the columnist suggests and join the fight, will they use special weapons that don't kill civilians? They certainly never have in the past.

Again, this appears to be a highly partisan column - as well as a dumb one.
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To see ourselves as others see us... Rabbie Burns had it right. We don't at all see what we are and what we have become. We see faults only in others. And this has been made worse by lying, propagandizing news media. irving press is only the most incompetent, not the worst.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45221.htm
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The following comment is, I think, quite true. And I say that with great sadness.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45225.htm
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The following article about Trump's accusations that the election will be rigged against him comes as no surprise.  American elections have been rigged for decades. Blacks, for example, have been denied the vote, quite commonly, because they could not recite the whole American constitution. it's become much worse since the introduction of polling machines. George Bush jr. won at least his first election by rigged voting. And Trump has made enemies of the string-pullers on both sides.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-01/trump-im-afraid-election-going-be-rigged

Trump would be an incompetent president. Clinton scares the hell out of me.__________________________________________________________________________________
Something strange is happening to my computer. I'm being denied access to some sites. So I'll mail this one now - though I have a good deal more material.
But think of this - most nations are predominantly of one religion. What does (could) this tell us about humans and religion? There is support for the U.S. being declared officially a Christian nation. it has far the biggest military budget in the world, and has been fighting wars, including unofficial ones, non-stop for the last 70 years or so. And it has done so almost entirely without criticism from its Christian leaders. What does that tell us?

This is something I want to think about, too. And, no, I'm not attacking Christianity. This is a question to be asked of all religions.

August 1: The greed that makes our world go round - and burst

I am desperate. I have two documents to e mail. But they are on paper, not in my computer. And my printer does not have a scanner, so I can't put them into my computer for mailing. Both are important. Does anyone know if anyone in the Moncton area offers such a service?  (Staples doesn't.)
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-khans-feud-1.3703044

Trump certainly deserves the pasting he's getting from the story above. But there's more to it.Mr. Khan is certainly an intelligent man - and a fluent speaker. But, again we're being manipulated.

I watched Mr. Khan on several news channels. His comments, while fluent, indicated an astonishing ignorance of why his son died fighting for God bless America, and the standard American ignorance of the killer state the U.S. has always been since its origin.

The Iraq war was staged. It was planned even before Bush was elected. You can learn that by reading Project for the New American Century. George Bush and Tony Blair lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. That's not a guess. There is lots of documentary evidence. They lied. That British government has just completed a report on it - The Chilcot Inquiry. They lied, and they killed over a million people, most of them civilians.

Mr. Khan's son was killed while murdering those people to restore the control of American oil billionaires over Iraqi oil. Then they hanged Saddam Hussein after an illegitimate trial because they said he was a war criminal. In fact,  the war criminals were Bush and Blair.

(For that matter, the U.S. had been a big ally and supplier of weapons to Saddam earlier so he could fight a war against Iran which had displeased American oil billionaires by taking control of its own oil fields. Another million died in that.)
Then Mr. Khan spoke of how the U.S. has spread democracy all over the world. Really? Name a country it has spread democracy to. Cuba? The U.S.  installed a brutal dictatorship that ruled Cuba until 1950. Guatemala? It has invaded Guatemala at least twice since 1945, first to destroy a democratic government, and then to murder hundreds of thousands who wanted one. It invaded Haiti early in the twentieth century to install a  dictatorship. When Haiti did rise and set up a democratically elected government, the U.S. intervened to "protect Haiti". It played a role in the murder of the elected president of Chile. When it conquered The Phillipines over a century ago, it installed a dictatorship. It undermined the only elected government Egypt ever had. Today, it routinely sends out teams of hired killers (special ops)  to murder government figures opposed to US policies.  American history is one of destroying democracy, not spreading it.

As well, the US, itself, is not a democracy. It is ruled by an aristocracy of the very wealthy.

How come an intelligent man like Mr. Khan doesn't know that?

He doesn't know it because the American media never tell him. George Bush is a mass murderer. He killed over a million Iraqis. He lied about the reasons. We have piles of evidence on this. We have an eminently respectable British government enquiry on it. George Bush is a war criminal. (At least, Americans should now have some sympathy with Germans who rallied to Hitler's call.) How could Mr. Khan not know this?

He doesn't know it because the billionaires who own virtually all news media in the U.S. have told him nothing but lies and propaganda. He thinks America has qualities of goodness, and selflessness, and heroism because that is what his news, TV, movies and history books have told him.

And what will the U.S. news media do with this story? They will play it up big. That's what I saw last night on TV.  Big business, normally in bed with the Republicans, has shifted its money to Clinton. She's a known quantity. And she's bought and paid for. Trump is certainly bastard enough to appeal to the corporations. But he's not a reliable bastard.

And the corporations own the news media.
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As an aside, can we get over this crap of calling everybody who  goes to war a hero? What was heroic in murdering millions of Vietnamese? Over a million Iraqis? What is heroic in  killing and starving the people of Yemen? What is heroic about making tens of millions of refugees, separating families, causing starvation and drowning in their flight....? What was heroic about the special ops killer who murdered a woman in Guatemala because she was an environmentalist?

If the people who did that are heroes, then so were the gallant soldiers of Hitler's SS, and the stalwart guards at Auschwitz.
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And the irving press?

Almost a full page is given over to the trite, boosterist comments about New Brunswick by four NB recipients of the Order of Canada.. The rest of section A news is even less interesting.

The editorial is empty blather ending on the note that our government has to promote the safe development of our natural resources. (Is somebody out there saying we should promote unsafe development?) Anyway, this is really just a pitch for fracking and an oil pipeline.

It also revives the myth that New Brunswick paved the way for confederation and did it because it was prosperous. Those two statements, both of which often appear in this paper, are pure rubbish. Confederation happened because British investors and speculators wanted it to happen.  And New Brunswick was NOT prosperous at the time.

Norbert's column is even emptier than the editorial. Most of it is pointless gush. We have a cultural mosaic more varied than our neighbours? Come off it. It's almost identical to that of Nova Scotia. (And both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia now have fewer blacks than they should have because so many of them moved to Montreal to escape the racism of the maritimes.  Montreal, alas, was racist, too.)

I was uneasy at the start of Steve Mallory's column because it looked like an ad for Rogers internet. And it is - but as a side-effect. It's really quite an interesting column.

Below him is another column of gush about how New Brunswickers are the most wonderful people in Canada.

Alec Bruce tells a pointless story.

I could find no reason to read Section B. It's a miserable, four pages, and most of it is trivial or out of date.
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Funny, I don't recall seeing the article below in the irvng press - but it made The Guardian way over in Britain.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jul/28/canada-emissions-climate-change-justin-trudeau-corporate-business

Nor do I think it will matter much. Big business (and its government buddies) have shown very little sense of urgency about this problem.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-killings

American police have, so far this  year, killed 625 people. That beats terrorists by far. Funny it hasn't become a major issue for either Trump or Clinton.
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This one is undesirably heavy on adjectives. But the writer is a person who has to be taken very seriously, indeed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45209.htm

It's long, but worth reading to the end where it makes an obvious point. The U.S. has challenged Russia by building missile sites near the Russian border. The U.S. is also well into a decline relative to Russia and China. Nor can it maintain its level of defence spending which is already a potential disaster of debt. So -
The U.S. will soon have to decide it's now or never to fire its nukes . And neither Russia nor China can afford to wait for the U.S. to fire the first shot. For over seventy years, the nuclear powers have made no serious attempt to get rid of nuclear weapons. Now the clock is running down. This is far, far worse than the Cuban missile crisis.
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As I wrote the site above, a couple of related points came to mind.

1. The word hero as routinely applied to every veteran did not come into use in the West until the Korean war. Then it became mandatory in the news media as in "Korean war hero gets traffic ticket." Essentially, it was used as propaganda - and very effectively so.

2. Before that, the word was used largely in cartoons to describe Russians who, we were told had a passion for medals. So Russian soldiers, in cartoons, would each be wearing a huge star with the world 'Hero' emblazoned on it.

Actually, the world leader in medals, for decades, has probably been the U.S. Even the drone controllers who sit in comfortable cockpits that mimic real ones, and who guide drones  thousands of miles away to kill people who might (or might not) be threats to the U.S. get festooned with medals.
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Here's look by a very reputable journalist at America's longest war that still goes on, and that wasn't even mentioned in the leadership races. Note, too, how Canada simply threw away the lives of 158 Canadians in that war that had nothing to do with defending Canada or anybody else. And we're doing it again in Syria and Latvia.

So that's what Canadians mean by the term 'hero', someone who risks his or her life to make American billionaires richer.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45210.htm
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This next one sounds true - and it must be. We can be sure of that because it didn't appear in the irving press.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45207.htm
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The following note just appeared on my screen.

Urgent: Chelsea Manning is being charged for her own suicide attempt, faces indefinite solitary confinement!
After years of inhumane treatment, and having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who has been in prison for years serving a 35-year sentence for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life on July 5th, 2016.
Click here to tell the Army not to use this as an excuse to further punish Chelsea or to prevent her exercising the right to speach.
Army officials have informed Chelsea Manning that she is facing serious new charges directly related to her suicide attempt. These new charges include:
1) Resisting a group of prison guards called "the force cell move team" (Chelsea was unconscious when this team arrived, which makes this charge particularly absurd.)
2) Prohibited property (for the items she used to attempt to take her own life.)
3) Conduct which threatens (for somehow putting the prison at risk while attempting to take her own life, quietly, in her own cell.)
Click here to inist on humane and legal treatment, and the dropping of these charges.
If convicted of these bizarre "administrative offenses," that are effectively charging her for attempting to end her life, she is facing indefinite solitary confinement for the rest of her prison term (another 30 years), "maximum security" classification (in the same facility), and nearly a decade before she can ever be classified as a "minimum security" prisoner.
It is unnecessarily cruel to threaten Chelsea with additional punishment while in this very vulnerable state. The government is trying to silence her important voice––for good. Chelsea has been systematically mistreated by the U.S. government since she was first taken into custody in 2010, including long stretches of extreme solitary confinement even before she had ever been convicted.
Chelsea is a transgender woman being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, which is in itself dehumanizing and exhausting emotionally. She is currently being denied medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, which experts have stated is the only course of treatment through which she would no longer be suicidal.
This is not the first time the government has harassed Chelsea with outrageous charges while in prison. Last year, they threatened her with solitary confinement for minor "infractions" including possession of LGBTQ reading materials and an expired tube of toothpaste. RootsAction and Fight for the Future and other groups gathered more than 100,000 petition signatures in response, and the outcry we generated kept her out of solitary. Now we need to do it again. Please, sign the petition and spread the word. Chelsea is depending on us.

Well, I rapped upon a house
With the U.S. flag upon display
I said, "Could you help me out
I got some friends down the way"
The man says, "Get out of here
I'll tear you limb from limb"
I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too"
He said, "You’re not Him."
-- Bob Dylan
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We did not defeat Hitler. He set the stage for what the U.S. has become - and for what Canada is being sucked into.

Meanwhile, the George Bush who murdered over a million people is a respected member of the Methodist Church.
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Here another big story the irving press didn't have room for. It needed the space for a really big story about how it has been exactly a year since Harper called our national election.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45208.htm

This whole section of information clearing house has a lot of good material that I didn't have room for.
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Meanwhile, Israel has for years been denying water to Palestinians. They've been doing it for fifty years because - well, because they're Palestinians. There are two things to note here. One is that Jews in Israel are behaving brutally and murderously  - and that is the result of what Europe, Canada and the U.S. have done to them for centuries. Just as we have created ISIS, we have created the brutality of Israel.

The other thing to note is that I have never seen a criticism of the behaviour of Israel in the irving press - and rarely in any other press - though the class of people who own private news media are the same class who persecuted Jews until very recently.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/01/israels-hydro-apartheid-keeps-west-bank-thirsty
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Here's another story that will never make the irving press. President Erdogan of Turkey has made it quite clear that  the U.S. was behind the attempted coup in Turkey. The story names names, and says a bit about the methods.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/08/01/erdogan-accuses-us-of-supporting-failed-coup-in-turkey/

By coincidence, as I write this, thousands of Turkish police have surrounded the major U.S. air base in Turkey, the refueling base for attacks on Syria. You won't find that in the irving press, either.
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I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. It's all speculation. I don't think it's entirely true. But there certainly are incidents that give this credibility.

http://thesaker.is/false-flags-fluttering-in-the-empires-hot-air/
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And, as we send our soldiers to Latvia, tell me what evidence we have been given that Russia is preparing an attack?

I have been able to find only one item - and it's no evidence at all. The story we have been told is that Canada's intelligence service says, "Russia is preparing for war." That's it. Four words.

So the U.S. is preparing for world war on the basis of four words from Canadian intelligence? That's it? Now, take a look at those four words. Russia is preparing for war....? Can you name a country that is NOT preparing for war? The U.S. is spending more to prepare for war than all the rest of the world put together. Britain is preparing for war. France is. Germany is. Canada is. Almost every country is preparing for war and always has been.

And on the  basis of that we are going to send an undersized and underequipped Canadian force on a task that could trigger a war?

That's nice. That means if this does trigger a war, we can remember our fallen heroes on Nov. 11. If there is a Nov. 11 by then. And if there are any of us to remember them.