Dec. 17: Escape the trials of the world - read a Faith Page.

On this Saturday, I get relief from the empty pages of the irving press by turning to its Faith Page.  The is a page dominated by columnists who are Christian fundamentalists, ones who believe in the most literal translation of The Bible. They are also part of the bedrock of those who voted for Trump, and so, therefore an inspiration to us all. They also sooth the mind. In fact, the put it right to sleep.
On this Sunday, when our leaders are, as always, busy at killing and looting people, especially the poor ones, all over the globe, when they are planning for nuclear war, when Trump is opening the gates for those billionaires who want to destroy all human and animal life by destroying the environment, who want to bring God's blessing to earth by destroying medical care and education for the general population, we - well - we know this is good because this  is what American fundamentalists voted for (though in fairness, it was also what Americans on the Democrat side voted for.)

The value of today's Faith Page is that, as always, it gets away from this yucky stuff, and deals with the real issues of faith. Focus on the needs of children. For example, invite an international student to dinner, perhaps one of those whose families we are dropping bombs on. Don't feel lonely. And the writer tells us, by ommission, not to even think about the destruction and horror we are inflicting on most of the world. (With the exception of those districts where the better sort of people live).

And it just sparkles with insights I have never heard  before - "focus on the true meaning of Christmas" - "Jesus loves us" - and other original insights.

In contrast, on the same page, there are two articles about the Pope wasting his time when he could be inviting an international student for dinner. He's trying to mediate an end to the civil war in Colombia. Worse, he's denouncing the treatment of hospitals as if they were businesses.. But any good Christian, like Trump, understands that  they are businesses. And, anyway, churches shouldn't be talking about such things.

No.  Keep it safe this Christmas. Forget about all those people we're killing and looting. It's their own fault for not being Christians like our side. To keep it safe, to keep out silly ideas   (and any ideas), there will be a Christimas service at the Irving Chapel with a guaranteed, high class  rent-a-rev guaranteed to say nothing at all - something along the lines of today's Faith Page.
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Here's a CBC item that draws attention to  something the world news media should have noticed (but didn't) from the start of the whole fuss over whether Putin interfered with the U.S. leadership race.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/accusations-russian-government-cyberespionage-u-s-election-1.3900325
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A submarine drone, capable of identifying all ships and submarines in its region,  popped to the surface in "international" waters.   (They are claimed to be international by the U.S, but Chinese waters by China). The submarine was American and the general area is populated by most of the American fleet. But when the submarine popped up, the Chinese were closest to it, and they took it.
Now, before you read this, think of how the US would react if the Chinese had a massive fleet patrolling just outside American waters, and if a Chinese drone torpedo had popped up within reach of an American ship.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/17/donald-trump-china-unpresidented-act-us-navy-drone

Another question. Why did Trump, who is not yet president, make such an aggressive response to China? It's still Obama's time to do that. Are Trump's plans already in place?
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I attend no church. But I have long been an admirer of Pope Francis. And I see I am not the only one.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/17/happy-birthday-pope-francis-world-sake-do-not-retire
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The buzzing of lies in the world's media.

https://off-guardian.org/2016/12/13/the-cias-absence-of-conviction/
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This is an important one to understand. Never understimate the lying of our news media, subtly through propaganda,  not so subtly through outright lies. It has always been so. But it has become noticeably worse in the last thirty years.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/16/sorry-not-sorry-neither-the-media-nor-their-owners-are-going-to-change/
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"Protecting you".  maybe.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/17/facebooks-fake-news-measures-a-move-toward-censorship/
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I'm waiting for the summaries of the presidency of Obama. I can recall the day of his first election. I was on a radio panel discussing it. Everyone looked forward to it after the years of Bush - everybody except me. I saw nothing of substance in any of Obama's plans or policies.

And so it proved. His only plan of worth was Obamacare. But it was obvious from the start that big money in the U.S. would never allow a real medicare plan. It didn't; and now what is left of Obamacare is almost certain to be destroyed.
His foreign policy has been, essentially, Bush's foreign policy. And it's been the disaster that Bush's was. Worse, it has failed more openly and obviously than even Bush's did. As he leaves office, Obama has lost Syria to Russia, at least, and possibly to Iran. The only policy that has worked from Obama to Bush (to Trump?) has been to redistribute wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich. And that is going to bring its own price in the next four years, though how much of a price depends on the holding power of American news media propaganda.
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Here's an interesting one from Haaretz that raises a big question about how American's poor will react as they learn what Trump really has in mind for them. It's also interesting for its look at the richwhite/poorwhite racism that has marked the history of the English-speaking world - including Canada - even New Brunswick.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/17/facebooks-fake-news-measures-a-move-toward-censorship/

Dec. 16: Trump - Same Old Same Old.

Today's irving press has an inspiring 'Commentary' from a propaganda house - Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. Just two days ago it had a major news story on the same topic (cutting back government spending - largely on that part of the spending that goes to filling social needs.) It was not only the same topic - it came from the same propaganda house.

This is an old game. Whenever economic times get tough, the rich are the ones who decide that the poor have to suffer. That's what the rich did in the depression of the 1930s. Everybody suffered - except the rich who hit new heights of wealth. Looks like we might be in for another round.

There was no mention in the news story or the commentary of taxing the rich. No mention of cutting back spending on the rich. No, just two stories in three days on nailing the poor and the middle class, and both of those stories from the same 'institute'.

Oh, I forgot to mention. The owners of the newspaper are the same people who were leading founders of - the Atlantic  Institute of Market Studies. Kiss, kiss.
The Chamber of Commerce will have to hold another big dinner to honour those few wealthy who devote their lives by founding institutions such as the irving press and the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies out of sheer love and concern for the rest of us ungrateful slobs.
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Often, too often, we look at a war, itself, to make judgement about it. But there's a large and lasting part of that war that is largely ignored. In this case, it's what is done to the children. And when we undertake wars, we also create the horrors below which we seldom read of except as side issues. This is not side issue. This is a world of the future we are creating.

Read the article - then keep going to the section 'Related issues". They're all good.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/dec/16/syrian-refugee-children-working-lebanon-violence-10-hour-days-international-rescue-committee
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I include the following story partly because it's not common for a Canadian prime minister to make the front page of The Guardian. But it's interesting to hear a speech from a person whose political career so far has done remarkably little (and often the reverse) about what he claims are major problems. It's also unusual to see a covering story that hints strongly at criticism of the speaker.  The headline suggests Trudeau has something to say. The covering story does not.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/justin-trudeau-interview-globalisation-climate-change-trump

(I have never before seen a statement about a politicians which cites one of his major qualifications is several years as a snowboard instructor.)
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Here's a story that would appear in North American news media, if at all, as a criticism of China. It's about the Chinese capture of an American drone in international waters off China. This story begins as though it's  going to go in the direction of China -    but soon shows a more mature (and more intelligent) sense of what this is all about.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/16/china-seizes-us-underwater-drone-south-china-sea
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While our private press has been happy to leap all over the death toll from Russian bombing of Aleppo, it has largely ignored the toll in Mosul where the west is doing the bombing. My purpose is not to advocate the bombing of either city. My purpose is to illustrate how our news media largely ignore the horror of the bombing of the city our side is bombing, while playing up the bombing of the other.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/16/while-decrying-massacre-in-aleppo-us-steps-up-bloodshed-in-mosul/
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This is short, and not really a news item. But it sums up a point I have often made about the Christians churches in these times of desperate suffering - much of it imposed by Christians.

(The author refers to his church as the UCC. I presume that means United Church of Canada, a large, Protestant denomination.)

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/16/o-little-town-of-bethlehem/
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The next article is useful in making sense out of Trump. In short, the author says that whatever Trump's campaign might have said, his policies are essentially the same as those of Obama and Bush and many presidents before them. One only has to look at his administration choices to see that.

If anything, he's even more extreme than others of the past.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/16/can-we-make-sense-of-trump/

The site, countercurrents.org has several columns on this topic. All are worth reading. But beware - there are two countercurrents sites. One  (not recommended) features publication. Look for the one with the words educate, organize after its title.
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There are still lots of people all over the world who don't believe that climate change is happening. Most of them aren't scientists of any sort. Many are news media people employed by media owners - and who would lose their jobs if they openly believed in climate change. And some of them are scum of the earth news media people and academics who find it profitable to say the change doesn't exist. Such people can be found even in the Canadian press. (Yes, they can.)

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2016/12/globe-columnist-lauds-trump-and-says-there-no-climate-consensus
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Here's a fascinating story.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/16/wells-fargo-is-on-a-losing-streak-but-still-has-some-trump-cards/
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Trump has made it clear he intends the greatest assault yet on the environment. And his position as president guarantees the police and the army will be on his side. But it might not work this time. The openess of his assault is quite likely to provoke popular uprisings against any further such damage. He has not won people over to destroying the environment. And it's quite possible he won't - and that his pushing of his agenda may provoke a response that cannot be controlled.
Take note, members of the New Brunswick assembly. Watch. And learn. If you give people no choice, they will make a choice of their own.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/16/if-you-want-to-see-how-donald-trump-will-destroy-the-environment-read-this-legislative-roadmap/
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And this one.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38752-latest-climate-report-the-arctic-is-unravelling
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How can we sum all this up?

Trump will follow essentially the same policies as Bush and Obama - and as many other presidents of recent years have. True, he will try to build a relationship with Russia. But the purpose of that will be to detach Russia from China. And  that's not likely to work because Putin is smarter than the average American voter.

He will be much more forceful in his approach to exploiting what is left of the environment. And he will be more violent about it than past presidents have been. That will leave his critics with no choice but to respond with violence. I have no doubt that Trump has plans for that, particularly in the lavish use of police and the army.

The catch is that the U.S. is a large place with a population large enough to spread violence over a huge area. As well, Trump could find himself fighting Americans while, at the same time, trying to fight foreign 'enemies'.

He has shown no signs in  his  appointments that he intends to do anything about the social and economic problems of those who made up his voting base. He will try to contain that by raising their fears of blacks or latinos or whoever is useful. It might work, but at the price of making the U.S. an even more dangerous society. It would also be the end of individual rights for Americans - something which has been disappearing for years, anyway.

His aggressive attitude to China will, inevitably, lead to a nuclear war. The US which, in fifteen years, cannot defeat  a minor power like Afghanistan would find itself in a very long, conventional war against China. And the US population has shown that it will not accept a large butcher's bill. No, it would have to be short and nuclear.

Watch for social unrest, probably severe violence, in the U.S. Watch for rising poverty. Watch for increasing instability.
       
Would it have been better to vote for Clinton?

 No. The problem does not begin with the politicians.  It begins with the enormous power of a small number of billionaires, and with their control of information and propaganda through their ownership of news media. And that is a problem Trump (or Clinton) would be most unlikely to deal with.

This has not been simply an election. It has been the end of an era. American democracy has been largely destroyed. This has been a process going back almost to its founding in 1776. It's over. It has been destroyed by a capitalism which is incompatible with democracy. (Notice who it is that Trump has been meeting with? See many poor people there?)

Or, to spread the blame more widely, think back to all those wonderful things we talked of as the reasons we fought World War Two - an end to wars, international cooperation, a shared prosperity...... And we broke every damn one of them.
And, no, it wasn't the communists who did that. It was us. All of us.

Dec. 14: A very ugly day.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian, freelance (independent) journalist who has served many years in the middle east. I don't know much about her career. I don't know what her biases may be.   But I do know that much of what she says is true. The Syrian Observatory of Human  Rights, almost    daily quoted in our news media, is a non-organization. It's fake. It's one man, a Syrian haberdasher living in  England who  favours ISIS and its friends.

The so-called 'white helmets' who act as good samaritans rushing to the aid of those injured, notably in Aleppo, are actually propagandists who specialize in photos of themselves with children they have 'saved' -  some of them several times, and always taking lots of pictures for the press. They are drawn from the so-called 'rebels' - which means anybody who is opposed to Assad - and that means they are largely drawn from the ranks of the Jihadists.

Eva Bartlett has actually been in Aleppo many times, a  thrill most journalists prefer to avoid.

I do not suggest there is anything nice about the fighting and the bombing in Aleppo.  It is the nature of modern warfare that its greatest slaughter is carried out against civilians. The pioneers of this kind of warfare were not Syrians or Iraqis or Jihadists. The pioneers of it - and the most ruthless users of it - have been the western, Christian nations. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both chosen, quite deliberately, because they had no significant military presence. The world record for such massive and deliberate killing of civilians has the U.S. way aheard of the rest of the world. - except in our news media.

We have read and heard very little of the killing we  have done - especially with bombs that go on killing children years after they have been dropped.  And that, too, is deliberate.    

Offhand, I cannot remember a single article in the popular press that has ever been critical of our behaviour. But when the other side does it - oh - it's so unChristian.  

And in every war this has happened since 1939, the purpose of the war has been economic - to grab resources and economic control of the world for those wealthy enough to buy power in their own countries. We have reached levels of greed and exploitation that the Hitlers of this world could only admire from a distance.  

Whole nations have been effectively destroyed; millions have been murdered; tens of millions have been been refugeed, uncounted millions are starving even as we read this.

Of all the evil greed and slaughter of the past, none has ever matched us. And the airmen we send to do it are called 'heroes".    It gives a whole new meaning to "Onward Christian Soldiers".
    
And we remain impossibly oblivious to the horror we have created. Partly, that's because of our lying news media. Partly it's because we lack the courage to speak openly (or to see) what we have become.

The western powers have become nations of murderous robots whose only virtue is that we don't get the rewards of our killing. The rewards go to meet the stunning  greed of our very wealthiest citizens who, in their spare time, also loot us. And who, no doubt, go to church every Sunday.

And our news media lie. Get used to it. The news media are owned by the same people whose greed drove them to destroy Iraq and Libya and Yemen and Syria.... Nor would I excuse Russia from having some of the same faults.  The virtue of Russia in this case, though, is that it tells some of the truth of what is going on.

https://www.rt.com/news/370270-msm-agenda-siria-war/
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In it's earthquake crisis of some years ago, Haiti never received much of the foreign aid that had been promised to it. In fact, much of that aid money went in to the pockets of wealthy contractors, especially U.S. ones, who were supposed to be providing aid. Almost all of Latin America has lived in poverty and dictatorship for close to a century, mostly due to U.S. interference. But Haiti has been one of the worst.

Now, it's facing starvation after a hurricane - and nobody is even showing much interest in helping. (And those who aren't showing much interest are prominent among those who recently were chanting, "Wasn't Castro a terrible man?"

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/dec/13/food-crisis-looming-in-haiti-as-aid-slow-to-reach-hurricane-matthews-victims
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And here's a very suspicious one that gives no hint of what the White Helmets are about or who it is that supports them. It is at least possible  that the ones they want to get out of Aleppo are themelves and their 'rebel', jihadist friends.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/14/white-helmet-aleppo-civilians-safe-passage-city

The Guardian should at least have given us a hint about the role source of the White Helmets.
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Meanwhile, those nice people in the U.S. are still supply the cluster bombs that will destroy Yemen children today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/banned-by-119-countries-u-s-cluster-bombs-continue-to-orphan-yemeni-children/
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From the start, it's been obvious that we have not seen any proof that Russian hackers interfered in the American election race, or that Clinton was the target. But just about every news medium in the western world gives the impression they did.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/
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The Trudeau government is showing interest in banning asbestos. I was astonished to read that. I didn't know that workers still had to handle a material long ago known to be a major cause of cancer. I   don't know how far back that knowledge goes; but it must be as early as sixty years at least.

So can you guess how long it will take Trudeau to act on climate change?

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2016/12/activists-convince-trudeau-government-to-ban-asbestos
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When Castro died, few news media in the western world praised him. Quite the contrary. They lied constantly. giving an absurd version of the aims of a very tiny country fighting off the power of the the most powerful nation in the world. And succeeeding for fifty years.

That tells you something about our news media.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/13/fidel-the-truth-about-his-struggle/
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The Donald Trump who pledged to be the voice of the poor and neglected will, of course, be nothing of the sort. The U.S., already one of the most backward countries in the world in providing for the basic needs of its people, is going to step way, way further back.

Will that rouse his followers to take action against him? It's possible. But American voters have been well hypnotized for over a century. They should be be furious now at the people he is choosing for his government. But, so far, there's not a whimper.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/14/trump-trumpets-his-real-plans/

He also made it abundantly clear he intends to show no concern for the environment, to destroy the very feeble, public health care the U.S. has and, almost certainly to seriously weaken public education in favour of some privatzed schools for profit scheme to further enrich the obscenely rich. How that is going to help the poor and the middle class isn't clear - and never will be. And you can be sure the US news media will be not be any help to anybody in clarifying that.

The greed of the wealthy that is starving, killing, debasing human life all over the world will soon be very noticeable in the U.S. But there is not a sign that anybody  has learned any lessons from the savagery of the last  severnty years or so.
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Here's a bombing story our news media haven't bothered to tell.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/its_2016_do_you_know_where_your_bombs_are_falling_20161214
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Capitalism is an economic system that is inherently self-destuctive. It's fundamental motive is greed. And once  greed takes hold, sanity disappears. Greed, in time, destroys most of any population, then turns on the greedy to destroy them.

What has happened in the U.S. is that capitalism very early in American history became defined a right for all, To say otherwise was to be anti-American. From the start, the weatlhy used their wealth  to buy control over governments. That was  the beginning of the end of American democracy. The politicians ceased to represent the people, and came to represent the wealthy who owned the politicians.

For years now, the American wealthy have worked hard NOT to be part of the American people. They use the American people. But they refuse to submit themselves to the discipline of the American state. Capitaliststs do not exist to serve the state. They exist only to serve themselves.

That's why the emergence of two hoplessly incompetent and unworthy people as  Democrat and Republican leaders happened. Don't blame either Trump or Clinton for what has happened. Their emergence was simply the collapse of any social structure  that could be called American society. It's gone. It's over.

The next stage, of greed turned loose, is going to be very, very ugly. Nor am I at all sure the U.S. will survive it.
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And here, by any standard, is a stunning piece of news about American weapons sales to jihadists.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46036.htm
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There's much more in the news - though not in the irving press. We are in for deeper trouble - and I have seen no sign that the Canadian government or the Canadian people will show enough responsibility to stop us from plunging after the U.S. into its bottomless pit of   service to the very rich.

And, frankly,  I became disgusted and discouraged by today's news - and cannot stir myself to write more about it.

Dec. 12: apologies for lateness

I pass lightly over an irving press story that announces a study showing that the provincial government spends too much money on us  worthless slobs  who are the citizens. There is no mention of how much it spends on rich slobs. Worse, the paper does not tell us anything about the organization that released this study.
It is the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. This is a propaganda house sponsored by the wealthiest people in the province. It's purpose is to tell us what the rich want us to think. That's why if never tells us about the taxes the rich (don't) pay, nor what they get in gifts from the government. This is propaganda directed against us, and they actually make us pay to read this crap.

Don't waste your time. If you want to read this sort of mindless blather, just read Norbert Cunninham's column. It's shorter.
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Two crises hit today's blog.

The first is that I was feeling unwell as happens to the decrepit of my vintage.
The second was that I caught a TV clip of Obama looking very solemn and angry. He said the Russian's hacked into American computers, and thus interfered in the presidential election. He told the CIA to investigate.

It might possibly be true. Lots of governments hack into other countries' affairs. In fact, the U.S. is probably a world leader - except that the U.S. seldom lets it go at interfering. It frequently murders large parts of the population and installs dictators.

Question 1 - The CIA is probably the organization best equipped in the world to detect and fight such a problem. So how come it didn't notice this hacking?

Question 2 - Isn't it odd that, within hours, the CIA wa able to come up with full proof of Russian interference? I would be more confident if they had taken a little longer.

Question 3 - why are we not allowed to see the proof?

What game, I wondered, is really being played here?

Is Obama looking for a showdown with Russia? It's no secret that the other U.S. leaders want to conquer Russia. They have publicly said so. It's an essential part of conquering the world so that American business can rule supreme. This is an ambition that goes back to 1945. But it hasn't done well. It it's ever going to be done, it has to be done very soon.

And things are not looking good in the very soon. The U.S. has become bogged down - and outplayed by Putin - in the Middle East.  Every day, a war with Russia becomes less possible. Is Obama using this election incident to go now rather than later?

Another possibility is almost as bad. He wants to dispose of Trump. Very, very wealthy  backers of the of the Democrat Party find Trump in their way. And the money involved is far, far greater than the Trump fortune. And they want their girl, Clinton, in charge. We're talking many, many billions, and probably trillions.
Is Obama looking to make this into a constitutional crisis?

It has to happen soon. But the people who voted for Trump are already very, very angry people.Any such move against Trump would spark unpredictably strong violence.

As Obama spoke last night, I felt a terror. I was awake all night though in a sort of stupor, convinced I was writing about this on my computer - and actually seeing the pages on the ceiling.

It has not been a good day.
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And here is an example of some VERY bad journalism by The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/11/aleppo-war-horrors-bombing-hospitals-geneva-conventions

This is a column made up entirely of lies. And, no. that's not just a disagreement. The use of bombing to kill large numbers of civilians is not, as the columnist says, contrary to western values. In fact, western countries pioneered in it. It began with Winston Churchills' bombing of the Kurds. It was picked up by Germany in Spain. In the Second world war it was highly developed by The British, Americans, Canadians, and Germans. From 1945 on, the U.S. has relied heavily on the mass bombing of civilians because killing civilians from the air cost them fewer casualities. That's why 30% of the whole population of North Korea was killed by aerial bombing.

And I don't know where he gets this trash about western values. But I do know know that western warriors have slaughtered, raped, starved and looted civilians for as long as we have recorded wars. This column is simply propaganda. And not very intelligent propaganda.

Yes. The bombing of Aleppo is terrible. Now tell us about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Cologne, London, Cambodia, Iraq.....and the list goes on.
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The Washington Post is not a trustworthy newspaper - to put it mildly. But it is the one that has carried most of the story about Russia hacking American election sites.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence/
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And here's a useful suggestion on the same topic.
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https://theintercept.com/2016/12/12/obama-must-declassify-evidence-of-russian-hacking/
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---a story the irving press didn't have room for. It needed the space for---. well,....empty space.  Because empty space is what the irving press does best.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/12/the-forgotten-war-in-yemen/

You'd think the irving press should show more pride in a war that we supply with armoured cars to kill starving children.
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The North American reportinig on Castro's death was contemptible. Here's something better.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/12/telling-lies-about-fidel/
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This is a very bitter and angry  column. But, mostly, it's true. And  those true parts never made it into our news media.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/12/fake-news-laundered-1950-53-us-slaughter-of-3-million-koreans-to-maintain-us-1s-rule-of-south/
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And this is the story the irving press would have published if it were a)honest and b)intelligent.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46017.htm

So far there has been no evidence whatever of Russian intervention in the U.S. election. But that's not the impression given by most of the North American press.
__________________________________________________________________________________In effect, nothing is happening in regard to climate change. The oil industry has shown no desire whatever to give up the profits on a resource that could kill us all. Wouldn't it be reassuring if Mr. Irving were to make a nice, public statement about this? I know he can write one because he once did a column for his newspapers telling us that he was going to be generous enough to become a member of the government, and run the province without us even having to elect him.

http://truepublica.org.uk/global/home-truths-climate-emergency/
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An election race which produced a Donald Trump and a Hillary Clinton as the ultimate contenders is not something that should be blamed on either Trump or Clinton. The blame rests of the whole system and society that could produce only those two. No matter how this turns out, one feature is what what counts.

American political, social and economic life has collapsed. It's not cominig back.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38575-noam-chomsky-s-requiem-for-america

December 10: Fake News

We have to face it. Trump and his vicious band of billionaires are not the result of a freak election. This has been coming for a long time. This is a government that could not care less about the needs of the American people. It is a government of   pure self-interest and greed.

And there is no opposition to it.  The Democrats are essentially the same party with the same 'values'. There is no movement of any significance outside the old parties. At most we  have those who voted for Trump - all those people who voted for slogans that had no meaning. Make American great again? What does that mean? Destroy even more democracies? Plunder more countries for the American wealthy? Kill more people?

All that exists is greed and self-interest. There never was a whole lot of anything else. Now there is nothing else at all. Nor is it going to change. The North American news media are not going to suddenly become honest. The American government is not going to focus on the needs of the American people. Nor does it matter. The most the American people will wake up to is what we saw in the election, a people who are angry but who have no sense of what should be done about - and who accept slogans as if they meant something.

This is not the collapse of a party. This is the collapse of a nation.
So what can the rest of us do?

Some are already doing it. They are shifting their ties away from the U.S. and toward other powers. Others are looking to regional alliances.
And what will Canada do? I recognize the mostrous task of shifting our focus away from the U.S. But I also recognize the disaster in remaining attached to it. We've just gone through a similar switch.

In 1900, Canada was very much the servant of Britain. It was understood that we fought Britain's wars, that we took Britain's side in international matters.  That was underlined with the Boer War. It ended abruptly in 1945. We became the servants of the U.S. because that's where the power was. Britain was a back number.

And that is the kind of decision we have to take now. Will it be difficult? Oh. yes. Is there a choice? Sort of. We shall seek out new alliances - or we shall go down with the U.S.

It's not just Trump. The social and moral decline of the U.S. was happening before him. He has just made it obvious.
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Here's a news story whose headline says one thing while the story suggests something quite different.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report

I would not be surprised if Russia interfered in the election. - but that it would  be enough to decide the outcome sounds more than a stretch. (And Americans are scarcely virgins when it comes to interfering with elections.) In any case, the evidence in this report is, to say the least, pretty thin. This whole announcement looks very much like what has come to be called false news - and it now accounts  for much of the news we get.
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The rich get richer by making the poor poorer. Of course. it's an old story. The wealth of the western world was - and is - built on impoverishing, looting and poisoning Africa, Latin America and, until recently, much of Asia. Here's a sample from Africa.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/africa-dirty-fuel-pollution-corporate-behaviour
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Our news media were mostly hot on Castro's death as a sign of how much Cuban hated him. That's why they focussed so much on the Cubans of Florida - rarely mentioning that they were the supporters of the brutal Batista, the dictator supported by the U.S. (In fact, the existence of Batista was rarely mentioned at all.)

Here'a more accurate account of how Cubans feel about Castro.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/haiti-canada-blog/2016/12/fidel-est%C3%A1-presente-celebrating-castros-rebellious-life-san
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In this age of false news, it seems increasingly clear that the CIA statement that Russia interfered in the U.S. election is a classic piece of false news. This feeling was also clear in Guardian statement - though you had to read all of that one to get the story.( The irving press didn't even have the story. I guess it's cheaper that way.)

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence/
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Gee, our news media buying their news from organizations funded by Syrian rebels (ISIS, etc.) Actually, it's been going on for a long time. One of those organizations is White Helmets,  the group that put out a staged photo of a Syrian child after a bombing attack in Alleppo. The photo was a sensation in the world press - and a fake. They also print stories regularly from 'The Syrian Human Rights Observatory', a rebel organization founded by a haberdasher in England. (White Helmets. essentially a propaganda group, easily makes its way through the western news media. It's a world of fake news.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46003.htm
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In a world of violence, greed,  cruelty, the Christian churches have preferred to babble about anything by violence, greed and cruelty. If you are, for example, a wealthy person who makes his money out of cheap labour, you can relax at the Irving Chapel, knowing you wil hear nothing offense.
For a sample of the blah! of our churches, read the Faith Page of the irving press any Saturday.

But there are signs of life.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SANCTUARY_HOUSES_OF_WORSHIP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-12-09-15-26-28
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This is something we should all have known for some time. But I guess a reminder is always useful.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46001.htm
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Much of the news is taken up with the terrible things Trump is likely to do. I'm sure he is. But that's not the whole news. There's much we aren't getting.
For example, we aren't told that most of the news we get from Syria comes from jihadist sources. The Jihadists realize quite well that western reporters are on their side. So they will publicize fake photos of a bombed out child. They will believe all stories about Russian cruelties. (I don't know when I've seen so many stories about the horrors of bombing civilians. Where were all those reporters when the U.S. bombing killed almost one-third of the population of North Korea? Where was it at the horror of the bombing of Fallujah by the the U.S?
Why do reporters not seem to be going to the scenes of drone attacks?

Much of our news in the 'free' world comes with a heavy bias. That shows in who's version     they prefer to print, what incidents they prefer to ignore, what stories they buy from fake news agencies  (like Syrian Observatory of human rights),  and it's polished from there in the loaded language of media writers.
Most of the news we get is either from dubious sources, or presented in a prejudicial way, or outright lies - pure invention. That's true of even the most distinguished of the private media - like New York Times.

News analysis is even worse. (The irving press doesn't have it -with a few exceptions. But, for the most part,  the 'analysis' is propaganda or bedtime stories.) The news media are also full of 'analysts' who simply rant and peddle hatred. There's an audience for that.

And the emphasis on Trump is wild. While an important one, he is not the only important leader in the world. And, in fact, we are getting almost nothing on the rest of the world. I listened to one pro-Trump analysit that Trump will save the world by seeking peace with Russia.

Well, that would be nice. But think hard. Russia, like the U.S., is dominated by capitalism.  I don't see where a merger between capitalists is going to do the rest of us any good.

We're living through a system that is a disaster in its itself. It will, of course, destroy itself. But if we wait that long, I don't think we'll get a second chance.
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And, I'm late for the ballet. So I won't proofread this one. Enjoy the typos. They're free.

Dec. 9: Donald Trump - Hero!

And liar.

Donald Trump saved a 1100 jobs that were about to be moved by Carrier from Indianapolis and out of the U.S. And he's not even president yet. Isn't that wonderful?

Actually, it's not.

He announced to eleven hundred workers he had saved their jobs. In fact, he saved only 550. The other  550 will find that out the day they get their final pay cheques. And that's not all that's wrong with this deal.

Their employer will get a great tax break and other goodies out of this. And who will have to carry an extra tax load to make up for that? Not the Trumps of this world who don't pay any taxes. No.  All the people of Indiana. That's one hell of an expensive way to save jobs. If this is to become his standard method of dealing with unemployment and underemployment, there won't be a U.S. left to save.

What he has done makes no economic sense at all. Think of it. If the U.S. is to save jobs, it has to throw money at employers in order to get them to stay. And that money can come only from -    American tax payers.

But it's good show biz. It shows the president elect as a man of decision and action. Yes. Never mind that his decision and action are hopelessly destructive to the American economy. Lots people - suckers - will see Trump as the man of action, the one who will make America great again.

Oh course, he can't do that many more times without destroying the American economy altogether. But not to worry. All he has to do is to keep himself in the news doing things that seem like action. He probably won't have to look again as though he's saving jobs. So then he can do other brief but spectacular things. Change the jugglers. Change the lights. But keep the -show moving, always moving.

How come that an advanced nation produces voters who fall for this? Much of the reason is they cannot see any alternatives. They're smothered under heaps of the propaganda that they like to call American values, all of it reinforced with lying news media, and with myths spread by TV and film and history about the  goodness and world leadship and generosity that Americans, unlike all other people in this world, share as common values.

In this picture, freedom is easily contorted to mean power for the very wealthy, to mean greed. And murdering other nations and stealing their resources comes to be thought of as spreading American values. It isn't new. Most empires have been like that. The British kidded themselves they were doing good when they plundered China and india and South Africa.

Remember Rule Britannia. Britannia rules the waves?. For Britons, never, never, never shall be slaves. That nicely sums up the reasoning for the British Empire. Now, think hard. Who, in the last 500 years has tried to make Britons slaves?    Africans? Native peoples of the Americas? China? India? Dutch farmers in South Africa------? Did Iraqis try to enslave them?

Americans are not allowed to think of any other way to run a country. That would be unAmerican. Trump's job, like that of most U.S. presidents,  is to make sure they stay in la-la land. So watch for more spectacular (and worthless) gestures.
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These are more pictures of lakes that are disappearing because of the climate change that oil bosses tell us isn't happening.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2016/dec/09/the-lakes-of-the-world-are-disappearing-in-pictures
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Here's opinion by a quite remarkable man. And it's something you're most unlikely to see in a North American newspaper.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/09/wolfgang-streeck-the-german-economist-calling-time-on-capitalism
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When economic times get tough, nail the poor. That has been the capitalist response to every recession or depression I have ever heard of. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the Canada of the  1930s. Brazil today is suffering terrible economic times. It's goverment is - to say the least - capitalist and strongly supported by the U.S.

And look at where that has taken this miserable country.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/09/brazil-austerity-cuts-un-official
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And, amazingly, I don't think t his story  made the irving press here in New Brunswick.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/09/justin-trudeau-under-pressure-amid-cash-for-access-fundraising-claims

Actually, let's  not play a game with this. Both Liberals and Conservatives in Canada have ALWAYS played the game of setting up friendly chats for the wealthy, chats that have a payoff for both sides. Funny how it never makes the news. The greatest weakness of our political system is the cost of getting elected. And neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have ever shown much interest in changing that.

I know what the irving press could do. It could run a list of bagmen for Canada. Who, for example, in New Brunswick is the one who chats with the newspaper owner and makes deals?
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Here is a story I've not seen told in full in any private news  medium in North America - the Sioux protest at Standing Rock, and the extraordinary brutality of legal officers who faced them. This story is almost certainly not over. Expect Trump to make things even worse than Obama did in his handling of it.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/09/americas-final-solution-for-the-sioux-it-was-a-close-call/
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And here's an item you won't find, ever, in the irving press.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/09/home-truths-about-the-climate-emergency/
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We're in serious trouble with Trump. And we would have been with Clinton. There is no real difference between the two except that Trump is a better con-man. And Canada is next door.

What Canada should be doing, at any cost, is to break all ties to the U.S. Unless we do, we are  committed to all the fantasies that the U.S. is committed to. And to all the hells the U.S. is going to suffer.There are countries breaking those ties now, and with more to follow.

(Remember how so many Canadian  (and Americans) said, during the election campaign, that Trump was a self-seeking fraud? He was. He still is. And most of his American  opposition is as greedy and voracious as he is. There is no alternative to what is happening in the U.S. We should want to get as far away from that as possible. Good luck on explaining that to most of our politicians.
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Every day there are news stories about deception and worse in the White House. In this one, Trump has appointed a prominent climate change denier to be in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. For Canada to  stay in connection with the U.S. as a part of this U.S. world order is insane.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/david-schnare-trump/

The tasks that face us in the environmental   area alone are immense. We need major work all over the world - not just on setting targets for change but reorganizing whole nations. But we've yet to lift a finger on it.
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I have a friend who, for many years, worked for the Canadian government in  tracking unemployment. He warned me never to believe government figures. Employment is always lower and often much lower than the government says it is. The U.S. is even worse.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45997.htm
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Who would have guessed that Syria would have been able to hold out against jihadist wars waged on it by the U.S. But, with Russian help, that has happened.  And the U.S. plans for a monopoly on all power in the middle east are in ashes. Now, it's Russia that has a foothold.

American wars, for all their killing, have been failures for sixty years. No nation has ever had such military power and such failure. There is little love and even less confidence all over the world for the military actions of the U.S. It was fought wars almost non-stop since 1941. In all those years since 1941, nobody has attacked the U.S. But it goes on invading and killing. How long will it take some people to get the message?

This is truly insane. At a minimum, we cannot possibly remain a puppet colony in the American empire.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/08/rolling-back-the-empire-washingtons-proxy-army-faces-decisive-defeat-in-aleppo/
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This should have been obvious to Canadian news a long time ago. But they're not used to telling the truth.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2016/12/trudeau-has-opened-path-to-democratic-future-well-get-there-l

I keep thinking of all the promises of World War 2, promises that we celebrate every Nov. 11. "There'll be love and laughter and peace ever after..."
Not one of those damn promises has been kept. We have delivered our people to fight wars that benefit only billionaires. And we don't even whimper when the billionaires deliberately work at destroying the foundations of our world. In the U.S., they'll now settle down to destroying the few services left to a withering nation. We're seeing the same in Canada, and it will pick up steam.

The U.S., which can afford to kill people by the millions, can't afford health services for its own people. And we're seeing the early days of such a movement in Canada.

Cuba, a tiny nation made poorer by American economic embargoes, and daily faced with the threat of invasion by the U.S. was somehow able to afford a full education for all children who wanted it, and full medicare. And most of that brothel we call news media used the funeral of Castro to denounce a man whose only crime was to free his people from American gangsters, pimps, and exploiting American capitalists.

We have made one hell of a mess. The U.S. has led the way. And Canadian leaders have followed with whimpering and with tongues hanging out.
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Our skies are full of pigeons coming home to roost  - climate, greed, exploitation, murder, impoverishment.

And we're trotting in circles like the master's dogs we have always been.

Dec. 7: Hot News Flash!

A first for the irving press.

Like many newspapers, section A of the irving press is made up of local news - most of it of no importance whatever - such as minor stories from the court house. Section B moves to national and world news. But the irving press is not just another newspaper. No.

Section A is the usual simple-minded trash. But Section B has one, small story of international news. (back page). That's it. The rest is more local news. And more than  half of it is simply gossip from the court house.  Business break-in lands man in jail. A former employee will be sentenced for stealing from a local Subway shop. The section has six photos of the court house - all of them the same photo. Section B is almost all useless information. But it's cheap news to gather. Notice how almost all of it is done by staff reporters, not by news services.

I  have never seen a newspaper which treats its readers with such utter contempt. I read that that senior editor for the chain  (who just happens to be an irving) has a master's degree in journalism from Harvard. But I don't think Harvard teaches cheap and brainless crap like this.
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American big business has wanted control over the China for well over a century. The American invasion of The Phillipines in 1900 and the establishment of an American dictatorship was supposed to be a step in that direction. But it failed then, and it has failed ever since.

In 1941, it seemed the great chance had come again. Britain and the other European powers were too busy in Europe to interfere in Asia. That only problem was that Japan was now raging through China. So the U.S. still needed an excuse for a war with Japan.  It had to appear that Japan was the cause of the war. (The American public has long been averse to wars that kill too many Americans. Vietnam has been a reminder of that. To launch into a war with Japan would have been political suicide.)

So President Roosevelt cut off Japan's oil supply, knowing this would force Japan to declare war on the U.S. And that is what Pearl Harbour was all about.
What has  long puzzled me was how 'it happened' major units of the Pacific fleet, including the aircraft carriers were at sea at the time. Most of the ships left for Japan to bomb were old ones. The other mystery is why so many defensive and communications systems failed.

Then I received this note from a reader.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/12/pearl-harbor-facts-proof.html#more-63816

2,400 Americans died at Pearl Harbour. And there's good reason to believe they died to feed corporate profits.
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The lust for the wealth to be taken from the world's largest market has by no means ended. The U.S. is now sending the bulk of its navy to the Pacific. It  has surrounded China with bases, including nuclear weapons. (China has not surrounded the U.S.) That's why there has been so much fuss lately about the limits to Chinese territorial waters. There is every reason to believe the U.S. is now looking for its excuse to go to war with China - perhaps even before Russia.
Such a war could only be nuclear. Among other things, the U.S. public would never accept the butcher's bill for all the Americans who would be killed in a conventional war with China.
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I have often mentioned the appalliing record of Canadian mining companies in Latin America. Such stories have never, of course, appeared in the Canadian   (or American) press. However, a monthly news sheet in New Brunswick (nbmediaco-op) is less shy. It reports a study from Osgoode Hall Law School on violence and criminality in 13 Latin American countries where Canadian mining companies are active -  levels of violence are extremely high - including 44 killings in the last two years, with most of the dead being 'troublesome' employees of the Canadian mining companies.

 Trudeau was contacted to take action on this issue. (Good luck on that.)
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Last night's TV news featured an interview with former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney. This is the only Canadian prime minister ever caught red-handed at accepting 'favours' (big ones)  while in office, and at tryinig to lie his way out of it. He is also the former P.M. who was allowed by Harper to get away with it. For pure sleaze, the only prime ministers who matched him were  (possibly) John A. Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper.

He assures us that that Trump will be just a wonderful president, and that Trudeau should do whatever Trump tells him to do.  And that, I think, is a decision Trudeau has already made.
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The article below appeared with the headline "World leaders attack Russia for bombing Aleppo". That headline is not repeated on the  page that appears here. - but the story carries the same message. This is really a piece of propaganda, and it's bad journalism to treat it as news.

The total number of 'world leaders' in this story is 13 - and it includes a Canada which only the most patriotic would call a world leader. As well, all of these 'world leaders' are all heavily committed to supporting the U.S.

And the U.S......would it ever, ever bomb cities and kill civilians? Hey. So far, it's the world champ. This isn't news of any sort. This is propaganda.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/07/theresa-may-condemnation-russia-aleppo-bombings-syria
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Laughing billionaires is something we'll see a lot of  during the Trump presidency. Indeed, his is slated to be the wealthiest administration in American history. This is the administration that will kill medicare, seriously damage public education, and destroy anything that doesn't make big money for the wealthy.

And this is the one that the poor and the frustrated voted for.

Watch for pressure on Canada to follow suit. Watch for Trudeau to be a good, little servant to the wealthy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/07/donald-trump-koch-brothers-cabinet-transition-power

The American election was not just an election. It was a revolution. And that could mean another revolution to come.
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This next opinion piece will be disputed. I think there's a great deal of truth in it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/mcdonalds-democracy-corporate-globalisation-trump-le-pen-farage
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Here is something that should be well-known, but which rarely, if ever, appears in western news media.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/why-turkey-is-seeking-close-cooperation-with-russia-in-syria/
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This is shorter than usual. I stopped writing early in this one because I found the news media, even the good ones, pretty uninspired today. It's as though there was suddenly a vacuum in the news, and a  vacuum in meaning. In fact, I had sensed this early when I referred to Trump (above) as a revolutionary. But revolutionary isn't the right word.

In thought and action, he's as greedy and vicious and evil as Clinton and her followers - even more so. What's different is the style in which he presents it - highly loaded language, emotional, grandiose - but with no sense of policy or meaning.

He's not revolutionary in what he would do. He will abandon all those working class and impoverished Americans who voted for him. He will make up for that with an emotional style and preying on myths and hatreds and fears - rather like Hitler.

His administration is shaping up as the richest and most reactionary in American history. Watch for a massive attack on public education, public health care, and public services in general. Watch for pressure on other countries (like Canada) to do the same. Watch for Trudeau to cave in.

And ask yourself why he has been making nice to Putin. How does that fit in to any policy Trump spoke on? Why is Trump doing this?

Think of the jewel in the crown that has evaded American  billionaires for well over a hundred years. Think of the reason why the major American naval base, Pearl Harbour, was built out in the Pacific so far from the U.S.

Think China - the largest market in the world, the pot of gold.

And, oh, I hope I'm in a better mood on Friday.