August 3:It's not just climate change. It's us.

Our politicians just love to give glib talks about how they'll deal with climate change (which they may or may not think is happening.) But it's not that easy.

In parts of Africa and Asia, climate change is already causing mass starvation. And so the people flee. (They have a double reason to flee as we inflict the horrors of war on them.)  In their terror, they buy places on rafts and, jammed on these, they float to Europe.

At first, Europe grudgingly accepted them - though usually in crammed and vile refugee camps. But now it doesn't do even that. It kicks the rafts back out to sea where the refugees die of hunger and/or drown.

Much the same is happening in South America which has been plundered and brutalized for over a century by American billionaires. So far as the billionaires are concerned they are simply cheap, very cheap, labour, not worth educating or feeding. And this has made climate change all the more brutal for them.

This, not an urge to kill and rob Americans, is why these people are now at the American border. And the Americans, in imitation of the Europeans who kick them back into the sea, puts the adults into prison and the children into wire cages.

Mass movements in Europe and around the world are the products of climate change  - which destroys crops - and ruthless capitalism. The Liberals think they can solve this with patchwork legislation. The Conservatives think they can solve this by saying it isn't happening.

At present, this disaster affects something like a hundred million people. Soon, very soon, that will be hundreds of millions and, quite likely, a billion. Try kicking those back out to sea.

Back in 1945, we were going to create a world based on international cooperation and respect. We didn't do it. Now - we act very soon or drown in our own sea of economic greed that we call capitalism.  All the signs are that we have chosen the latter.

Dealing with climate change cannot simply be about climate change. Huge as it is, climate change is just one aspect of the world of greed and mass murder that we have created.
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How does one account for Christians supporting Donald Trump? Well, throughout history, religious bodies have supported the national government, however evil.
That's why churches in the U.S. have always supported the greed of capitalism, the mass murder of native people, nuclear weapons (for their side only), the savage treatment of Latin America, the racism of a Trump.....

Trump's faithful have always looked after themselves. They tend to be the born agains. So what the hell. They're okay. They've been splashed in the holy water so they've been saved. And getting saved, well, that's getting your ass covered for eternity. So they're covered no matter what. That's why it's quite acceptable to be a racist in the deep South.

(The above is quite serious.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/europe-heat-wave-climate-change-1.4904410

Pay no attention. Put your faith in the Liberals and Conservatives.
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I haven't seen much about it in the news media. But it looks as though Canada has made a boot licking commitment to the U.S. Some weeks ago Trudeau committed Canada to supporting the U.S. in its bullying of Venezuela.

Were the Canadian people consulted? Was parliament consulted?

These are important questions because when the U.S. gets nastier with Venezuela, we are likely to find ourselves committed to supporting the U.S. in its very illegal treatment of Venezuela. At best, we are now committed to support American violence in that country.

So, like the British in Iran, we could well be committed to kissing up to American oil companies and helping to invade Venezuela. ( Britain and Canada are now committed to pro-American support    Britain re Iran, and Canada re U.S. - which could mean anything - and which is none of our business. Indeed, if anything, Canada should be supporting Venezuela at the U.N. )
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https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=373697047018228084#allposts

This is strange. The U.S. has been deploying short and medium range nuclear missiles in Europe for years. (the story mentions this.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/police-responding-active-shooter-el-paso-1.5235776

Must be one of them there Latin American border people who sneak into the U.S. to kill God-fearing Americans.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/03/ipcc-land-use-food-production-key-to-climate-crisis-leaked-report

One of the many things that has to be done to deal with climate change. It's not as simple as the Liberals and Conservatives make it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/hong-kong-police-fire-teargas-in-clashes-with-protesters

Will the next  step be troops?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/syria-idlib-child-deaths-airstrikes-assad-putin-russia

I can agree with the opinion of the above item.

But the truth, I fear, is that most armies kill children quite deliberately. Forget Trump's celebration of our 'brave lads'.
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The best news on Hong Kong I have heard for a long time. I hope Gwynne Dyer is right.

https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/9531377-gwynne-dyer-at-this-point-the-hong-kong-confrontation-is-purely-symbolic/
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/08/former-postmedia-journalist-hired-kenney-government-reset
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/02/bernie-sanders-dominates-analyses-fundraising-data-show-vermont-senator-widespread

well - good news.

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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/climate-is-warming-faster-than-it-has-in-the-last-2000-years

Show this to Ontario premier Doug Ford. He can  understand pictures.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52027.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52024.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52016.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52023.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52022.htm
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Canada's Conservatives wish to restore Canada's relations with the world's most vicious and backward country - Saudi Arabia - which routinely beheads in public, with mass executions for minor offences. Large numbers of Canadians are going to vote Conservative.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/02/news/conservatives-if-elected-would-work-restore-ties-saudi-arabia
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/31/opinion/fossil-fuel-burning-leaps-new-record-crushing-clean-energy-and-climate-efforts

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_https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/03/review-the-plot-to-overthrow-venezuela/

 God bless America, fighting for democracy ---sort of.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/02/july-has-re-written-climate-history-month-could-go-down-planets-hottest-ever

Wake up, Canada.
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This has been a dreadful day of blogging for me. I cannot believe that Canadians are so dumb in their voting choices. About half of them are so irresponsible and so out of touch with any reality that they are voting Liberal or Conservative.

The world's leading scientists have agreed. We are facing a  climate  crisis. And we have little time. The Conservatives (who have offered no studies of their own - and who don't have the ability to do any)  deny this - and don't tell  us what their evidence is. Of course not. There is none.

The Liberals are scarcely better.

But, oh, the Liberals and the Conservatives are smarter than all the world's leading climate scientists. And the temperature rises of recent decades, some of the biggest in thousands of years, don't mean nuthin'. Of the two parties, the Liberals might be slightly, very slightly, better.

And Canadians are so foolish and  - oh, what the hell, stupid - that they are going to vote for one of these parties. ("my family has always voted for-- " fill in the       blank.)  It's frightening to have to live in the same world as people like that.

And the U.S. has gone completely off the rails with racism because so many white Americans ARE racists. It's now very likely that this will trigger racial wars within the U.S. And this storm of racism and hatreds will block social legislation that the U.S. is already many years behind on.

All that we said would make a better world back in 1945 has been discarded. And we never did it from the start. The world after 1945, like the world before it, has been notable for greed, mass murder, torture.....  And for the frightening lying of our news media - much of it owned by the same people who make money out of greed, mass murder, torture.

The U.S. has gone the furthest in this with money for killing being far the leader in its spending. Well, it really can't waste money on health or education. That would mean taxing the rich  - and they don't want to be taxed. So there.

This world is marching backward at the command of greed. And this time, the march goes off a cliff.

To prevent this is not a simple matter of voting.  It's immensely complicated as a hundred million or more people are already in danger - and that number could expand to a billion and more. It means rethinking what nations are all about. It means saving our oceans and their sea life. It means feeding many millions of the people we are allowing to starve.  It means accepting people, millions of them,     from crashing. It means restructuring the world as we didn't do - though we said we would - in 1945.

This is enormously complex affecting every aspect of our lives. (I'm an historian. I have no special knowledge of the complexities of all this. But one doesn't need to be a specialist to see that chaos that will come with such a mass movement of people. And that mass movement is happening and will happen much, much more.)

This world is facing, like it or not, massive  change. Change in attitudes to other religions, other races; changes to governance; changes in the attitudes it pleases us to call values.

We haven't even begun to think of what must be done. And we have very little time.
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Sorry to spend so much time in my opinions.

August 1: bad, bad, bad - a depressing day for this blog

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2019/august/1566136800/jo-lle-gergis/terrible-truth-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR3sc6L4dIXzScxKJVKpQWLyxdwQs-Bt-S-D68tJo7dE_PdxLal_T1nZY54

This is a new one, all the way from Australia. And you won't find it in most (any) Canadian commercial news media.
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Mind you - not all Canadians are brain dead Liberals and Conservatives.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2019/07/its-our-choice-turn-down-heat-or-cook-planet

Notice that almost all the leading climate change deniers are people who make their money out of oil or demolishing forests. but they rarely speak out. They leave that to their flunkies like Doug Ford, the Conservative Party, too much of the Liberal party - and all of these are people who have none of the scientific training to make the statements they do. (Doug Ford is a high school graduate - clap, clap, clap. Then  you have New Brunswick's oil family, the irvings, whose leader is a man with some 16 months of mickey mouse university courses - none of which qualify to say anything - and, anyway, he dropped out halfway through.)

And I am stunned that so much of our population has been gullible enough in such a crisis to believe the people  who have no qualifications whatever - while ignoring the world's leading scientists.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/01/hong-kong-protests-china-military-breaks-silence-to-warn-unrest-will-not-be-tolerated

This, I'm afraid, is inevitable.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5l_0bm6ko

Gwynne Dyer is almost as smart as Doug Ford,   New Brunswick's Irving family, the whole Canadian Conservative and Liberal parties, and even Donald Trump.
Wake up, Canada.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/01/latest-proof-trump-unwilling-and-incapable-engaging-peace-talks

I really have no idea what Trump's policy toward Iran is. The original crisis was created by John Bolton. Trump seemed to oppose it - and very wise that would be.  Iran is a democracy (which it also was the last time the US attacked it and set up a  dictatorship). It has done nothing to threaten the U.S. The only motive for this war is that American oil companies want control of Iran's oil.

Has Trump decided that backing away now would make him look weak in front of his murder-loving, praise Jesus, evangelical admirers?
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One of the most terrible acts of Hitler is that he created Israeli Jews who are as brutal as he was.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/01/the-ongoing-dread-in-gaza-so-many-names-so-many-lives/
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/08/alberta-targets-foreign-special-interests-omits-big-oil
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/01/the-ongoing-dread-in-gaza-so-many-names-so-many-lives/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/us-federal-court-exposes-democratic-party-conspiracy-against-assange-and-wikileaks
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/germany-wont-take-part-in-u-s-strait-of-hormuz-initiative
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The CIA is a US army - sort of. It's made up of thugs from all over the world who kill because - well - because that's what they get paid for. And they like killing. The useful thing about it is that it gets ignored by news media. That's why it's murder of 200,000 Guatemalans and an unknown number of missionaries, priests, and nuns never made the news.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-dirty-war-in-south-sudan
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And this one will bring a tear to your eye.

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/07/31/Scheer-Worry-Bills/
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Most of our commercial news media is made up of liars. Most of it is owned by wealthy individuals or groups  - and it lies. It lies to please it's owners. We had quite a spell of that when Conrad Black set up the last post (which has now expanded to other papers across Canada). The last post is bad, very bad.  But the Irving press in New Brunswick is worse. Oh, and then there's Fox News.

It's also been true that news media - at least for 150 years and more have been propaganda agencies for their owners.

https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2019/07/29/Media-Denying-Climate-Crisis-Symbol-Malpractice/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/01/the-us-sanctions-are-affecting-all-aspects-of-human-life-in-iran/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52005.htm

Poor Britain. It's now a servant for a murderous U.S. Just like poor Canada.
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And this is long - but too true.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52014.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52003.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52012.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/31/opinion/fossil-fuel-burning-leaps-new-record-crushing-clean-energy-and-climate-efforts
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And - a badly needed break in the dreadful and even insane tone of this day's blog.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/01/news/canada-creates-vast-conservation-zone-arctic
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/31/opinion/canada-faces-reckoning-guns

Not surprisingly, it was a Conservative government  that most recently made gun ownership much, much easier. Hey. We have to make Americans respect us.
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Israelis are close friends with a Saudi Arabia that is one of the most brutal and savage nations on this earth.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190801-saudi-arabias-normalisation-with-israel/
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https://truthout.org/articles/united-warren-and-sanders-show-what-a-left-wing-democratic-party-looks-like/

Of course, they won't win.
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Embarassing - and digusting. Canada is going to join the U.S. in its illegal campaign against Venezuela - in the process helping to kill more children for American oil billionaires.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/powerandpolitics/canada-us-talks-eu-sanctions-maduro-1.5233774
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/july-hottest-month-1.5233368

Don't worry about it. The Conservatives (and the Liberals) won't do a damn thing.
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This, I think, must be the most depressing blog I have ever written. It's not just our leaders - as  corrupt and irresponsible as they are.

It's us.

Canadian and American voters don't have a clue about what's going on. They never have had. At best, they believe our lying news media. That's how a handful of some of the greediest and irresponsible billionaires have risen to power.

Over 40% of American voters support Trump - a liar, a fool. And the Democrats are going for Joe Biden for president, a man who ideas were old and corrupt centuries ago.

And large numbers of Canadians are drifting to the Conservatives - a party bathed in corruption - and the Liberals who do a better job of disguising their corruption.

The world that was going to be changed in 1945 never happened. Instead, we have had 70 years of corruption - and, since 1950 - continual plundering of the Canadian and American people.

So what will happen after the elections? Non-stop wars,  continuing abuse of the American and Canadian people and, very possibly, one hell of a world, economic crash.

Americans and Canadians have to learn how to think - and develop the guts to act.
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July 30: A bad, bad day.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/shifting-ground

Don't worry. There is no climate change. If there were, the Conservative Party would have told us.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/being-china-support-hong-kong-carrie-lam-protests-1.5228707

I think (  I very much fear) that China is going to take a hard line on this. And there is, I think, nobody in a position to moderate.  On the contrary, China is likely to take a very hard line.

My Hong Kong students followed me back to Montreal. I think now of their farewell trip back home....of the e mails that some have sent me over the years..and I fear the worst...
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/29/met-office-confirms-new-uk-record-temperature-of-387c

Relax. This can't be true. The Canadian Conservative party says there's no rush and no big deal.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/baltimore-donald-trump-comments-al-sharpton-1.5229439

This is deliberate. Race hatred. And Trump is not suffering in the polls for it. Is Trump encouraging race hatred? No. He's encouraging what has always been there.
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These are Trump's "killers" and "gangsters".

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/29/guatemala-climate-crisis-migration-drought-famine

Much of this famine is all over the world as we have ignored the effect of climate change. It's going to get much, much worse as we block migrants at our borders or push starving people back to die at sea.
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Like this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/26/migrants-rescued-from-sea-kept-at-libyan-centre-hit-by-airstrike
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/29/ethiopia-plants-250m-trees-in-a-day-to-help-tackle-climate-crisis

Meanwhile, Canadian loggers like the Irvings of New Brunswick just cut and spray with poisons.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/07/push-free-speech-charter-alberta-campuses-will-privilege
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/council-canadians-blog/2019/07/attawapiskat-water-crisis-continues-despite-urgent

Well, aboriginal Canadians who live on reservations are probably sick, anyway.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/environmental-polluting-agency/
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https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/9515926-gwynne-dyer-boris-johnson-is-quite-possibly-the-last-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom/
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Canadians, vote Conservative. Then the sea levels won't rise. Yeah.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/30/we-are-climate-emergency-warn-experts-and-aoc-greenland-ice-sheet-faces-possible
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/29/new-westminster-cabinet-far-to-the-right-of-thatchers/

The days of Britain are over. The world will not miss them.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/with-criticism-crushed-in-the-west-israel-can-enjoy-its-impunity

Israel is not what Judaism is about. Murder, land theft are not what Israel should be about.
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___https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/07/23/Will-Trudeau-Rein-In-Export-Development-Bank/____________________________________________________________

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52001.htm

The purpose of all that military spending? It's to provide huge profits for the U.S. war industry.
That means it is doing enormous damage to education, to those living in poverty...
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And how are we heading?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51992.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51997.htm

This is possibly the greatest defeat in American history. How come our news media don't mention that.

And Canada's parliament sent Canadians to kill and to die there in a war that had nothing to do with Canada.

The United States is a nation in profound collapse socially, governmentally, economically, morally... And Canada is next door to it.
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__https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/30/news/vancouver-companys-green-generators-are-pumping-clean-power-film-industry__________________________________________________________

https://off-guardian.org/2019/07/29/why-should-iran-be-defended/
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and this - is a remarkably stupid man.

https://theantimedia.com/trump-kill-10-million-people-afghanistan/
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https://theantimedia.com/us-venezuela-clap-sanctions/

A remarkably stupid and vicious man. And Canada is his nearest ally.
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https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-declining-for-a-reason/

Here's a luck at reality - and it's very different from the record of the U.S.
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https://truthout.org/articles/hong-kong-protesters-chinese-workers-point-the-way-to-new-internationalism/
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Let's be real. We live in a world dominated by greed and privilege. It's always been that way. It was like this in the middle ages. It  was like this in Ancient Rome. And the pattern repeats itself. The greedy and privileged assume power (and call it civilization.) Then, driven by its own greed, the privileged class sends itself crashing down.

This is what is happening to Britain today.  That is what is happening to the U.S. And to Canada. A sample of Canada's decline?

We have an election coming up. The Liberals have been no  wunderkind. But the Conservatives are even worse. And the Canadian vote is drifting to the Conservatives. It may be our dreadful news media that have kept Canadians so ignorant. But whether they go Liberal or Conservative, we're toast. The reality is that Canadians are crashingly ignorant of their own society - and their news media are a big reason for that.

And the news media, most of them, are owned by greedy and lying billionaires, all of whom support only Liberals and/or Conservatives.
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July 27:A bad, bad day.

A reader sent a post to this site requesting information. However, the site given by the reader does not seem to exist.
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This is a profoundly depressing day for me as I realized a truth about western society.
The U.S. will not accept refugees fleeing Latin America. It says, with no evidence, that they are killers and perverts. (This from a U.S. which has the largest prison population in  the world - and the world's most heavily armed population.)

Yes. All those children you see in wire cages are killers and thieves. (The reality is that US billionaires have plundered their lands for a century and more.)

As well, it is widely believed that Americans are God's chosen people who can only be tainted by Latin Americans. And Americans, the same ones who won't let Latin Americans escape the horror the U.S. has carried out on their home countries, are God's chosen people to save the hungry and the poor....

How is it possible for a nation to believe such lies?

"Bring me your tired, your huddled masses yearning to be free."

Something much the same is happening in Europe where refugees, fleeing the poverty and death inflicted on them by Europeans and Americans in Africa and
and the middle east, head for sanctuary in Europe, often in overpacked rafts, and often to die when European governments force them out to die in the open sea.

As I thought about this, I remembered a book I had long ago read. The author, like Americans and Europeans today, branded some people as evil, and necessarily to be killed in order to preserve our western purity. Those people were Jews. And the book was called Mein Kampf.

Our leaders are today's Hitlers. And our murderous followers (and dupes) are.....
us. Yes. We are today's Nazis. And no. I'm not exaggerating.

(I have not written this well.I'm sorry. It's hard to right anything convincing about how we are as murderous and plundering as any people in history. But we are. We are plundering people all over the world, inflicting misery, starvation, death.
And the plunderers and killers among us plunder us, too - and bankroll politicians like Ontario's Doug Ford and New Brunswick's Irving family.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-greeland-europe-ice-heat-record-1.5225980
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ocean-plastic-liberals-fact-check-1.5212632_
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/refugee-detention-1.5216860
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We are getting rather little news about Iran. Here's my guess about what's happening.

The idea of war against Iran was created by John Bolton and, though he was a cabinet minister, it seems unlikely he told Trump what he was doing. In many, perhaps most, countries Bolton could and should have been shot.

Trump, in all his time as president, has shown no great desire for a war with anybody bigger than Venezuela - though he may be under pressure from his oil billionaires on this one so they can steal all of Iran's oil.

Iran, sensing Trump's reluctance to go to war, is playing hard ball, realizing Trump wants to back off.

And why on earth is Bolton still in the cabinet? That suggests that other people of very great influence do want a major war.

Here's an interesting account of the American situation.
https://www.thenation.com/article/iran-diplomacy-trump-war/
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http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/2019-seat-projections-minority-government

I think I'll just cry.
Canadians are really, really badly informed and hopelessly out to lunch. If the Conservatives win, count on disaster on the environment front.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/07/ford-keeps-popping-conservatives-chagrin

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/26/unprecedented-wasteful-and-obscene-house-approves-148-trillion-pentagon-budget

1.48 TRILLION for the Pentagon. Almost all of that is for lavish contracts for the friends of the government - nothing for health, education, housing, poverty - who gives a damn?
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https://themindunleashed.com/2019/07/russia-warning-us-iran.html
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It's been a terrible day for this blogger. I couldn't believe how many Canadians are planning to vote for the Conservative party - a party so corrupt and so sold out to big money that it beats even the Liberals.

Nor does it have anything intelligent to say about the biggest challenge facing us - climate change. Give them four years in office, and it may be game over for ever dealing with that. They can actually read reports of severe climate change all over the world every day - and still lack either the honesty or intelligence to deal with it. And they are tools of a very wealthy business class that plunders us every day, constantly taking money out of our pockets to give to the very, very rich.

July 24: to hell with everybody...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/24/summers-second-heatwave-set-to-break-records-across-europe

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-2000-years-1.5222258

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/europe-heat-wave-breaks-records-could-go-even-higher-1.5224284

Hey! Don't worry. The Conservative party says it ain't happenin'. And they know things.

Look. We have thrown away thirty years when we should have taken action. There comes a point where we can't take action. (We may already have passed it.) People all over the world are going to suffer terribly and die.

And our oil billionaires will have to turn up their air conditioners.

Death to all has begun. And we have  voted Conservatives into power in half of the country.  Yes. Death to all.  Us humans can be amazingly stupid. And oil billionaires can be amazingly greedy.

Wake up!
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Yep. Britain has a Trump for leader. And he's going to make it the greatest place on earth, which will drop the U.S. into second place. (Mind you, he needs work on his hair.)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/boris-johnson-brexit-pm-parliament-1.5224435

Mind you, this could well be the end of a united Britain. Scotland, for example, is a good bet to dump the England connection.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/24/trump-presidential-seal-doctored-russia-golf-turning-point
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American billionaires like the Brazil president. He's their kinda guy. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-point
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/25/trump-administration-climate-crisis-denying-scientist
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https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/9515926-gwynne-dyer-boris-johnson-is-quite-possibly-the-last-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/25/deadly-heat-waves-sweep-globe-research-shows-planet-warming-rate-not-seen-2000-years
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/17/cnns-amazing-dishonesty-in-smearing-assange/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/iran-seizure-of-a-british-tanker-more-than-tit-for-tat
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/07/15/Canada-Divisions-Hardening/
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Hitler won! Israel has no connection with Judaism.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190723-amnesty-israels-mass-demolition-of-jerusalem-homes-a-war-crime/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51971.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/22/news/canadian-high-school-science-courses-behind-climate-change-says-ubc-study

Hey. That  ain't nuthin'. They're even further behind on Canadian military history.
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/arctic-forest-fires-record/
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Strangely, I have not come across this report in other news media.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/07/25/venezuela-defeats-new-power-sabotage-in-hours/
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Most governments, especially large ones, have no morality whatever.

https://theantimedia.com/uk-sold-810-million-arms-saudi-arabia-khashoggi-murder/

God save the Queen. "Send her victorious, happy and glorious"? That's the part about murdering and plundering all over the world.
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https://truthout.org/articles/eventually-we-will-all-be-climate-refugees/

Don't worry. We have premier Doug Ford of Ontario and the Conservative party of Canada and Donald Trump to protect us.
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article207083.html
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I have never had such a hard time writing this blog as I have had in writing this issue. Our levels of greed and arrogance and brutality and stupidity - and our acceptance of those levels may have reached levels without precedent. And, on a more piddling level, the support for the Conservative Party of Canada is a disgrace for the this nation.

I'm not crazy about the support for the other parties. (That for the NDP and the Greens is way below what an intelligent nation should produce - and at that, I think    both of those parties pretty cold soup.)

In 1945, we were going to create a whole new world order. I remember as a kid hearing that. But we didn't do it  (That's part of the reason why,  in Trump's term, the U.S. national debt has risen by two trillion dollars. And that's not because of spending on the American people. It's because of massive contracts to the war industries  - gifts for billionaires.

We are showing every sign of nations in terminal decay. In Canada, the Conservative   party is the poster boy for ignorance, waste and greed - with the Liberals not far behind. The U.S. is actually worse.

Our education systems have not advanced since the 1920s - they were then and they are now designed to favour the very rich - to let the poor stay poor.

And at a time when oil is killing us, our leaders are encouraging the spread of it.

We have created a system designed to collapse and, quite likely, to take all of us with it.

Thank you premier Ford and all the rich morons of this world whose asses we kiss.

July 23:"This is the way the world ends....

Not with a bang, but a whimper."
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/20/britain-lured-into-deadly-trap-on-iran-by-trump-hawk-john-bolton

I thought Trump had quietly, with saying so, dumped John Bolton. Apparently, he hasn't. And Iran is now a super dangerous war for the whole world.

And what is Trump doing? He seems to be working on racism to win his next election.
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While doing some research on the American war in Vietnam  (the one in which it happily burned children alive and powdered them with Agent Orange), I was astonished to learn that The Canadian Legion accepts the membership of Canadians who fought for the U.S. in that war. (There were some 30,000 of them - at the same time that Americans were fleeing the draft by coming to Canada.)

This was an extraordinarily brutal war on the American side which involved horrible slaughter of children, poisoning of most vegetation, and permanent brain and physical damage to horribly deformed children who would never live beyond seven or eight.

The war had nothing to do with Canada. It was just one more chapter in the American determination to establish their armies in Asia.

And the Canadian Legion accepted Canadian veterans of that unCanadian war as members???

And it played a role in giving those veterans a share of Canadian veterans' government benefits?
What the hell....

The Legion was formed to offer benefits to Canadians who served. Hell, if they're going to give them benefits for a role that had nothing to do with Canada or the Canadian people or The Queen or even the National Hockey League....

Hey gang, I got some great tips for you. How about offering membership to Canadians who serve in mercenary armies and kill whoever they are told to kill? And if you were going to accept such people, why didn't you accept Hitler's Gestapo in 1945?

Our legionnaires fought to defend Canada. And now they accept a crowd who had nothing to do with Canada. Indeed, they accept a crowd who fought one of the most greedy, vicious, immoral, and brainless wars in history. And  they didn't do it for Canada.

But we're going to kiss their asses for Canada?

Legionnaires, you need serious discussion of what it is you are about. I well remember being at the Senate when it's spokesmen worked hard to lie about events of World War Two. (Yes, our soldiers did some not-nice things. That happens in a war, so there's  no need to lie about about them.)

Think hard.

What is the Legion about?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/21/hong-kong-police-fire-rubber-bullets-as-protests-turn-violent

Hong Kong is determined to get democracy. The government of China probably figures it cannot allow that. It probably feels that any democracy given to Hong Kong would create a demand for it in China. (Britain, incidentally, did NOT establish democracy in Hong  Kong. Late in the day, it  made some improvements. But it stopped short.)

There is no possible answer to this collision but violence. And that, I fear, will be horribly brutal.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-response-trump-comments-1.5221433
He's a child, a spoiled child.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/u-s-accuses-chinese-company-of-buying-iranian-oil-1.5221381

O-o-h, Iran decided for itself who it can sell oil to. How evil.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/23/animals-failing-to-adapt-to-speed-of-climate-crisis-study-finds

Ain't true. If it were, our oil barons and their political hacks like Doug Ford would tell us. So relax. Doug Ford is willing to risk your life.
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2019/jul/23/could-trump-racist-rhetoric-win-him-re-election-in-2020

Hitler lives. God bless America.
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-boris-johnsons-obsession-with-saving-conservative-party-could-doom-uk

Many, many years ago, I  sat each morning in the CBC building waiting my turn on the air. Every morning I listened to Gwynne Dyer on his turn. And, oh, he was brilliant. Then I would hear the self-worshipping garbage press magnate Conrad Black doing his piece. (He always closed his eyes as he spoke. That was because he wanted to concentrate on the beauty of hearing his own voice.)
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/07/calgary-opts-cut-public-services-it-subsidizes-hockey

Bastards.

This cutting of essential services to  us common people so we can give millions more to the rich has become a feature of Canadian life
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/07/we-need-have-talk-about-capitalism-our-struggle-climate

I've written before about the plundering of this world by the very rich as government does the work for them by stealing from all of us to hand the money over to the rich. That is, in fact, the history of the world. And it is reaching such a level that we are facing disaster. In real terms, for example, Canadians and Americans are poorer today than they were twenty years ago. And the very rich are much, much richer.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/23/satellite-images-ignite-alarm-over-unprecedented-scale-and-planet-heating-emissions

Yes, and insect species vital to us are dying off.   Migrants? We have entered far the greatest movement of desperate people - millions now,  and a billion or more later as their habitats are destroyed. And it's happening now. And yes, parts of the U.S. will be producing migrants - will demand passages at the Canadian border as Latin Americans now demand it at the Mexican border.  After all, they're Americans.

Agricultural land is disappearing. Our food is disappearing.

The problems are immense. And we are doing - nothing. In thirty years and more, we  have done - nothing. This is the most challenging period the world has ever faced. And we have done nothing - except to elect politicians who do - nothing.

I hope the rich have found a place to go.

I hope it's hell.
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https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/23/how-john-bolton-tricked-clueless-uk-tories-confrontation-iran

I don't understand why Trump has allowed John Bolton to run wild on Iran. (Bolton has been a dangerous and murderous crackpot for many years. Most presidents have had the sense to keep him at a distance. But what appears to have happened here is that Bolton wants a war with Iran - and Trump is not stamping on him. I don't think Trump agrees with Bolton. And so I don't understand why he's letting him run wild.)
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And Boris Johnson? There is every possibility he will do what Hitler could not do - destroy Britain as a nation.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/23/boris-johnson-denounced-liar-racist-and-donald-trumps-poodle-elected-tory-party
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/22/bolton-gambit-succeeded-critics-warn-top-trump-adviser-has-put-uk-path-war-iran
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/22/ethnic-cleansing-impunity-israel-denounced-demolishing-dozens-palestinian-homes

Israel and it's destruction of Judaism.
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Hey! We gotta cut taxes on the rich.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/23/unconscionable-trump-usda-proposes-new-rule-strip-food-stamps-over-3-million
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/if-the-us-truly-wanted-a-humanitarian-operation-in-venezuela-it-wouldnt-intentionally-cut-people-off-from-medicine-and-food
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Women serve in our armed forces. That surely makes them members of the The Canadian Legion. So what is the reaction of the legion to this development? Why haven't we heard from it?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-sexual-misconduct-settlement-1.5216307
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John Bolton is creating a big war. Say thank you to the nice man.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51956.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51957.htm
__________________________________________________________________Oh, hell ----
A few nights ago, I sat out in a stifling heat after a day what was the hottest in History for my area. We've been getting these hottest days for some years now.  The process may be slow. But climate change is happening. The whole planet is dying. We've known it or should have known it for several decades now. The people who tell us this are the world's leading scientists.

So who do we listen to?

Well, for a start, Canadians listen to the  brainless and easily bought twerps of the Conservative party - the premiers of Alberta,BC,  Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, and the Champion kissup, Doug Ford of Ontario.

None of those has any significant training in climate science. None has ever explained to the public why it is okay to ignore the world's leading scientists. But the lives of millions - including our families, our children - and grandchildren - depend on these ignorant and uninformed people.

By the way, read some Canadian history. The Conservative Party has been corrupt going back to John A. MacDonald - and earlier. And I mean big time corrupt. And these are the people we are handing our children over to.

So why do such people go into politics? To sell themselves to the highest bidder.

And why do we vote for them? Because we're damned irresponsible fools. Let's not kid ourselves on that.

And the Liberals? Alas! They have some conscience - but not much  - and are low on guts.

And the NDP and the Greens? Well intended, at least. But with little sense of the horror that faces us.

And Canadians vote for these irresponsible asses.

We face the destruction of all life on this planet. We don't know how soon - but it will be soon.

The oil companies scarcely even bother to listen to us. Nor are they big on conscience. Since 1914, they have been ripping off the world, and have murdered uncounted tens of millions of people. We're about to see samples of that in Venezuela and Iran.

And us? We sit here with our faces hanging out.

YOU! Wake up. This is your world. These are your children.

Do you give a damn?

July 20: Down and Dirty Time

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

Does this matter? Probably not. The leading Democrat is Joe Biden whose major advantage is that he doesn't spout extreme views as Trump does - but is really not much different in general policies. The U.S. has a long way to go to reach the 21st century. Or even the twentieth.

And the Democrats, for the most part, are no different from the Republicans in kissing up to the rich. American democracy was lost a long, long time ago. And Biden is not going to change that.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/20/gulf-crisis-tanker-retaliation-iran-hormuz

Let's cut the crap on these stories. The U.S. has only one goal in the Iran affair. It wants to force Iran to hand over all its oil to the American billionaires that  Trump makes money out of. In short, it's exactly the same as the American attacks on Venezuela.

Forget the fancy arguments. Like the British Empire before it - and the Portuguese one before that, the American empire exists to steal resources of other countries for American oil companies And to murder those who object. It's really as simple as that.

To do that the U.S. sacrifices the lives of its soldiers - the ones Trump gets so weepy about. And this does not in any way benefit the American people because the oil gluttons don't pay a cent in taxes to pay for those wars. No, the American tax payer gets ripped off - and they also lose in the shape of health care and salaries and public education, ripping off the American people while most of their news media cheer.

Meanwhile, for all the cheers, American living standards are NOT rising. They are dropping because the billionaires need all the money they can steal. And it will only get worse.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/19/canada-sexual-misconduct-victims-payout-military

960 cases in one year. Well, any comment from The Canadian Legion? It has women in it's membership, hasn't it?
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/07/trump-hits-new-racist-low-attacks-congress-members
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https://www.thenation.com/article/puerto-rico-protests-scandal-rossello/

Never allow any part of your country come under American control.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-racism-impeachment/

What makes Trump dangerous in this is that the U.S. is a profoundly racist country.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/19/total-disgrace-outrage-trump-epa-says-it-wont-ban-pesticide-linked-brain-damage

And it's not just in the U.S. Check out the record of Irving enterprises in New Brunswick.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/18/noaas-finding-last-month-was-hottest-june-ever-recorded-bolsters-calls-radical

Yes. Climate change is real. And the people who ignore that are the oh-so respectable of our society. And one of the ones who will die could well be you.
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/15/john-kiriakou-if-dan-coats-leaves-no-tears-goodbye/
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/17/generals-ambassadors-security-experts-church-leaders-female-nobel-peace-laureates-all-say-no-war-on-iran/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/07/reason-why-west-is-determined-to-ignore-chinas-success

Yes. I know  I have criticized China for its treatment of Hong Kong. I still do. Yes China is expanding in power. But that does not excuse its brutal treatment of Hong Kong.
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/07/16/Leah-Gazan-NDP-Candidate/

The reality is that we are owned by billionaires. That has recently been obvious in the   Conservative leadership of Ontario's Doug Ford. When he took power in Ontario, he cancelled a huge list of projects to assist the average wage owner. Then he gave much of the money to the very wealthy. And then he destroyed most of the beginning the province had made to deal with climate change. ( Mr. Ford denounced the   findings of almost all the world's environmental scientists. And he relies on his own education which ended about the age of seventeen.)

The wealthy have always owned Canada and the   U.S. (and Britain and many others. They now are launching their final assault in the shape of the Bilderberg Group, an organization of the world's wealthiest whose objective is to force us all  to accept government by the wealthy. And, yes. They are quite serious.)

The most frightening thing is that so many people accept this idea. They really do. But why be surprised? This is precisely what Germans accepted when they put Hitler in power. Funny. In 1945, we chased down Nazi officials. But nobody said peep about the business leaders who happily served them - and used them.
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_https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/19/why-the-canadian-government-is-bullying-venezuela/_

Canadian capitalists are interchangeable with American ones. Canadian Conservatives and Liberals are interchangeable with American politicians.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/19/a-trump-plan-to-throw-50000-kids-out-of-their-schools/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51933.htm
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Judaism was   (and still  is in many parts of the the world) a wonderfully active and open-minded religion. But Hitler's Christians (yes they were Christians) destroyed much of that - and gave us a state of Israel that resembles Nazi Germany.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-almost-as-many-religious-restrictions-as-iran-report-says/
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/19/news/no-canada-isnt-danger-splitting
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/09/news/exclusive-doug-ford-didnt-tell-you-ontario-cancelled-227-clean-energy-projects

How could a big, well educated province like Ontario elect such a lout?
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/19/giving-upper-hand-corporate-polluters-epa-drops-surprise-inspections
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https://truthout.org/articles/fox-news-is-intensifying-its-racist-attacks-to-prop-up-trump-2020/

It's quite possible that Fox News is the most dishonest and propagandist news programme in North American. (But it's quite possible there are some even worse.)
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https://theintercept.com/2019/07/06/brazil-amazon-rainforest-indigenous-conservation-agribusiness-ranching/
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I took a break to sit outdoors. It didn't last. Yesterday and today have been unspeakably hot in Ontario. Indeed, a general review of the world shows that recent weeks have been the hottest in recorded history. And as that continues, people die. As it continues, agricultural land is destroyed. And as that continues, life on this planet ceases to exist.

Oil executives must know that but, like our dimwitted premier, they prefer not to know. That's why their news media friends don't take this seriously.

It is happening. Our climate has been changing. It has now reached the worst levels the world has ever seen. We might last until 2100 or we might not. Some experts who have actually studied the subject say we won't last that long - not by a long shot.

Our premier recognizes none of this. He has no advanced education. The biggies  give him his orders. And he is stupid enough (or corrupt enough) to follow them.

The oil executives? All they care about is their profits. Nothing else exists. As people die - and we're close to seeing that -all they care about is their profits. There is not the slightest possibility they will do anything useful.

And oh, it's going to get quite terrible.

For a start, this climate change is destroying agricultural regions. Even now, millions are dying for lack of food. And the oil execs don't give a damn. Up to a hundred million are those looking for a place to stay alive. But it's not going to get better.

And we will just kill them - as we are already doing. In the not very distant future, they may well reach over a billion. And will we help them?

Like  hell we will. Most countries won't touch them. They'll do as the Italians have and the Americans and push them back out to sea to drown. Canada is one of the better nations in treating them - but it's annual acceptance of migrants is very, very small. The U.S., of course, is even worse, especially as Trump is now using such people for his hate machine.

Most of us are racists. We are watching a horror of suffering and you can bet on it that as the numbers grow we will get worse. We already have killed millions fleeing climate change. We're going to see many times worse what we have seen. Climate change will, for example, extend into the U.S. which will then demand that Canada give, say, Alberta to the U.S. to maintain its strength.

We have known about this for  thirty years and more - and we haven't done a damn thing. All we can do now is kill.

And this we are already seeing as Trump leads the U.S. into it's Nazi phase of racism for mass murder of the desperate. And Canada, under the leadership of its wealthy elite, will help the U.S. in mass murder.

Mass murder is not new for U.S. big business. It murdered almost all - men, women and children - of its native peoples. Nobody knows the total dead - but it far, far exceeds the holocaust of World War Two. Nobody knows how many Latin Americans it has murdered. When it killed   some 200,000 Guatemalans in the 1950s, the news media never even carried the story.

The oil industry will kill countries that try to operate their own oil fields. That's what Venezuela and Iran are about.

I know this is impractical. But this is what capitalism has long been about.

The British Empire (splendid lads, splendid) murdered some 350 million people in its conquests and plundering. If you think it's impossible for rich people to behave that way, I suggest you read some history.

The U.S., especially it's oil industry, has been murdering it's way since World War One. Indeed, it fought in World War Two largely to steal British oil in the middle east - and it worked. (Nobody knows how many it killed because nobody cared.)

Canada deal with this? Possibly. But I don't see much action from the Liberals -  and the record of Conservative voters is, to say the least, dismal.

Both the NDP and the Greens are better - but we have to deal with unscrupulous bastards in the oil industry. And I fear it's going to take more than an election to deal with that.