Oct. 12: A very ugly world

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

This has not been an exciting election for Canada. The best news (which isn't great) is that the Liberals are best positioned to form a minority government - probably with the NDP.
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Corruption? With the oil industry? In Alberta?  Nah.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/aer-icore-board-members-1.5312265
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I grew up in a Quebec  that was profoundly racist. The "race" was Catholicism. It was understood that crucifixes were standard in all government buildings. The streets belonged to the church for massive parades. Teachers in the Catholic schools  (all schools were religious) were brothers and nuns who dressed as brothers and nuns  complete with religious symbols.

From the 1960s on, that changed - it remained standard practice for every court   room, police station, government office to have crucifixes all over the place.

But now, Quebec has substantial numbers of Muslim immigrants. Horrors. The women wear shawls on their heads. And long dresses.

It was bad enough that Quebec  had large numbers of English-speaking people. Indeed, stores often had English as well as French signs, restaurants often had menus in English as well as French. This was not to be tolerated. So any use of English was crushed. As a result, half the English population of Quebec had to leave the province to get jobs.

But then there came the invasion of Muslim women with their shawls. (Of course, Quebec's nuns had always worn shawls. They were symbols of Quebec life. But Muslim women? No. This was offensive.

But Quebec didn't want to look racist (which it is). So how to deal with this?
Easy, Catholics didn't to church any more, anyway. So ban all religious symbols in places of work.

It's racism. But it's racism in disguise. And no political party is going to challenge that racism.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/secularism-law-1.5261713

(Like many English Quebeckers, I am actually of English and French descent with a French ancestry in Montreal going back to 1650.  But that no longer counts in a linguistically racist Quebec.)
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/syria-turkey-conflict-kurds-border-fighting-trump-deaths

Kurds have a long history of profound suffering. Perhaps the starting line for it goes back to 1920 when Winston Churchill ordered the RAF to carry out massive bombing of Kurd villages which Churchill selected because they had no defenses. Yes. It was a deliberate concentration on murdering innocent men, women and children.

This time, it's even worse. Russia has a stake in the survival of Syria - and of Iran - the two are closely related. So we have Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia on one side - the U.S. (already on the ground in Syria and eager for a war with Iran) and Britain. (The major powers in Europe are NOT supporting the U.S.)

So that's three nuclear powers involved. And that's insane.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/11/trump-deal-erdogan-lethal-consequences-ukraine-syria
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/northern-australia-fossil-fuel-climate-goals-paris-agreement

The proof is all over the world. Fuel bosses don't give a damn about human life.
They've been proving it for the last 30 years. They have no intention of dealing with the climate change they cause.

In Canada, their closest friends are in the Conservative Party.

Let's get real.
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These are humanity's deadliest enemies.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/12/top-three-asset-managers-fossil-fuel-investments
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https://www.capebretonpost.com/opinion/regional-perspectives/gwynne-dyer-hopeless-in-iraq-362348/
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https://www.dailypioneer.com/2019/columnists/in-denial-of-converging-global-crises.html
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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/10/extreme-right-wing-narratives-gain-momentum-federal-election-despite-parties-struggling
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/10/protecting-amazon-rainforest-fracking
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https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2019/10/11/turkish-military-offensive-risks-humanitarian-catastrophe-syria

It risks even more than that. It risks a confrontation between the world's leading nuclear powers.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/11/applause-global-summit-ocasio-cortez-calls-climate-crisis-consequence-our
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https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/10/04/Indigenous-Kid-Funding-Failure/

And this is only a part of a much bigger issue.

While we ignore the needs of indigenous children (and their communities), while leave the poor to sleep on our sidewalks, while we go years into debt to send our children to university, - we throw money at the rich.

Special grants? The rich get them all the time. Income tax? Out of their billions, they don't have to pay a cent. We subsidize private schools for the rich. Tough for the public schools who don't have enough money.

We are living in a world of the past (one might have hoped) in which the rich plundered everybody else. And both Liberals and Conservatives play this game.

Never kid yourself. The very rich are your enemies.. And they have nothing but contempt for you.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/privatization-wars-us/5691670

The U.S. relies on hired killers. Despite Trump's bleating praise of "our brave soldiers", the U.S. relies killers from all over the world.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/crisis-in-venezuela-guaido-coup-also-fails-in-montreal/5691646

Most of my teaching career was spent at Concordia University in Montreal. So why would the university be so foolish as to invite speaker from a phony government of Venezuela - a speaker who did not represent any real member of the Venezuela government, but was puppet representing  the U.S. and the Venezuelan opposition?

Well - decisions of the university are made by the Board of Governors. And these are very wealthy capitalists or their puppets. The same is true of any university I have ever heard of. Many years ago, I was offered a senior position at Concordia. But all my life has been spent in education. And I realized these people were not interested in education.

Mind you, universities in general are not much interested in education. Check any university. You will find that professors who have training in education are very, very few in our universities.  Most professors think education is lectures to be memorized. The trouble is that such information is soon forgotten. And university becomes four years of learning things to forget.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/house-my-life-saw-smashed-rubble-because-palestinian/5691691
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https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2019/party-platforms/
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American warfare has concentrated on the killing of innocent civilians since the bombing of Dresden in World War 2.  (The British in their days of empire had quite a reputation for the slaughter of helpless civilians, too.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52381.htm

Brave lads, says Trump. Yeah.
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Once upon a time, there used to be good guys -  I think  - maybe - but damned if I know when.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52378.htm
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I found this next item to be very, very true. Think about it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52370.htm

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I'm very much on the side of the people of Hong Kong. But the reality is the Hong Kong is historically and legally a part of China. And China is not  going to give that up just as the U.S. has never, in its whole history, allowed a whole state - like California - it's independence.

The only result of this confrontation can be increasing violence with Hong Kong deaths.   But increasing violence is exactly what the U.S. is encouraging. This is simply a propaganda exercise that does no good at all for the people of Hong Kong.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52363.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52369.htm

Billionaires don't vote for politicians. They buy them. In North America, that's the history of the Democrats, Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives.

And fools vote for them.
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Why on earth did the people of Ontario vote for Doug Ford? The man has utter contempt for them.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/11/news/doug-ford-broke-law-when-he-cut-cap-and-trade-ontario-court-finds
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/11/news/climate-change-threatens-crops-water-billions-around-globe-study

Ever wonder why we're suddenly getting so many immigrants? Gee. I wonder if it has anything to do with the food production being destroyed by climate change in their countries?

Any thoughts on where this takes us in ten years? Or even five?
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I still remember that day in 1945 when my mother took me downtown to a mass of jubilant people. The war was over. And we had won. My father would be coming home. And there'd be no more wars.....

But the wars have been non stop.

Is this the world that Canadians fought and died for?

A characteristic of most of the wars has been they were fought not to defend us - but to plunder others. Most, by far, have been wars to make our very rich even richer. That's why we set records for the killing of civilians and children. That's why we go to war to attack countries that cannot possibly attack us back.

Now, that is combined with climate change. And we're not dealing with that at all.  Coincidence? The people who demand we fight wars for them are not interested in fighting climate change. Of course not. They make billions out of oil and coal. Indeed, their dreadful wars in the middle east are essentially wars to steal oil and keep it in its destructive business.

We have very little time - and most of that time will be devoted to worsening suffering, hunger, and misery.

If the very rich have an sensitivity about human needs, they hide it well. No. They live only for greed. And we are all paying for that with a massive spread of poverty even in advanced countries.

Do we have time to deal with this? I don't know. We have allowed thirty or forty years to disappear while we did nothing. And as I look at the Canadian election, I see no reason to believe we're going to make it.

On that day in 1945, we had won the war. My father would be coming home. We'd all be living in a better and safer world.

Nobody forecast  the hell of greed and murder we have created. Remembering that day in 1945, think - this is not the world that Canadians fought and died for. We betrayed them. They suffered death. They suffered lifetime sickness.... and we.....

The Canadian Legion is supposed to represent the interests of those who served. Why the hell doesn't it do it? Thousands died for us. We betrayed them. And not a peep out of the Legion.

Oct. 10: A Bad, Bad Day

As I began today's blog, I planned to use my regular formula which has a good deal of commentary added by me. But I was overwhelmed by  the range of idiocy and greed and cruelty. There was so much to cover - the idiocy of the Canadian election, the immense damage that is going to be done, especially by the Conservatives, the range of violence and cruelty over so much of the world, the general sense of a world that is far, far out of control, the morons we are allowing to run loose (Premier Ford of Ontario, the whole Conservative Party, ----

...there was so much to cover that this would be a blog to take me two or three days or even more to write.)  So, through most of today's edition, I  have let the entries tell their own story.

We are being robbed blind by our capitalists. And our war to end wars has actually created some 75 years of non-stop war.

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The Guardian may get criticized from time to time. But it is still - and by far - the best newspaper in the English language world.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2019/oct/08/who-are-the-worlds-biggest-climate-polluters-video

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/secretive-national-oil-companies-climate

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/oil-firms-barrels-markets

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/exclusive-carmakers-opponents-climate-action-us-europe-emissions

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/fossil-fuel-firms-social-media-fightback-against-climate-action

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/thinktank-climate-science-institute-economic-affairs

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/vested-interests-public-against-climate-science-fossil-fuel-lobby

The owners of these oil companies will kill themselves, too. But we humans are often not logical.

The Guardian, incidentally, with a few lapses, has long been the most intelligent and honest newspaper in the world. (I would make a similar evaluation of Israel's Haaretz. It's very honest - but it also has a much smaller range of news.)

I don't know of any Canadian or American newspaper that can be trusted, though the Toronto Globe is probably the best of a bad lot.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-made-in-ontario-environment-plan-climate-change-1.5313763

Doug Ford is a typical Conservative  premier.
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Canadians should think over this Canadian election. And it's late to start thinking. The Liberals and the Conservatives are disasters. Neither party has even a pretense of dealing with our futures. Both parties are owned by the same people who are destroying us.

And the NDP and the Greens are far more timid than they should be. The U.S. is a political disaster area - but Canada is even worse, much worse. The U.S. has, at least, produced a Bernie Sanders.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/recession-layoffs-gladwell-1.5313099
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-betraying-the-kurds-again
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/10/deficits-being-passed-younger-generations-go-far-beyond-financial-ones
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/10/see-flaws-scheers-climate-plan-look-australia
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2019/10/october-21-vote-climate-solutions

Almost uniquely in this age of hack politicians, David Suzuki actually knows what he is talking about.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2019/10/bill-21-new-battles-old-wars

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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2019/10/election-minority-government-looming-its-ndp-merits-support
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/10/new-study-warns-5-billion-people-could-face-higher-risk-climate-related-coastal
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/10/new-normal-not-normal-25-million-lose-power-across-northern-california-prevent
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/10/09/now-trump-whining-kurds-didnt-help-us-normandy-and-they-and-we-are-doomed
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https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/09/british-government-continues-to-aid-repression-in-human-rights-abusing-countries-new-data-shows/

This should come as no surprise. Britain, for several centuries, has been one of the worst civil rights abusing countries in the world. Ask anybody from India about it.
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Yes. climate change is happening. And animals are dying. And people are dying.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/dying-wildlife-on-a-warming-planet

And most Canadians will vote Conservative or Liberal. Sigh.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/some-in-hong-kong-feel-frustrated-as-their-city-is-losing-to-mainland-china

Much as I liked my fairly expansive time in Hong Kong under British rule, I was struck by the profound poverty so many of it's people lived in. I remember walking down long streets with sheets of cardboard that stretched to an overpass, with more sheets under it - and families with  babies and children who lived on those cardboard sheets. I remember apartments, many, many of them, with people living in the closets. I remember a woman in the street eating her supper of a chicken foot (yes. just the yellowed foot.) I remember the men sleeping in the fields in wire cages just big enough to contain a human body. Oh, and there was no protection against rain.

Those were the days of British rule - and, oh, the British empire was as cruel and vicious as it could be. And a capitalist Hong Kong still lives like that.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/as-the-world-looks-away-death-stalks-the-democratic-republic-of-congo
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/10/09/Tax-Billionaires-No-Brainer/
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/08/Alberta-Energy-Regulator-Conflicts-Mismanagemen/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52369.htm

So much for democracy and the voice of the people. And Canadians can be sure   that there are plenty of Liberals and Conservatives who can be bought.
And are bought.
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https://theintercept.com/2019/10/09/joe-hunter-biden-family-money/
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/10/news/fake-justin-trudeau-sex-scandal-went-viral-canadas-election-integrity-law-cant-stop

Well, to be fair, the Conservative Party has nothing of any substance to say. So it needs all the false information it can get.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/10/news/climate-change-threatens-extinction-most-birds-especially-canada-report
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/10/08/right-kind-of-green-agroecology/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/09/truly-terrifying-scientists-studying-underwater-permafrost-thaw-find-area-arctic
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https://theintercept.com/2019/10/09/ellen-degeneres-george-bush/

There never was and never has been any evidence that justified the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
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We have made evil a way of life.

Oct. 8 1/2: Paqrt 2.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/03/wealth-identity-politics-billionaires-acting-like-a-persecuted-minority/

The very wealthy have become so powerful, they are our governments This is a giant step back into the Roman Empire when the people of Rome were scum of the earth, and all power and wealth was in the hands of a tiny number.

And, like the Roman aristocracy, the wealthy of today are planning their takeover to rule the world. A major component of this, active in Canada and many other countries,,   is the Bilderberg Conference which meets regularly to plan the takeover of the world and all it's governments and people by the very, very rich. Can you imagine what your status will be in their world?

This group, made up of some of  the world's mega billionaires, includes Canadians. And they are for real.

And you and me? We are the scum of the earth.
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https://www.corbettreport.com/experts-say-experts-say-headlines-are-propaganda-propagandawatch/

Of course. Almost all our news sources are owned by the very, very wealthy. And they operate them to benefit the very wealthy. That's been true for over 150  years. That's why when Afghanistan Muslims fought against Russian intruders , they were inspirational. But when they beat the Russians, then had to defend Afghanistan against America, they were evil.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/the-public-interest-in-climate-change-reaches-and-all-time-high-it-is-the-effect-of-greta-thunberg
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How often do we see our news media reporting on the dreadful position of Palestinians?

https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/an-outside-view-from-the-palestinian-camps-of-lebanon

And men, women, and children daily get slaughtered by weapons supplied by the western powers.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/07/lawless-trump-canada-connections/

Note to the Canadian Legion...

Did Canadian fight and die in Korea and Afghanistan so that American billionaires could plunder the world?
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/08/Alberta-Energy-Regulator-Conflicts-Mismanagemen/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/canadian-imperialism-haiti/5691208

Canadas Liberal and Conservative politicians do what American politicians tell them to do.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52358.htm

China is not a pushover as it was in the days of Western plundering. It's missiles today can reach all of the U.S. It  has always been extremely foolish to develop nuclear weapons to stay ahead of the opposition. Nuclear war was possible in 1945. Any such war   today would destroy the whole planet.

There is no nuclear deterrent, not for either side.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/03/video/climate-change-disinformation-and-canada
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https://themindunleashed.com/2019/10/blob-returns-heat-anomaly-pacific-ocean.html

Maybe we could cool it down with oil.
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And so to bed - at last.

I may have an error. I may have said that it was a Canadian premier who intended to cut off school children who depended on free school lunches for poor kids. I don't feel like checking for it now. But it is not a Canadian premier.  It is American politicians who want to cut off half a million children.

Oct 8: Part 1

My computer has just pulled it's stunt of losing a large number of it's entries.
So I shall immediately publish this one. And then work into the cold, dark night to finish it.



An event of 1841 can scarcely be called a current event. But it has a lesson for us.             

In 1841, the British feared a Russian attack on Afghanistan that would provide the base for an attack on British India.  This sort of thing was ( and is) still common. Afghanistan is positioned almost as if designed as if it were deliberately a base of attack on a number of countries - (though it was not a nation of attack itself.) So the British decided to invade.

A base was established on the Afghanistan border. Then the main force of 3000 troops moved in to settle near Kabul. With that main force were wives, children, prostitutes attached to the army.base.near Kabul. Reluctantly,the British began the long trek to the coast through wild, mountain cover. The Afghans fired on them every step of the way. The worst stretch came in a  valley with cliffs on both sides.

As the British plodded through the valley, Afghans kept up a constant fire from the hill sides as well  as a steady dislodging of boulders to crash own onto the retreating British.

Soon after, a man exhausted rode into the British fort on the border. He was a doctor. And of the 3000 soldiers and their wives, children, prostitutes, he was the only survivor. \Afghanistan has a long history of  defending itself against intruders.

Too bad George W. Bush was not much of student of  history. There is, after all ,a quite modern parallel for those ghosts of the British army of so long ago.

In 1979, devout Muslims in Afghanistan rose in revolt against their communist government. They opposed communism,. In the remarkable war that followed, the Muslims were also supported with money and some weapons by the U.S.
This was a remarkably successful revolt against an enemy far, far bigger and better equipped than the Afghans were.

But then the U.S. made the strange decision to invade those Afghans it had supported.

I know of no official reason for that. At the time there was a lot of double talk that the Afghans were behind 9/11. But, in reality, there is no evidence of that.. On the contrary, most of the evidence then and now points to Saudi Arabia.

So why did the U.S.decide to attack? A logical possibility is that the U.S. was acting as Britain had in the early 1800s, and as the Russians did in the 1980s.
The U.S.wanted to occupy and control Afghanistan as an American base to attack Russia. It is Afghanistan's sin that it is a place attractive to major powers as a base to attack other major powers.

The U.S. had no other reason to attack. Canada joined the attack without even that much reason. We sent Canadians to die in Afghanistan for no good reason at all.

So, yes, we should remember those we sent to die in Afghanistan. We should also give bloody hell to the politicians who sent them. To respect the sacrifices our soldiers made is important. And that most certainly includes those who served in, say, Korea and Afghanistan. But respecting their sacrifices is only half the story. To show real respect, we should also remember what a betrayal it was for us to send them.  I could wish the Canadian Legion would do that, and stop being a cheerleader to cover up for the politicians. The Canadian Legion should be defending the veterans, not the politicians who betrayed them.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/hrt-ruling-1.5312191

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The Canadian leadership debate? It was dominated by the the Liberals and Conservatives - the two parties that had nothing intelligent to say. Both Trudeau and Scheer had nothing to say. The whole world is facing extinction. When is  hard to say but it could be within the lifetimes of our children.

So who gives a damn?

Trudeau had very little to say on the subject. Scheer had wisecracks and personal attacks. So it's up to us to face reality.

Think. Our leading scientists tell us we are on the brink of the destruction of all life on planet Earth. Scheer didn't even bother to dispute that. Lesson to be drawn, Conclusion? In the greatest crisis of human history, Scheer plans to do nothing - except to  boost profits for oil barons.

And what would be the result of a Conservative government? Quite possibly that it would be end of any chance of dealing with climate change.

And a Liberal government? That would be a repeat of the four years of nothing much that we've earlier seen in the Conservatives.

In short, the Canadian people have wasted over twenty years in failing to deal with the greatest challenge in human history. And they now plan to waste more. This is not an election we're facing. It's a death notice.

And that sums up the meaning of this election. We have created a paradise for the greediest people in history, people too greedy to understand they are destroying themselves, too.

The great debate  came far short of dealing with Canada's problems. In that sense, it was a a debate that was a shabby and ignorant and greedy as the election itself.  We are allowing the rich to steal from us all by keeping billions of dollars from the nation. (They don't have to pay income tax; and that means we, have have less and less money, must scramble to find the money to feed and house the very poor, to maintain decent standards of education and health care. It also means we can't afford pharmacare.) Since World War Two, we have created societies remarkably similar to those of medieval times and of the    empires like Rome before that.

We are allowing the super rich to create a spreading poverty which is going to get worse, much worse. We are in the process of cutting off school lunches for tens of thousands of children who starve every day.

That's what this election has been about. And the people of Canada  throughout the election campaign have been brainlessly preparing to vote for those who rob them.

How can the people of this country be so brainless as to vote Conservative or Liberal? (Mind you, the NDP and the Greens could both use some pep pills.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-china-military-1.5312894

Let's get real. It's game over in Hong Kong. There is not the slightest chance of Hong Kongers winning in this revolt against China. I regret this. But the reality is that maintaining an increasingly violent resistance cannot be a winning policy.

The people of Hong Kong, for now, should deal for any concessions they  canget. But a victory over the huge population of China is not going to happen.

And the attempt to achieve it  could take a terrible toll of the lives of Hong Kongers. Indeed, the great risk now is that American agents might encourage  the revolt for American propaganda purposes. And that would do nothing but create more violence against the Hong Kongers.             
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-withdrawal-syria-canada-1.5312618

ISIS -o-o-oo, bad guys. One can get that impression from our news media. But the reality is that we have been pounding those countries for a hundred years. We did it, largely, to steal control of their oil resources, thereby making obscenely wealthy British and then Americans to rob them blind.

Our news media are usually highly critical of these people who simply want to control their own countries

But the fact that they.have foreign names does not necessarily mean that they are evil.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/road-ahead-oilsands-future-andrew-leach-1.5268556
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/08/the-guardian-view-on-trump-and-syria-damage-has-been-done
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-hong-kong-protesters-pushing-for-reforms-china-will-never-allow

Like I said - but, oh, Gwynne Dyer says it better.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/10/andrew-scheer-factor-election-2019

Well, I agree with the writer's mood. But --- the reality, depressing as it may be,  is that Scheer IS a major player in he election.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/07/maddening-graphic-shows-how-400-richest-americans-paid-less-taxes-any-other-income

This is the greed and abuse that we have allowed to happen. And it's not just in the U.S.. It's in Canada, too, and many other countries. While a premier like Ontario's Doug Ford gives monster tax breaks to the rich, he ends school lunches for poor children.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/07/brazilian-experts-warn-open-letter-president-bolsonaro-genocide-underway-against

Greed wins again.
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/10/07/his-great-and-unmatched-wisdom-wtf-gop
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Oct. 5: a messed up blog.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. For the second time - in just over a week -the major part of a blog has disappeared. I have no idea why.

I started today's blog at  noon, finished it at 8:30 scrolled back for a spelling check. And hardly anything was left.
Damn.

It's too late to do it all over. However, I shall try now to get back the opening segment which had to do with the religiosity of our Christian hypocrites.

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Canadians and Americans - the latter more so - are profoundly proud of their Christian foundations. And that makes them  (at best) damn fools.

It's hard to think of a society less Christian than ours. Our forebears landed here with praise to God. Then they promptly slaughter of the native peoples who lived here. (The Americans killed far, far more than we did - but that was partly because they  had far, far more to kill. Then we scooped up the native children and forced them into brutal, residential schools that killed more of them by abuse.

About 1900, Canada sent troops to South Africa to murder thousands of Dutch settlers.  Was that because the Dutch settlers were a threat to Canada? No. It was so British billionaires could steal their gold mines.  (They now do that sort of 'Christian' killing to help American billionaires plunder places like Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and maybe Iran.)

In Korea, by the way, Canadians joined in on the new American sport of slaughtering large numbers of civilians and children.

Along with the Americans we horribly abused our own people well into the twentieth centurty with low, low pay, with employing children as young as six to work  15 hours a day, with making health care almost impossible until the lae 1960s. From the beginnings of organized government the Liberals and Conservative were full time agencies to help the wealthy abuse Canadians - as they still do. And for the dangerous jobs, they bought Chinese near-slaves, particularly to build the railways. Then they dumped them in China towns.

Oh, like the U.S., we had black slaves, though we ended that half a century before the U.S. did. Of course, though, they weren't allowed live in the same districts as white folks - and  they certainly weren't allowed to have decent jobs. (I can remember my student days at a Baptist College when it was reluctantly thinking of perhaps admitting a Black.)

In all this time, we celebrated our religious values.Indeed, we saw our religious values as defitions of who we were. And Christian nations assumed that other people were inferior - so they taught their children in school that they had a special relationship to God, perhaps so the children would grow up to have no objection slaughtering peoples of other nations who lacked God's presence.

So it was that the British could slaughter some  500 million people, and sing--

Rule Britannia.....for Britons never, never, never shall be slaves. No. They never have been. But they enslaved millions and killed millions. Winston Churchill was a prime example of racial bigotry who happily starved millions to death because they were  not God's people. (German Naziis got better treatment - but then, they were Christians.)

And in all the centuries of our racism, mass murder, esploitation, we've heard scarcely a word of criticism from our Christian churches.

We are nervous about the coming of new types of immigrants - like Muslims, Hindus. And out churches, who should be leading the way in making them welcome - and who should be critical of of our centuries of mass murder and plunder - are pretty silent - as always.

Our churches should be critical of our abuse of people who 'do not share our values'. What's to share? We don't have any values. (Can you think of a single war we  have ever fought in which the churches were critical)?

No. Don't worry about foreign immigrants coming here and shaking up our values. We don't have any values to shake or to share.
______________________________________________________________
Canadians, Americans, many nations are being ripped off by our billionaires. They have shills like the Liberals and Conservatives who let them rip of billions of dollars by not paying taxes. That means all the rest of us have to make up the difference.

And they're so casual about it, it's not an issue. Think hard. This is OUR money. In our piddling way, we hand it over them. The result is we lose the tax  money - we lose money for our schools, for our medical care, for shelters to sleep in.
How can we be so witless as to pay our measly taxes as they stash away billions. This should be a major issue of the century. The gap between the very rich and the rest of us is growing at a pace never before seem. What's wrong with us? Why are we accepting this abuse from the very rich? The gap is growing as never before.

This is mass stupidity on our part. And it means less for our children, less in the form of school  cuts, more your people able to go for higher education, shelter for the homeless (the hell with them, right?) This is limitless plundering. Why are we so gutless? Why do we care so little about our children and our society?

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/09/17/Where-Parties-Stand-Tax-Reform/
_________________________________________________________________

https://www.globalresearch.ca/glyphosate-worse/5674472

About a dozen years ago, this chemical and others were being sprayed all over New Brunswick for the benefit of the lumber industry (dominated, of course, by the Irvings.)  When the provincial medical officer went public to warn that these treatments were damaging to all life, the Irvings had her fired; And the people of New Brunswick accepted that without a whimper.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52335.htm

This should be obvious to any impartial observer. Of course  Israel is very similar to a Nazi state. And, distressing as that may be, it is a natural reaction to the horror of the German holocaust. It has produced an Israel which has nothing to do with the principals of Judaism. And that is a loss to all of us.
_________________________________________________________________ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52340.htm

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to human progress and to peace in the world is the very great and undemocratic power of billionaires in our society. They are on track now to  destroy us and to destroy themselves.
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https://www.activistpost.com/2019/10/california-to-solve-homeless-problem-by-throwing-homeless-people-in-prison.html

When was the last time you heard of a billionaire going to prison? (Yes. It  has happened - but not often.)
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Damn. Several pages lost.
_______________________________________________________________OOh, a last thought. The U.S. has been at war almost constantly from the start, killing native peoples, Cubans, nations all over Latin America, Phillipines.. and all that done by genuine Jesus jumpers - and almost all done without a word of criticism from the churches.

Indeed, the senior George Bush who led the slaughter of 200,000 innocent Guatemalans (using  CIA murderers) was a  devout church goer. So was  his son George Bush Jr., who slaughtered hundreds of thousands in his unjustified wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, It is difficult to find American presidents who were not vicious killers and public church goers.
________________________________________________________________SSorry none of this helps. I'm going to lie down now. And cry.

Oct. 3: Is it too late?

Note to our correspondent who was an administrator at McGill and who I taught when the world and I were young. You can reach me at ---
graemedecarie1@gmail.com

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/key-moments-french-language-debate-1.5306941

Canadians, like all the peoples of this  planet, face a horrible extinction. Can it be prevented? Nobody cares. How much time to we have to act? Canadian political parties don't care. We, the Canadian people, are worse. The election shows that the Canadian people don't care.No. They're concentrating on the big issues like SNC Lavalin, and whether we should cut aid to countries that need it. And, oh, whether the politicians have values - whatever that may mean.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/china-high-tech-weapons-parade-1.5304891

Hah! That won't scare off the might of the U.S. armed forces, the most expensive armed forces in the world, the armed forces that have held off the might of Afghanistan for twenty years.
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https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/28/20837393/st-louis-black-children-shootings-reward-gun-violence
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/02/things-are-getting-unstable-global-heating-and-the-rise-of-rockfalls-in-swiss-alps

Not to worry. Donald Trump has assured us that climate change isn't happening.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-medical-assistance-dying-euthanasia-1.5307408

At last, a real issue in the election. We are going to need one hell of a lot of doctors to provide assisted dying as our planet collapses.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ai-compuers-jobs-banking-1.5305680

Or - billionaires could maintain high employment  by cutting working hours. Or - the government could step in and enforce that. Yeah.  But it certainly wouldn't be a Conservative government or a Liberal government.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-says-underwater-launched-missile-test-succeeded-1.5306952

How irresponsible! Only peace-loving Americans should be allowed to have such a weapon.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/02/war-for-survival-brazils-amazon-tribes-despair-as-land-raids-surge-under-bolsonaro

The U.S. supports Bolsonara. God bless America.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2019/oct/02/hong-kong-streets-descend-into-chaos-on-chinas-national-day-in-pictures
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/02/israel-pm-benjamin-netanyahu-faces-pre-trial-corruption-hearing

Well, let's hear from the Israeli lobby on this one.
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-hong-kong-protesters-pushing-for-reforms-china-will-never-allow

This is far the best analysis of Hong Kong I have seen. Most western columnists simply take the Hong Kong side. Dyer takes no side. (Can you guess which side American and Canadian columnists would take if California tried to break away from the U.S. and become a communist state?
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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/10/andrew-scheer-promises-25-percent-foreign-aid-cut-based-false-figures
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/activist-toolkit-blog/2019/10/ford-government-cuts-will-hurt-health-system-already

Well, ya gotta give Ford credit for honesty. He doesn't give a damn for anybody but the very rich. And he doesn't pretend to give a damn.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/journalism-doctor/2019/10/one-year-after-khashoggis-murder-canada-still-does-business

Of course. American, Canadian and British governments don't give a damn who Saudi Arabia murders.Heck, they already supply all  the weaponry the Saudis are using for mass murder.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/salmon-pollution-climate/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/03/impeachment-looms-trump-heads-florida-smear-medicare-all-and-boost-profit-healthcare
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/misrepresentations-of-american-soviet-roles-in-ww-ii-and-the-cold-war

You have to be careful with history.   It's heavy on lies.

Americans study a version of World War 2 history that wildly overplays the role of the U.S. Most western histories of it ignore the country that, more than any other, destroyed both Hitler and Japan. It was Russia. In fact, the U.S. was so much in a hurry to end the war with Japan before Russia could be too successful----that was the reason for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Stalin, of course, was as unlovely and vicious as they come. But Churchill and Roosevelt - especially Churchill -  both had inhuman and vicious records. But you won't see much of that in our history books.

(Incidentally, Canada was one of the few nations that fought that war without any wish to grab territory or resources. And, for it's size, it played a remarkably role at D Day.)
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/03/Candidates-Climate-Exposed-Ridings/

I'm sure we could duplicate this in any province.
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My computer is not cooperating with me. So when you go to this next item go down until you come to it's section on taxation.

I really wonder about the wimpiness of the Canadian people. The wealthy steal many, many billions of dollars from us every year. They hide their money. And we have made that perfectly legal. In addition, the wealthy expect us to pay more money every year in handouts to the wealthy.

Are we crazy?

We could use that money. We could use it to house all the people sleeping on the streets. We could use it to feed the hungry, to pay for a better education system - and one that would provide school lunches for hungry children,  to make university education free, to improve health care.....

For Pete's sake, this is our money. Why are we shoving it into the pockets of the extremely wealthy? (and extremely greedy?) Our children need that money. A great many of us need that money. We have sent our military overseas to fight and die for billionaires - as in Korea, Afghanistan, and with more, many more to come. Meanwhile, we leave our own poor to suffer in misery and death.

How can we be so stupid, so ass-kissing....

And how can we, in this political year, tolerate political parties that don't even mention it. (How can our 'Christian' churches possible accept this orgy of wealth for the rich?)

What a spineless, thoughtless lot we must be. And, oh, we are paying for this and we're going to pay a lot more.

There is a growing gap between the very rich and the rest of  us as they increasingly run off with our money. And oh, we're going to pay one hell of a price for that because we support a system In which we throw our money at the rich and make the rest of us poorer every day.

And this is going to lead to one hell of a crash.

Soon.

https://thetyee.ca/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52330.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52321.htm

The worst killer in history was not Hitler. Britain was far, far worse. And the U.S. is now  copying the British model. But our news media don't tell us that.
Here is a catchup of American behaviour of over a hundred years ago - the           invasion of The Philippines. (and no, the US was not defending itself against the people of The Philippines..)

This is what the U.S. was like over a hundred years ago. It's much worse now. It has been at war with somebody in almost every years since 1950. (These wars were fought to enrich American billionaires. But they didn't pay for them No. The don't pay taxes. They keep their money for themselves. The American people paid for them. And billionaires did not fight and die in those wars. The taxpayers did.

And we Canadians sometimes trotted along. The Canadian Legion should rethink it's habit of kissing up for American wars.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52320.htm

And we Canadians sometimes trotted along. The Canadian Legion should rethink our habit of kissing up for American wars.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52325.htm
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Don't expect anything good or useful from Canadian voters. Mind you, the Liberals are real stinkers, too. And the NDP and the Greens are a lot more timid than they should be.

And the Canadian news media?

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/02/analysis/will-andrew-scheer-ruin-canada
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/02/news/journalism-group-launches-anti-fake-news-campaign-ahead-election

Too true. Most Canadian have not the faintest idea of how to judge news stories. And that's important because the commercial news media on the only ones they follow.

Perhaps the leading stinkers are the Irving press of New Brunswick and the journalistic perversions created by Conrad Black dating from his Last Post creation.

But almost Ali of the Canadian news media are stinkers. The U.S. news media are the same - though probably a bit worse. Well, that's why people vote for Liberals and Conservatives in Canada.

Think hard. We are recording higher temperatures almost ever year. The Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are vanishing. Ocean  levels are rising - and rising at an increasing rate. high mountain countries, like Switzerland live in fear of massive rocks that, loosened by the rise in temperatures. are crashing down on them. In much of the world agriculture is suffering. Very large numbers (100 million) are said to be starving. (in fact, the real number is much higher.)

Prime Minister Trudeau did nothing about this. Prime Minister Scheer, a lifetime servant to the very rich, will do less than nothing. (Nor am I as cheered as I would like to be by the NDP and the Greens.)

And we are approaching the point at which we will not be able to do anything.
________________________________________________________________

Worth thinking about....

https://off-guardian.org/2019/10/02/nuclear-war-just-another-day/
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There is no possible good to come from the policies we  have been following. We allow ourseselves to be ruled by the greediest and momost  murderous people on earth. No. That's not the politicians. They are owned, like us by the greedy and murderous. The U.S. has been murdering, starving, exploiting people all over the world. It's worse than Nazi Germany. And we have helped them.

Their greed has driven the whole world into hunger and death. And now, we are coming close to the final act.

Have we learned anything? Hell, no. If we had, we would not even be thinking of a Scheer or a Trudeau. Both are the puppets of unlimited greed. Both feel no responsibility whatever to the Canadian people or any people but themselves. And, as things are developing, both will destroy us ---and themselves.
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October 1: Besare of Patriotism. It should be good.....

..but we have lonWe have since abused the meaning of patriotism to mean sobedience to the powerful and greedy.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/alberta-hydrogen-innovation-1.5290297

I don't know what to make about this one. If true, this should be a major story all over the world. But it's not. As well, there's  the question of time. We don't have much of it left. How long would it take to put this project  into effect? And why does this story have so little commentary built into it by professional scientists of varying opinions?

Then, whether this story is valid or now, how does it gel with the problem of existing pollution in Alberta? The cleanup is estimated at many, many billions of dollars. And it is estimated that it will take 2000 years.

Will the oil companies pay for that? I doubt it very much. There's a lot wrong ___

Curiouser and curiouser, the Alberta hydrogen story has disappeared. Almost all stories, even minor ones, normally run for many days. But that story - a very big one if true - has disappeared in less than a day.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/parks-canada-abbot-pass-hut-climate-change-access-to-information-1.5192594

Yes. It's happening.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fed-elxn-world-1.5303672

And who is going to attack us? Let's get real. The only country in a position to attack us is the U.S. Indeed, since the Plains of Abraham the U.S. has been the only country to attack Canada. But - there will be pressure on Canada to attack others - as in Korea,Afghanistan, Haiti - order to please the U.S.

We certainly should beef up our military - after we have decided what it's for.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-protester-shot-1.5303783

The last hope for Hong Kong was the talks with China. And now that looks destroyed.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/greece-migrant-camp-fire-1.5302738

We are still in the very early days of dealing with the migrant crisis. And the nations of this world have no plan of how to deal with it. (Well, the U.S. has. It's building a wall  to keep them out.)
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We are facing the destruction of this planet and of all human life. We don't know how much or  how little,  time we have.Along the way to it, we have the enormous damage already caused and with more to come. We don't know how quickly. Certainly, we are heading at an increasing pace to the finish line for humanity.  But in the face of that challenge, we haven't done a thing  in over 40 years. And much of what has to be done requires early planning.

But it's not an issue in this election.  In fact, there are no issues. La-di-dah.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/crunch-time-for-netanyahu-as-talks-with-rival-politicians-break-down

It's very important for Netanyahu renew his role as leader of Israel. He needs it not to make changes (there is little difference between the other contenders for his spot.) No. Netanyahu needs that position to fend off criminal charges of corruption.
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/10/midpoint-election-2019-still-awaits-narrative-inspire-voters

sigh!
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https://www.thenation.com/article/economics-socialism-bolivia-evo/

Well, American billionaires can't let this go on.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/war-crimes-syria/

Hey! The U.S. needs its heroes to protect itself. Otherwise, all those dead children and civilians could attack the U.S.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/30/major-us-corporations-employees-would-have-work-1000-years-earn-what-ceos-made-one

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/30/just-absurd-flood-ridicule-trump-readies-executive-order-stop-socialist-destruction

Capitalism lives by a gospel of greed which creates massive poverty. The worst of it is when capitalist governments use armies to defeat smaller nations and to plunder them.

Capitalism creates jobs? Well, yeah - it creates them at the lowest level possible. That's what the British Empire was all about, and all the other European empires. That's what the American Empire is about. That's why hundreds of millions died in the British Empire.

And the American empire is the same. Nor do these empires kill or abuse only foreigners. Well into the 20th century,  the poor lived in dreadful conditions. Their children commonly got little or no education. Children commonly worked a fifteen hour day for very, very low pay. Government help for children and for the poor was almost unheard of.

Oooh ---ordinary people want medicare? How sinful! Capitalism is not about sharing and caring. It's about serving the greed of billionaires.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/counting-the-dead-through-the-fog-of-war-in-afghanistan

As Donald Trump would say, God bless America's soldiers/

Sure. Blame God.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/dangerous-detentions-julian-assange-and-remaining-in-belmarsh
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/09/the-emperors-new-clothes-greta-thunberg-and-the-climate-contrarians

Hey! We don't need little girls to tell us what to do. We put our faith in men -
real men - like Donald Trump and Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau what
his-name who leads Canada's Conservatives.
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/09/30/Autumn-Peltier-Asks-Why-So-Many-Communities-Have-No-Water/

Conditions on Canada's reserves can be truly, third world. And most of our news media don't seem to care.
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https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2019/09/30/Endless-Growth-Fairy-Tales-Will-Destroy-Us/
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https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-houthis-rout-of-the-saudi-army-in-najran/?fbclid=IwAR1WcmfqCNh7WXIdAtQE6fXI1-wjbFRTX85xuO6nquyHuJ5QtfkvhpHCkZA

This next item is truly shocking. Saudi Arabia is one of the most expensively weapon-equipped countries in the world. And it has been humiliated. This has implications for the American moves against Iran. (The U.S., after all, has not covered itself in glory in its wars with Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.)

We may be approaching a point at which nuclear war is the only choice left.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52312.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52315.htm

Big business, of course, and not the elected government runs the U.S. And, oh, the loot is well spread among the politicians.
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This next report is one to be taken very, very seriously. And that guarantees it will  not be an election issue in Canada.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/19/20872366/global-pandemic-prevention-who-world-bank-report
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Donald Trump is surely the most irresponsible president the U.S. has ever had.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52316.htm

Will this lead to violence? It is exactly the sort of statement that does lead to violence.
________________________________________________________________

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52306.htm
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https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2019/09/26/income-inequality-in-america-is-the-highest-its-been-since-census-started-tracking-it-data-shows/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AttentionToTheUnseen+%28Attention+to+the+Unseen%29

The American Empire, like the old British one, plunders its own people as much as it does it's conquered peoples.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52311.htm
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https://news.yahoo.com/us-russia-nuclear-war-kill-172654684.html
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/

No Canadian party has much useful to say about climate change and how to deal with it. The Conservatives, of course, are in pits with the Liberals, at best, only slightly higher. The NDP and the Greens are, to say the least, casual about it.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/27/opinion/canadian-youth-dont-trust-their-government-deliver-real-climate-action

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Canada is racist. It has always been racist. It has persecuted and abused Blacks, orientals, Canadian native peoples... Quebec right now is abusing Muslims.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/26/opinion/looking-canadian-racism-face

But, gee whiz, it has never been an election issue.
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New Brunswick has Canada's richest family - and poorest, least served population. The Irving family runs the whole place, gets massive grants and deals from the provincial government, gives nothing back, pollutes the forests - and has owned every government this province has had for the last eighty years. It also owns all the province's newspapers which print only what the Irvings want to see printed. These are probably the worst newspapers in Canada.

The premier is a man named Higgs whose whole working life was devoted to the Irvings. They own him - and he serves not the people, but only the Irvings. And he drives the province into poverty even as throws huge sums at the Irvings.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/16/news/man-irving

Mind you, it doesn't matter if Higgs loses the next election. The Irvings own the Liberals, too. In fact, while Romeo Leblanc in the federal cabinet and then was   Governor-General, he was the Irving's boy in Ottawa, a job probably now held by his son.

I came to know Romeo quite well - and I must add that he was a genuine and sincere Irving worshipper.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/01/news/names-children-who-died-residential-schools-released-sombre-ceremony
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ahead-nuke-talks-north-korea-fires-ballistic-missiles-japanese-waters

This is terrible. Nuclear weapons developed by Orientals. I mean, the U.S. probably has more nukes than anybody else. And it is the whole country in the whole world t hat has ever used them.

But Americans are mostly white and Christian.
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Seventy-five years after the war to end all wars, after the failure to agree to any plan for world order, after the failure to develop real democracy even in the U.S., the world is in the most terrible trouble it has even known. International order does not exist. The absolute power of billionaires has effectively destroyed democracy in Canada, the U.S., and much of the world.

We face a massive job of digging out of the hell we have created. We are planning to deal with climate change in the next thirty years - so our politicians tell us. There is no such thing as dealing with it in thirty years. We don't know how big the job is. We don't even know what the condition of the world will be in thirty years.

We have massive study and planning to do in saving this planet and us. But we  still have little idea of the dimensions of this task - and there is no sign that the billionaires who own our governments are ready to help. Nor does it  help to remember that we have already thrown thirty years away with no progress at all.

No party in the present election has given even a hint of what it plans to do. It's not just a matter making plans. It's a matter of getting support from the people who have denied it for the last thirty years. We don't yet have even the most basic sense of what challenges we have to face in   dealing with planet survival.

Nor is it possible   to deal with that when we are spending massively on wars. Think about it. Washington in particular has a massive war industry, probably the largest in history. The people who control that industry also control the U.S government.

We have a huge job facing us. And we're spending the precious time we have -  on wars.

As we're doing this, our billionaires are robbing us blind. That's why we may well be facing a serious recession. And we may find it is no easy task to save the world when we have no money. Indeed, we may all find ourselves desperate for money - as in the 1930s.

Since the 1930s, as earlier, we have actually created massive poverty to make billionaires happier. Plotting a change to save the world, we will also have to find a solution to the problem that capitalism is the name of greed and indifference to human suffering.

And what are we doing?

Well, Canada is going through a comic opera period of government. Most  notably, we are holding an election of parties who have little, if any, sense of what the future must be.  This election is a farce. And we are being farcical for going along with it.

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By the way, ever wonder how some of us can become so greedy, and the rest so submissive. Partly, it's training.

Enjoy training as a huge crowd sings

Land of hope and glory
Mother of the free.
How can we extol them
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bonds be set.
God who made thee mighty
Make thee mightier yet.......

Americans have........

• Shop

America the Beautiful

Words by Katharine Lee Bates with melody by by Samuel Ward

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O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

And both countries sang these   songs - the British as they killed hundreds of millions for plunder - and as the rich British abused their own people, and the Americans as their wealthy horribly abused them, and have spent their whole history mass murdering all over the world.

And, perhaps in an unusual reading of The Bible, both Brits and Americans freely slaughtered - nobody knows the number. It may come close to a billion. And, so it seems, in both countries, God wanted the rich to plunder and abuse the poor.

Patriotism sounds like a wonderful thing. But the way we use itt, rarely is. The U.S. has used it to murder millions of native people and Latins. Canada has used it to slaughter native peoples and metis. We called on patriotism. But what, for example, did Canadians do in Afghanistan that was patriotic? Killing people we have nothing against in order to please American billionaires surely has nothing to do with patriotism.

Our politicians use patriotism as a device to do somebody's dirty work. Patriotism also translates easily into  racism.

l