The Tand T report on the public meeting of city council was well done. The writing was good. The story gave a full hearing to those who went to protest the location proposed for a new Moncton High School. No-one could reasonably complain about the fairness and accuracy of the story.
Did you notice there was no editorial on the subject? No, the editorial was on the budget for the fire department. (No. I'm not being picky.)
The citizen protest at City Council was a rare - a very rare - example of citizen activity in Moncton. This was the major civic event of some years.But the fire department budget trumped it as an editorial issue. Why?
Indeed, a great many questions emerge from that meeting. We know the provincial government has the right to build schools whereever it likes. But wouldn't it discuss it a little - at least casually - with a city before going ahead? And would a city that had a master plan for the city's future advise the provincial government on what its development plan was - and how the provincial proposal did or didn't fit into it? None of this seems to have happened.
In fact, we don't even know whether the proposal really came from the Ministry of Education. The ministry announced it. But did it make the decision? If so, what a coincidence that there was a developer on the scene who happened to need a school.!
Let's assume that there might be some improprieties going on here. Let's assume that I am mayor or PM or developer - and there's a citizen protest. How do I handle it?
Well, I would put a hold on rezoning. Then I would let the public in to h ave their say. I would conclude by thanking the speakers, and assuring them that city council is on their side, and will certainly take the matter to Fredericton. And, if I owned the TandT, I would tell the editor to find something else for Mazerolle to do for the day, and get somebody else to write up a sympathetic account of the meeting.
Then we can have a nice, quiet civic election - and get back to normal. After all, Monctonians are a pretty passive lot - and last night's tunout, though impressive for Moncton - was a tiny, tiny fraction of the population.
The people who represented Moncton High did a good job last night. So, in their own way, did the people who represent developers. They let the people talk. No harm in that.
The heat is going to have to stay on through the election. We need to know exactly where the mayor has stood - not just last night, but through the whole affair. We have to know which councillors really supported the citizens last night, and which ones were playing a stalling game to get through the election. We have to know exactly how this new school fits into the master plan we hear so much about but see so little of.
That done, we can elect a serious council to face the next stage, putting some real heat on Fredericton.
Can you seriously believe that the ministry of education chose a site without even mentioning it to the Mayor and council? Can you seriously believe that we have a master plan for the future which calls for urban sprawl out to Royal Oaks? Can you seriously believe the Irving papers are suddently going to start being honest about the news? This isn't over. Not by a long shot.
Watch for a similar game being played over shale gas. The Liberals are demanding a pause in shale gas development until we get adequate regulations in place. Right. New Brunswick's Liberals have a long record of standing up to big business. What will happen?
Well, if it strings out to the next election, it will give the Liberals a possible win; and they will then enact a set of regulation agreeable to the developers - which probably won't be enforced, anyway.
Or, more likely, the Conseratives will respond that they have already prepared a set of regulations acceptable to the developers (though they won't say that last part.) - which they probably won't enforce, either.
The biggest story in today's paper is the push for an elected Senate, supposedly to give New Brunswick more power in Ottawa - as though New Brunswick's coporate aristocracy don't already have power in Ottawa.
Still no report on Sgt. Bales, the American soldier who killed 16 people in Iraq. Check out the Washington Post on this one. Bales has a worse criminal record than I had suspected. In fact, he seems to have joined the army to escape a fraud charge he was later found guilty of. His record of violence is quite striking. This is clearly a man whose social and mental problems long predate the Iraq war.
There was a time when people with criminal records were not desirable in the American military. Now they are sought after. Partly it's because volunteers are hard to find. But it's also because the army wants thugs. It's also because the army trains them to enjoy killing and violence. The Washington Post includes an account of the enormous damage done to the minds of recruits in the course of modern military training. It particularly examines the stunning rates of crime and mental instability at an advanced training base.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has reached epidemic proportions. And it is not simply the result of combat. It's also a result of what we do to our soldiers. And, so far, neither Canada nor the United States is doing nearly enough to help those people we self-righteously thank every November 11.
There's an important commentary on the op ed page by Aurea Cormier of the Common Front for Social Justice. It's statement of truth we don't usually hear about.
And Norbert Cunningham did a very readable and interesting column on the editorial page. When Norbert's good, he's really good.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
March 19: Actually, i'm starting this on Sunday, March 18, because...
...it will be interesting to see how The Moncton Times and Transcript will present the story of Staff Sergeant Batles who has confessed to killing 16 people, mostly women and children. The TandT will surely, as usual, use Reuters. And it might provide an interesting example of how we don't get the full story.
The original, official version was that Bates was acting alone, and that he was suffering severe brain damage from a Hummer rollover in Iraq some two years ago. That was a story that never made sense.
He walked out of camp in the middle of the night with a rifle and a large quantity of something inflammable. He attacked two villages, murdered sixteen people, set fire to their bodies, took pictures, and was back in camp - all within an hour. Right.
Now, it's been modified. He was, it seems, a loving father and husband, one who his neighbours never dreamed would do such a thing. Oh, and he had recently seen a comrade's leg blown off.
He may well have been a loving father and husband. But he also had a criminal record - one for assault, and another for fleeing the scene of a one-car accident. As his wife says, he has a serious problem with anger; and was once ordered into an anger management programme.
As for seeing a comrade's leg blown off, he was on his third tour of duty. He'd seen a lot of people horribly wounded. And there were many, many more Moslems who had seen their comrades mutilated by people like Sgt. Bates. But I've never seen the US army or our news media excuse that as a cause of terrorism.
Anyway, we have a man with mental problems that seem to begin well before the Hummer rollover. And, in fact, he had undergone treatement in an army psychiatric hospital.
So - the story now is that the US army sent a man with severe psychiatric problems and with a criminal record back into combat - as a sniper. The last part of the story makes sense. Snipers and special ops troops have to be people who really, really want to kill. Obviously, you are going to get quite a number of "special" people with angermanagement problems in their ranks. But there's more....
Reports from the Afghan government say that is wasn't just Sgt. Bates. It was fifteen to twenty soldiers. (Well, that explains how sixteen people could be killed, some by stabbing, their bodies burned, and photos taken, all in well under an hour. (Remember, in the full hour they were out, some time was used in walking to the villages and back.)
Witnesses tell of at least two women beinig raped before they were murdered.
Other sources say such attacks have been routine.
So how much will Reuters tell us?
Thursday: March 19.
Wow! The Moncton Times and Transcript didn't even carry the story - not in any version. Most North American news sources seem to have carried the sympathetic, US army version. But the TandT not even that.
Actually, it's kind of an important story, in any version. First, it signals the complete collapse of any possibilty of victory in Afghanistan. (That's probably more important than the story that Mitt Romney won the GOP primary in Puerto Rico.)
It's also very, very bad for our reputation in the world. Yes, ours. Canada has publicly and actively supported the US every step of the way in Afghanistan. The rest of the world will see us and Americans as the same people - with the same viciousness and greed. That has consequences.
Ah, well, going back to the front page of the TandT, we find it has, as it is frequently does, a news story that is not a news story at all.
"Playing poker with Royal Oaks" is about the cancellation of a request for rezoning. If it actually told the story about the cancellation, then it would be a news story. However, it doesn't tell the story. Instead, it's full of guesses, opinions (and propaganda) about what the cancellation means. It even accuses the opponents of moving MHS as being dishonest.
That's not called news. It's called commentary. And in a real newspaper, it appears labelled commentary - often on a speical page such as op ed. (Actually, a REALLY good newspaper would call it propaganda, and wouldn't allow it on any page.)
Well, since Brent Mazerolle has called a person with my opinion about MHS and Royal Oaks dishonest, I'll call him unethical. I have an advantage here. I have taught journalistic ethics to working reporters. I doubt whether Mr. Mazerolle or anybody at the TandT knows what journalistic ethics are.
The lead story is about how New Brunswick is leading the way in Senate reform through demanding elected senators.
Mr. Alward. close your eyes real tight, and think real hard. If elected senators are to have power, where will that power come from? There's only one source it can come from - our elected mps in the House of Commons. You don't create new power that way. You simply shift it. You don't gain any repreentation at all. And it gets worse.
Running for Senate, covering the whole province, will be expensive. That money can come, as it does now, all or largely from corporations and the very wealthy. That's the problem you have now with elected mps and mlas. Electing senators won't change a thing - except to provide New Brunswick corporations with another good ol' boy in Ottawa.
You want us people to have more power? Simple. Get rid of a political system that puts politicians up for sale to the rich.
Alec Buce has the best column I've seen on the spectacular resignation of a senior executive from Goldman Sachs. It's funny - and it makes sense.
Norbert, Norbert, Norbert, except in the narrowest and most abstract of legal terms, a corporation is not a citizen. Neithr, for that matter, are houses, cars or roller skates. A citizen is a human. A corporation is a thing owned by humans. If you want to get all mushy about rights, save them for humans.
.....unless, of course, you intend to propose putting corporations in prison for illegal behaviour.... that could be worth looking at. (Of course, we would then have to consider building prisons for houses, cars and roller skates. Harper might be interested.)
To end where I started, the war in Afghanistan is lost. Seargent Bates has put paid to any lingering dream of a victory. At least tens of thousands have died. There is no possible count on the crippled, or on those who are now starving even in the cities, of the immense sums of money spent on a war to.....what? Get even for 9/11? The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. Nobody even pretends that any more.
Because bin Laden was a bad man? a)he's dead b)even if he was a bad man, how does that justify killing tens of thousands of innocent people.?
What was this war about? Why did we send Canadians to die in it? Who gained from all that?
The story of Staff Seargent Bates, whether you are for or against him personally, sums up the brutality, pointlessness and insane conceit of this war in Afghanistan. We might remember that before we rush forward to take part in the next war - coming your way soon.
The original, official version was that Bates was acting alone, and that he was suffering severe brain damage from a Hummer rollover in Iraq some two years ago. That was a story that never made sense.
He walked out of camp in the middle of the night with a rifle and a large quantity of something inflammable. He attacked two villages, murdered sixteen people, set fire to their bodies, took pictures, and was back in camp - all within an hour. Right.
Now, it's been modified. He was, it seems, a loving father and husband, one who his neighbours never dreamed would do such a thing. Oh, and he had recently seen a comrade's leg blown off.
He may well have been a loving father and husband. But he also had a criminal record - one for assault, and another for fleeing the scene of a one-car accident. As his wife says, he has a serious problem with anger; and was once ordered into an anger management programme.
As for seeing a comrade's leg blown off, he was on his third tour of duty. He'd seen a lot of people horribly wounded. And there were many, many more Moslems who had seen their comrades mutilated by people like Sgt. Bates. But I've never seen the US army or our news media excuse that as a cause of terrorism.
Anyway, we have a man with mental problems that seem to begin well before the Hummer rollover. And, in fact, he had undergone treatement in an army psychiatric hospital.
So - the story now is that the US army sent a man with severe psychiatric problems and with a criminal record back into combat - as a sniper. The last part of the story makes sense. Snipers and special ops troops have to be people who really, really want to kill. Obviously, you are going to get quite a number of "special" people with angermanagement problems in their ranks. But there's more....
Reports from the Afghan government say that is wasn't just Sgt. Bates. It was fifteen to twenty soldiers. (Well, that explains how sixteen people could be killed, some by stabbing, their bodies burned, and photos taken, all in well under an hour. (Remember, in the full hour they were out, some time was used in walking to the villages and back.)
Witnesses tell of at least two women beinig raped before they were murdered.
Other sources say such attacks have been routine.
So how much will Reuters tell us?
Thursday: March 19.
Wow! The Moncton Times and Transcript didn't even carry the story - not in any version. Most North American news sources seem to have carried the sympathetic, US army version. But the TandT not even that.
Actually, it's kind of an important story, in any version. First, it signals the complete collapse of any possibilty of victory in Afghanistan. (That's probably more important than the story that Mitt Romney won the GOP primary in Puerto Rico.)
It's also very, very bad for our reputation in the world. Yes, ours. Canada has publicly and actively supported the US every step of the way in Afghanistan. The rest of the world will see us and Americans as the same people - with the same viciousness and greed. That has consequences.
Ah, well, going back to the front page of the TandT, we find it has, as it is frequently does, a news story that is not a news story at all.
"Playing poker with Royal Oaks" is about the cancellation of a request for rezoning. If it actually told the story about the cancellation, then it would be a news story. However, it doesn't tell the story. Instead, it's full of guesses, opinions (and propaganda) about what the cancellation means. It even accuses the opponents of moving MHS as being dishonest.
That's not called news. It's called commentary. And in a real newspaper, it appears labelled commentary - often on a speical page such as op ed. (Actually, a REALLY good newspaper would call it propaganda, and wouldn't allow it on any page.)
Well, since Brent Mazerolle has called a person with my opinion about MHS and Royal Oaks dishonest, I'll call him unethical. I have an advantage here. I have taught journalistic ethics to working reporters. I doubt whether Mr. Mazerolle or anybody at the TandT knows what journalistic ethics are.
The lead story is about how New Brunswick is leading the way in Senate reform through demanding elected senators.
Mr. Alward. close your eyes real tight, and think real hard. If elected senators are to have power, where will that power come from? There's only one source it can come from - our elected mps in the House of Commons. You don't create new power that way. You simply shift it. You don't gain any repreentation at all. And it gets worse.
Running for Senate, covering the whole province, will be expensive. That money can come, as it does now, all or largely from corporations and the very wealthy. That's the problem you have now with elected mps and mlas. Electing senators won't change a thing - except to provide New Brunswick corporations with another good ol' boy in Ottawa.
You want us people to have more power? Simple. Get rid of a political system that puts politicians up for sale to the rich.
Alec Buce has the best column I've seen on the spectacular resignation of a senior executive from Goldman Sachs. It's funny - and it makes sense.
Norbert, Norbert, Norbert, except in the narrowest and most abstract of legal terms, a corporation is not a citizen. Neithr, for that matter, are houses, cars or roller skates. A citizen is a human. A corporation is a thing owned by humans. If you want to get all mushy about rights, save them for humans.
.....unless, of course, you intend to propose putting corporations in prison for illegal behaviour.... that could be worth looking at. (Of course, we would then have to consider building prisons for houses, cars and roller skates. Harper might be interested.)
To end where I started, the war in Afghanistan is lost. Seargent Bates has put paid to any lingering dream of a victory. At least tens of thousands have died. There is no possible count on the crippled, or on those who are now starving even in the cities, of the immense sums of money spent on a war to.....what? Get even for 9/11? The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. Nobody even pretends that any more.
Because bin Laden was a bad man? a)he's dead b)even if he was a bad man, how does that justify killing tens of thousands of innocent people.?
What was this war about? Why did we send Canadians to die in it? Who gained from all that?
The story of Staff Seargent Bates, whether you are for or against him personally, sums up the brutality, pointlessness and insane conceit of this war in Afghanistan. We might remember that before we rush forward to take part in the next war - coming your way soon.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
March17: Wow! Go to section F1...
....for what may be the best page I've yet seen in The Moncton Times and Transcript. It's a page of paintings by Moncton high school students. The imagination and the skill are breathtaking. It's actually worth cutting out this page and keeping it.
I hate those kids.
I took up painting about a year ago. I like it. A few of my paintings have been worth framing. But I'm nowhere close to those kids; and I never will be. I know it. I've always known I have a very limited talent. But, gee, they don't have to rub it in like that.
The pictures are now on display at Moncton City Hall. I'm certainly going to see them. It'll make me feel terribly clumsy and inadequate and envious. But a man's gotta do whut a man's gotta do.
There is virtually no news in the rest of the paper. NewsToday has at last noticed that the F-35 fighter-bomber programme of the "Harper government" is a disaster. And a very, very expensive one. That's been obvious from the start. Glad the Tand T picked up on it.
The story also carries a photo of Peter MacKay, a keeper for your collection of worst and most expensive defence ministers in Candian history. And we've had some gems in the category. Of course, it's hard to put all the blame on young Peter. Harper chose him for cabinet because Harper likes cabinet ministers who do what they're told; and Peter fits the bill. It's quite likely, almost certain, that control-freak Harper is the real cause of this mess.
The big headline is "Canadians expect bad budget news". Okay. But we're Canadians. Right? So if we're already expecting something, why tell us w're expecting it? Do they think we're so dumb we don't know what we're expecting?
There's a useful starting point for discussion of the fisheries in Bill Beliveau's column. That's a problem we're going to have to deal with very, very soon. And if we leave the decision up to Harper, our Atlantic fishery is toast. This could well be the decisive year.
Norbert Cunningham criticizes the internet for its threat to privacy. Good point. Newspapers have always set an example of ensuring privacy - for the right sort of people- like shale gas developers and, you know, people with influence on the government. Terrible the way the internet makes it possible for people to spread malicious stories about the news media and child porn, and talk to each other - about child porn, find out things from around the world - like international child porn. Wouldn't we be better off relying just on newspapers so respectable people could go on destroying our public schools for children? poisoning our groundwater and our general environment for children? keeping wages low so that children won't be tempted by having too much money? or food?
Disgusting as it is, if New Brunswick worried less about child porn and more about abuse of its schools, its working people.its poverty its illiteracy, its lack of intellecutal and cultural life, its environment, the children would be a hell of a lot better off.
Brent Mazerolle has the usual nothing piece for op ed. It seems he had a gallstone; and it hurt. Yes, yes. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Gwynne Dyer has a scary column for those who think we're on the path to economic recovery, making this is a good time to borrow millions for a new hockey rink. Sometimes, I wish I could laugh at Gwynne.s views. But I've learned that's not a good idea. He may not be right this time. I hope he isn't. But it's just as well to look at all the possibilities.
Below Gwynne's column is a good letter to the editor by George Jonah of Moncton.
On -and this cheery note for St. Patrick's revellers. Fifty-one percent (51%, slightly more than half) of all the Irish who migrated to Canada were - gasp - Protestant.
I hate those kids.
I took up painting about a year ago. I like it. A few of my paintings have been worth framing. But I'm nowhere close to those kids; and I never will be. I know it. I've always known I have a very limited talent. But, gee, they don't have to rub it in like that.
The pictures are now on display at Moncton City Hall. I'm certainly going to see them. It'll make me feel terribly clumsy and inadequate and envious. But a man's gotta do whut a man's gotta do.
There is virtually no news in the rest of the paper. NewsToday has at last noticed that the F-35 fighter-bomber programme of the "Harper government" is a disaster. And a very, very expensive one. That's been obvious from the start. Glad the Tand T picked up on it.
The story also carries a photo of Peter MacKay, a keeper for your collection of worst and most expensive defence ministers in Candian history. And we've had some gems in the category. Of course, it's hard to put all the blame on young Peter. Harper chose him for cabinet because Harper likes cabinet ministers who do what they're told; and Peter fits the bill. It's quite likely, almost certain, that control-freak Harper is the real cause of this mess.
The big headline is "Canadians expect bad budget news". Okay. But we're Canadians. Right? So if we're already expecting something, why tell us w're expecting it? Do they think we're so dumb we don't know what we're expecting?
There's a useful starting point for discussion of the fisheries in Bill Beliveau's column. That's a problem we're going to have to deal with very, very soon. And if we leave the decision up to Harper, our Atlantic fishery is toast. This could well be the decisive year.
Norbert Cunningham criticizes the internet for its threat to privacy. Good point. Newspapers have always set an example of ensuring privacy - for the right sort of people- like shale gas developers and, you know, people with influence on the government. Terrible the way the internet makes it possible for people to spread malicious stories about the news media and child porn, and talk to each other - about child porn, find out things from around the world - like international child porn. Wouldn't we be better off relying just on newspapers so respectable people could go on destroying our public schools for children? poisoning our groundwater and our general environment for children? keeping wages low so that children won't be tempted by having too much money? or food?
Disgusting as it is, if New Brunswick worried less about child porn and more about abuse of its schools, its working people.its poverty its illiteracy, its lack of intellecutal and cultural life, its environment, the children would be a hell of a lot better off.
Brent Mazerolle has the usual nothing piece for op ed. It seems he had a gallstone; and it hurt. Yes, yes. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Gwynne Dyer has a scary column for those who think we're on the path to economic recovery, making this is a good time to borrow millions for a new hockey rink. Sometimes, I wish I could laugh at Gwynne.s views. But I've learned that's not a good idea. He may not be right this time. I hope he isn't. But it's just as well to look at all the possibilities.
Below Gwynne's column is a good letter to the editor by George Jonah of Moncton.
On -and this cheery note for St. Patrick's revellers. Fifty-one percent (51%, slightly more than half) of all the Irish who migrated to Canada were - gasp - Protestant.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Narch 16: Let's start with the good parts because...
...the rest of today's Moncton Times and Transcript is stunningly wretched - even by the standards of the Irving press.
Well worth reading are Alec Bruce (editorial page), Lynda MacGibbon and David Suzuki (op ed page), and some of the letters to the editor.. (The weather forecast is worth a read, too.) I'll say a little about Lynda MacGibbon's column because it's both thoughtful and unusual. I mean, how often do you see a column about going to church? (No. This will not be a clap hands for Jesus blog.)
Ms. MacGibbon, now living in Toronto, wants to go to church - but she is overwhelmed by it. It's not so much the choosing of a church; it's the long, awkward, and sometimes hard work of getting comfortable with a strange community - and with all the responsibilities (and joys and stimulation) that are involved in being part of a community.
She remembers her childhood when seventy percent (now twenty percent) went to church regularly. And it was far more than a Sunday service. Church was the normal social centre, almost seven days a week, for the whole community. Church was Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and CGIT, the Lady's Aid, the carpet bowling crowd, the annual bazaar, the bakery sale, the boys wrestling club, the teenagers' dance club where I met the first girl I loved truly for forever and ever - more or less, the Young Peoples' Union... It was the place of discussions and concerts and baseball games.
The end began with radio. Shows like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope killed the Sunday evening service in most churches. Then came TV - and the prosperity that meant better salaries to go to movies and clubs. And then the computer. All the above not only drew people away from socializing of any sort, it cut at the root of organized social life in the church by cutting off that essential supply of adult leaders willing to give their time for the activities.
As well, the church can't be the centre of community activities any more - because there are no communities. That's why so many children visit each other - then don't speak a word to each other. They just sit in the same room - each playing with his or her own computer - or five kids blanked out watching a TV screen - or hundreds of them blanked out watching a movie screen.
All around Moncton, you can see churches, empty, like the abandoned saloons in a western ghost town.
Lynda MacGibbon isn't just looking for a church. She's looking for something we lost a long time ago - a community, social relationaships, serous discussion on all kinds of topics...learning with others...purpose.... I can only wish her luck.
Then there's what isn't in the Moncton TandT. There is almost certainly going to be a war with Iran. Israel's Netanyahu wants it now. Obama doesn't want it yet. Netanyahu, as he has said publicly - though not in the TandT - doesn't give a damn what Obama wants. He is quite prepared to go to war without Obama's consent, knowing well that Obama, with an election coming, will have to support him. With luck, Netanyahu can be stalled with the gifts of military equipment Obama has promised him - such as air tankers, essential for Israeli fighter bombers on their strikes against Iran. Maybe - maybe - Netanyahu will wait until the American election is over. Maybe.
Whenever it starts, Canada will be in it because Harper has already said so. So will Britain. Russia and China will see this as a direct challenge to them. Nobody, nobody can guess the consequences for the Middle East or, indeed, for the rest of the world when that war breaks out.
Can China and Russia afford to sit by while the West takes over Africa and the Middle East? Or do they decide that it's nor or never?
All this is, supposedly over an Iranian nuclear threat - which probably doesn't exist and which, if it did exist, would be a far, far smaller threat that those posed by the nuclear arsenals of the US, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, China - and Israel.
It's a war that really has nothing to do with Iran getting a nuclear bomb, but everything to do with the economic power of the US, Britain, China in the world - and the strategic dominance of Israel in the region.
The TandT has nothing on it. However, It does have a big story on Prince Charles and Lady Camilla visiting Canada. oo-h-oooh.
One could talk forever about what is wrong with the rest of the paper. But I'll settle for a disgusting editorial. It attacks Transpo Workers. They want $24.50 an hour? What a hell of a nerve. The job doesn't take any brains or ability. They'd be overpaid at $20.00. The editorial pours out contempt.You can do that when nobody knows who you are.
Let's forget for a moment, that the editorial writer would not have the balls to say any such thing about Mr. Irving. Indeed, I have never seen an editorial in the Moncton Times and Transcript that was critical of Mr. Irving or his hourly pay. No, for it's opinion of him, can get get it only by ear, from the sound of editorial lips kissing a naked rear end.
But it's okay to insult people who aren't rich and who have to safely drive busses full of people at all hours and all weather conditions. What kind of a foul-mouthed, contemptuous, boot-licking lout writes editorials like that? And how much does he (or she) get paid for his (or her) intellect and ability?
Mr. Irving, of course, deserves to earn thousands of times what those drivers do. That's because he has unimaginable power of intellect and ability.
And it has nothing to do with having had a father named Irving.
Well worth reading are Alec Bruce (editorial page), Lynda MacGibbon and David Suzuki (op ed page), and some of the letters to the editor.. (The weather forecast is worth a read, too.) I'll say a little about Lynda MacGibbon's column because it's both thoughtful and unusual. I mean, how often do you see a column about going to church? (No. This will not be a clap hands for Jesus blog.)
Ms. MacGibbon, now living in Toronto, wants to go to church - but she is overwhelmed by it. It's not so much the choosing of a church; it's the long, awkward, and sometimes hard work of getting comfortable with a strange community - and with all the responsibilities (and joys and stimulation) that are involved in being part of a community.
She remembers her childhood when seventy percent (now twenty percent) went to church regularly. And it was far more than a Sunday service. Church was the normal social centre, almost seven days a week, for the whole community. Church was Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and CGIT, the Lady's Aid, the carpet bowling crowd, the annual bazaar, the bakery sale, the boys wrestling club, the teenagers' dance club where I met the first girl I loved truly for forever and ever - more or less, the Young Peoples' Union... It was the place of discussions and concerts and baseball games.
The end began with radio. Shows like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope killed the Sunday evening service in most churches. Then came TV - and the prosperity that meant better salaries to go to movies and clubs. And then the computer. All the above not only drew people away from socializing of any sort, it cut at the root of organized social life in the church by cutting off that essential supply of adult leaders willing to give their time for the activities.
As well, the church can't be the centre of community activities any more - because there are no communities. That's why so many children visit each other - then don't speak a word to each other. They just sit in the same room - each playing with his or her own computer - or five kids blanked out watching a TV screen - or hundreds of them blanked out watching a movie screen.
All around Moncton, you can see churches, empty, like the abandoned saloons in a western ghost town.
Lynda MacGibbon isn't just looking for a church. She's looking for something we lost a long time ago - a community, social relationaships, serous discussion on all kinds of topics...learning with others...purpose.... I can only wish her luck.
Then there's what isn't in the Moncton TandT. There is almost certainly going to be a war with Iran. Israel's Netanyahu wants it now. Obama doesn't want it yet. Netanyahu, as he has said publicly - though not in the TandT - doesn't give a damn what Obama wants. He is quite prepared to go to war without Obama's consent, knowing well that Obama, with an election coming, will have to support him. With luck, Netanyahu can be stalled with the gifts of military equipment Obama has promised him - such as air tankers, essential for Israeli fighter bombers on their strikes against Iran. Maybe - maybe - Netanyahu will wait until the American election is over. Maybe.
Whenever it starts, Canada will be in it because Harper has already said so. So will Britain. Russia and China will see this as a direct challenge to them. Nobody, nobody can guess the consequences for the Middle East or, indeed, for the rest of the world when that war breaks out.
Can China and Russia afford to sit by while the West takes over Africa and the Middle East? Or do they decide that it's nor or never?
All this is, supposedly over an Iranian nuclear threat - which probably doesn't exist and which, if it did exist, would be a far, far smaller threat that those posed by the nuclear arsenals of the US, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, China - and Israel.
It's a war that really has nothing to do with Iran getting a nuclear bomb, but everything to do with the economic power of the US, Britain, China in the world - and the strategic dominance of Israel in the region.
The TandT has nothing on it. However, It does have a big story on Prince Charles and Lady Camilla visiting Canada. oo-h-oooh.
One could talk forever about what is wrong with the rest of the paper. But I'll settle for a disgusting editorial. It attacks Transpo Workers. They want $24.50 an hour? What a hell of a nerve. The job doesn't take any brains or ability. They'd be overpaid at $20.00. The editorial pours out contempt.You can do that when nobody knows who you are.
Let's forget for a moment, that the editorial writer would not have the balls to say any such thing about Mr. Irving. Indeed, I have never seen an editorial in the Moncton Times and Transcript that was critical of Mr. Irving or his hourly pay. No, for it's opinion of him, can get get it only by ear, from the sound of editorial lips kissing a naked rear end.
But it's okay to insult people who aren't rich and who have to safely drive busses full of people at all hours and all weather conditions. What kind of a foul-mouthed, contemptuous, boot-licking lout writes editorials like that? And how much does he (or she) get paid for his (or her) intellect and ability?
Mr. Irving, of course, deserves to earn thousands of times what those drivers do. That's because he has unimaginable power of intellect and ability.
And it has nothing to do with having had a father named Irving.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
no date: just some random thoughts about revolutionaries....
If you follow our news media, it's easy to get the impression that revolutionaries and even protesters are extremists and trouble makers. They're ignorant. They're failures. They're complaining because they're not good enough or hard-working enough to make their own way. Actually, it's not that simple. In fact, "revolutionaries" and protestors seldom start revolutions at all.
George Washington certainly counts as a revolutionary, a real one, and an extremist ( I mean, fighting a war is pretty extreme). But George was a financial success. In fact, he was probably the richest man in the colonies; and he was certainly the largest slave-owner. Despite the Hollywood image of the American revolution, many of the leading American revolutionaries were quite wealthy people. (Nor did they believe all people are created equal. People who believe that don't keep slaves, and give women lesser rights than men.)
In the Guatemalan revolution of the 1950s, the revolutionaries were backed by wealthy Americans who wanted a dictatorship. The same was true of the recent Haitian revolution in which president Aristide was overthrown.
As well, many "revolutions" are sponsored and even organized and equipped by the leaders of other countries. We've seen that in Libya, Egypt, Syria - and we're going to see a lot more of it. And leaders like Blair and Bush and Cameron and Obama are certainly not the poor and the ignorant and the failures in life.
There is another kind of revolution, one that actually comes from the general public. But the people we usually call revolutionaries generally are not the cause of such revolutions.
Leon Trotsky, a leading figure in the Russian revolution of 1917, the founder of the Red Army,later assassinated by Stalin wasn't even in Russia when it began. When he tried to get to Russia to join it, he was stopped and imprisoned next door to Moncton in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
Who knows? He could have stayed there for the whole war, perhaps settling after the war in a nearby city (Moncton springs to mind), and maybe have built a fortune on the oil business. The Rusian revolution would still have happened - just without him.
But the Canadian government let Trotsky out after just a month, and he caught the next boat for Europe.
Trotsky and Lenin were certainly revolutionaries. But they didn't start the Russian revolution. The Tsar and his goverment of aristocrats did that. And that is often the case.
In 1917, Russia was one of the most backward and inefficient countries in the western world. That condition went back long, long before there were any people we would call revolutionaries or even protesters. It went back to centuries of rule by people who had power not by talent, not by general consent, but simply by birth. Your father was Tsar with supreme power over life and death? Then, even if you were hopelessly retarded, brutal and demented you became Tsar with supreme power over life and death.
The people who ran government departments were "chosen" in the same way. Daddy was a minister of state because he was a count? You became a minister of state when you succeeded him as count. Again, no credentials, abilities or work habits were necessary. (One such aristocrat was the last Tsar's minister of education. His name was Ignatieff and, yes, there is a connection.)
For centuries, Russians suffered from the greed and brutality of their ruling classes. But they didn't revolt. The breaking point came when a badly trained and poorly equipped army led by dolts who were officers only because of their social class were slaughtered by an invading German army that was smaller - but better equipped and more intelligently led.
That's what caused the revolution in Russia - excessive power in the hands of people who had power not because of any ability or even usefulness, but only because they inherited it. They had held power all those years largely with brutal punishment of anyone who questioned them (exactly as the communists under Lenin and Stalin would do.)
The cause of the Russian revolution was not the poor or the protestors or "the people" as some communists like to imagine. It was the stupidity, greed and incompetence of the ruling class.
The western world is in just such a revolutionary danger today. Our daily news gives no sense of the extent of social breakdown and suffering. In Greece, the official unemployment rate is 20% - which means it's really at least twice that. Parents are giving up their children because they simply can't feed them. Many can't even feed thsmelves.
Over one and a half million children in the US are homeless, the highest percentage of homeless children in American history. In Britain, the income gap between rich and poor is even worse than it is in the US.
And, yes, we do have a governing aristocratic class. Like the Russian one, it is there largely because daddy was there - and maybe even daddy's daddy before him. Brains and/or hard work have nothing to do with it. They're self-serving, socially inefficient. They rely, as Tsarist Russia did, on constant expansion of secret police. (Did you know know you can end up on a suspect list for being a feminist? An environmentalist? An advocate of organic food? A protester of any sort? Seriously. It's happening now.)
Revolution is not really a very good way to go. The USSR was not what the Russian people had in mind. The dominance of the Communist Party in China has been wonderful for a handful of billionaires. It's been an extended hell for most of the Chinese.
Change through democracy and more equal distribution of wealth would be far better. But, thanks to the ignorance of the pampered brats who are our new aristocracy, that is not likely to happen. Look closely at what is happening in Greece, Spain, Britain, Ireland, the U.S....and even here in Canada.
We are heading into dangerous times. In fact, we're well into them. We're very close to 1917. The threat doesn't come from a young man sitting in a tent though the winter. It comes from well-fed and warm executives sitting in comfortable offices. It doesn't come from a women carrying a sign through the street. It comes from a corrupt and dishonest press that charges you to read its propaganda.
If we're smart, we'll try to bring back real democracy. Of course, that effort will get your name put on a list. Be proud to be on the list.
George Washington certainly counts as a revolutionary, a real one, and an extremist ( I mean, fighting a war is pretty extreme). But George was a financial success. In fact, he was probably the richest man in the colonies; and he was certainly the largest slave-owner. Despite the Hollywood image of the American revolution, many of the leading American revolutionaries were quite wealthy people. (Nor did they believe all people are created equal. People who believe that don't keep slaves, and give women lesser rights than men.)
In the Guatemalan revolution of the 1950s, the revolutionaries were backed by wealthy Americans who wanted a dictatorship. The same was true of the recent Haitian revolution in which president Aristide was overthrown.
As well, many "revolutions" are sponsored and even organized and equipped by the leaders of other countries. We've seen that in Libya, Egypt, Syria - and we're going to see a lot more of it. And leaders like Blair and Bush and Cameron and Obama are certainly not the poor and the ignorant and the failures in life.
There is another kind of revolution, one that actually comes from the general public. But the people we usually call revolutionaries generally are not the cause of such revolutions.
Leon Trotsky, a leading figure in the Russian revolution of 1917, the founder of the Red Army,later assassinated by Stalin wasn't even in Russia when it began. When he tried to get to Russia to join it, he was stopped and imprisoned next door to Moncton in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
Who knows? He could have stayed there for the whole war, perhaps settling after the war in a nearby city (Moncton springs to mind), and maybe have built a fortune on the oil business. The Rusian revolution would still have happened - just without him.
But the Canadian government let Trotsky out after just a month, and he caught the next boat for Europe.
Trotsky and Lenin were certainly revolutionaries. But they didn't start the Russian revolution. The Tsar and his goverment of aristocrats did that. And that is often the case.
In 1917, Russia was one of the most backward and inefficient countries in the western world. That condition went back long, long before there were any people we would call revolutionaries or even protesters. It went back to centuries of rule by people who had power not by talent, not by general consent, but simply by birth. Your father was Tsar with supreme power over life and death? Then, even if you were hopelessly retarded, brutal and demented you became Tsar with supreme power over life and death.
The people who ran government departments were "chosen" in the same way. Daddy was a minister of state because he was a count? You became a minister of state when you succeeded him as count. Again, no credentials, abilities or work habits were necessary. (One such aristocrat was the last Tsar's minister of education. His name was Ignatieff and, yes, there is a connection.)
For centuries, Russians suffered from the greed and brutality of their ruling classes. But they didn't revolt. The breaking point came when a badly trained and poorly equipped army led by dolts who were officers only because of their social class were slaughtered by an invading German army that was smaller - but better equipped and more intelligently led.
That's what caused the revolution in Russia - excessive power in the hands of people who had power not because of any ability or even usefulness, but only because they inherited it. They had held power all those years largely with brutal punishment of anyone who questioned them (exactly as the communists under Lenin and Stalin would do.)
The cause of the Russian revolution was not the poor or the protestors or "the people" as some communists like to imagine. It was the stupidity, greed and incompetence of the ruling class.
The western world is in just such a revolutionary danger today. Our daily news gives no sense of the extent of social breakdown and suffering. In Greece, the official unemployment rate is 20% - which means it's really at least twice that. Parents are giving up their children because they simply can't feed them. Many can't even feed thsmelves.
Over one and a half million children in the US are homeless, the highest percentage of homeless children in American history. In Britain, the income gap between rich and poor is even worse than it is in the US.
And, yes, we do have a governing aristocratic class. Like the Russian one, it is there largely because daddy was there - and maybe even daddy's daddy before him. Brains and/or hard work have nothing to do with it. They're self-serving, socially inefficient. They rely, as Tsarist Russia did, on constant expansion of secret police. (Did you know know you can end up on a suspect list for being a feminist? An environmentalist? An advocate of organic food? A protester of any sort? Seriously. It's happening now.)
Revolution is not really a very good way to go. The USSR was not what the Russian people had in mind. The dominance of the Communist Party in China has been wonderful for a handful of billionaires. It's been an extended hell for most of the Chinese.
Change through democracy and more equal distribution of wealth would be far better. But, thanks to the ignorance of the pampered brats who are our new aristocracy, that is not likely to happen. Look closely at what is happening in Greece, Spain, Britain, Ireland, the U.S....and even here in Canada.
We are heading into dangerous times. In fact, we're well into them. We're very close to 1917. The threat doesn't come from a young man sitting in a tent though the winter. It comes from well-fed and warm executives sitting in comfortable offices. It doesn't come from a women carrying a sign through the street. It comes from a corrupt and dishonest press that charges you to read its propaganda.
If we're smart, we'll try to bring back real democracy. Of course, that effort will get your name put on a list. Be proud to be on the list.
March 15: So, so, so - what's going on here....?
Romspen, the developer, has withdrawn its request for rezoning of Royal Oaks. What can this mean?
It means we have a municipal election coming up. The present council has a majority in favour of the Moncton City Development Plan (which really isn't a development plan at all). There are people who would like to keep that majority or even increase it. They don't want a fuss over Moncton High and/orRoyal Oaks to confuse things - and then lose the ball on the development plan- (which really doesn't exist.)
That's not clear, is it? Well....
The Irvings are more influential in New Burnswick than Romspen.
One of the Irvings owns a hockey team.
He says, (as quoted in the TandT), it can be difficult to get the game schedule he would like with the existing arena.
So, in a world in the most dangerous recession we have ever seen, and with the Irving newspapers calling for desperate cuts in spending on frills like education and health, a hockey owner sees an urgency about convenient hockey scheduling as being so important it is essential we borrow a couple of hundred million to build a new hockey arena. (Notice that this is a realistic investor. He has no intention of risking any of his own money on such a bozo scheme.)
Of course, people - perhaps even those who spend their days in sports bars watching hockey on TV - may question the urgency of spending so much money, especially in this economic climate, on something so trivial. So the arena has to be part of a bigger plan - an events centre, boutiques and restaurants all along main, lots of parking, downtown housing developments, Moncton, the hub of - something, the little city that could....whatever....
Lots of emotional babble about how we have to revive Main Street. (Why? And what, exactly, does reviving Main St. mean?)
What is up for debate is a plan that has nothing to do with the future. It shows not the slightest sense of how the world around us is going to look in 2050 or even in 2020. It's vision is, at best, 1950. The main reason it even exists is to sell us suckers on a hockey arena that the hockey team owner will have more control over for scheduling games. And for that, some people will get sicker with less care; our children will have to make to with less in their schools (and AIMS and the TandT will blame the teachers); and out city plan, now sixty years out of date before we even adopt it, will leave our children with an expensive and awkward shanty town.
That means a council of dolts is essential. (Some people will accuse of them of being corrupt. One or two of them might be. But my experience of politicians, especially at the municipal level, is that most of them desperately want to belong...they crave recognition and status. You don't need to buy them. You just have to be rich and smile at them.)
So what's going on is the high school issue being pushed into the background to keep election day simpler, to make it a day of the sort of boosterism we have become accustomed to - the little city that could - with its great plan for the future.
After the election, the rezoning issue will come back And so will the MHS issue. And, oh, it will be messy because by then it's quite possible the economic situation will make expansion of Royal Oaks impossible. Then we'll be stuck with a new high school that it's expensive to get to. It will, however, have acres and acres of grass for students to sit on at lunch hour on a nice day like today.
There will be a public meeting of council this Monday, March 9 at 5p.m. City Hall. It'll be important to be there because the high school, the hockey arena, the re-zoning, the "plan" are all part of the same bundle of manipulation and incompetency. And, believe it, you can't depend on the Times and Transcript to find out what's going on. It's one of the tools of the manipulators.
If you go, don't waste time on the sentimental aspects of the high school. That will just confuse some, turn-off some, and divide some. The central element is the great plan.
1. Is the great plan for the future to encourage urban sprawl and dependency on automobile transportation? Is this realistic? (how manyother cities in the world are thinking that way?) If it's not for urban sprawl, why on earth are we encouraging the development of Royal Oaks? And why are we sticking up a huge high school where there isn't yet a large population? And which may never reach its hoped-for population? That is going to be one curse of a location to maintain - for generations.
2. As for the bilge about NB having the power to build schools whereever it likes - Moncton City Council has the power to take leadership in fighting that decision - and in leading Monctonians in ensuring the provincial government pays one hell of a price at the polls for its arrogance.
3. Where is the solid evidence that a hugely expensive hockey arena will revive downtown? Let's see some examples of where this has happened. There are certainly a great many where is hasn't happened. One of biggest rackets in the western world is sucking at the public teat for professional sports facilities. We're being asked to fork out hundreds of millions for a facility attended by less than 2% of Moncton's population. And not for any great need, but simply for entertainment. It would be cheaper to supply with 2% with free beer and porn flicks for the rest of their lives.
4. Where is the evidence that the arena will turn a profit or even pay the interest on the loan? If it were going to be a paying proposition, do you seriously think Mr. Irving would let you build it and get all that profit?
5.The arena, the plan, the high school, Royal Oaks are all part of the same bag of greed, self-interest, indifference to public need, and simple-mindedness that is so much of the political reality of New Brunswick. Council has to know that. Let them know. We don't have to lie back and let billionaires and hack politicians walk all over us.
Monday. March 15. 5 p.m. City Hall.
Oh, yeah - and show them a copy of the TandT editorial - which says Moncton has to get by with less. We're spending too much. Right. So let's borrow a couple of hundred million for a hockey rink.
(Oh, and hilariiously, we spend too much for senior advisors. We should spend less on such people - as the private sector does!!!!!)
Jody Dallaire has an interesting column on Harper's passion for snooping, prying into private information, his lust from putting more people into prison....
I used to think Harper was dangerous because he was an ideoloque. But he's not an ideologue. I doubt whether he has ideological principles of any sort. He's turned out to be just an old-fashioned opportunist and political hack.
He's very pro-business, it's true. Big business, in fact, sets our foreign policy. But that's not ideology. It's opportunism. Big business is what give his party the big money to win elections. If it didn't, he wouldn't support it.
He likes heavy prison sentences. That's because this country, like all countries, has many people of a self-righteous sort who want more people in jail and, preferably, in dungeons. There's votes in reaching out to those people. It's an emotional issue for them. You can depend on them to turn out on voting day.
Though he's backed off the issue, he used to be opposed to legal abortions. Of course. Lots of votes there. But it's tricky because there's lots of votes in supporting abortion. So he's now quieter on the subject. Lots of votes in supporting highly organized groups like Christian fundamentalists and Zionists. There are very few votes in supporting, say, criminals who need treatment, or Moslems who suffer from persecution. There's money in supporting private radio and TV, none in supporting CBC.
Harper is not a ideologue, and he not an ideological leader of any sort (or even just a leader of any sort.) As his handling of robocalls has shown, he has no leadership qualities. (A secretive controller is not the same as a leader.)
Harper is an old-fashioned, cheap, political hack with no sense of principle, only of opportunity.
Too bad. An ideological nutbar would have been less dangerous.
.
It means we have a municipal election coming up. The present council has a majority in favour of the Moncton City Development Plan (which really isn't a development plan at all). There are people who would like to keep that majority or even increase it. They don't want a fuss over Moncton High and/orRoyal Oaks to confuse things - and then lose the ball on the development plan- (which really doesn't exist.)
That's not clear, is it? Well....
The Irvings are more influential in New Burnswick than Romspen.
One of the Irvings owns a hockey team.
He says, (as quoted in the TandT), it can be difficult to get the game schedule he would like with the existing arena.
So, in a world in the most dangerous recession we have ever seen, and with the Irving newspapers calling for desperate cuts in spending on frills like education and health, a hockey owner sees an urgency about convenient hockey scheduling as being so important it is essential we borrow a couple of hundred million to build a new hockey arena. (Notice that this is a realistic investor. He has no intention of risking any of his own money on such a bozo scheme.)
Of course, people - perhaps even those who spend their days in sports bars watching hockey on TV - may question the urgency of spending so much money, especially in this economic climate, on something so trivial. So the arena has to be part of a bigger plan - an events centre, boutiques and restaurants all along main, lots of parking, downtown housing developments, Moncton, the hub of - something, the little city that could....whatever....
Lots of emotional babble about how we have to revive Main Street. (Why? And what, exactly, does reviving Main St. mean?)
What is up for debate is a plan that has nothing to do with the future. It shows not the slightest sense of how the world around us is going to look in 2050 or even in 2020. It's vision is, at best, 1950. The main reason it even exists is to sell us suckers on a hockey arena that the hockey team owner will have more control over for scheduling games. And for that, some people will get sicker with less care; our children will have to make to with less in their schools (and AIMS and the TandT will blame the teachers); and out city plan, now sixty years out of date before we even adopt it, will leave our children with an expensive and awkward shanty town.
That means a council of dolts is essential. (Some people will accuse of them of being corrupt. One or two of them might be. But my experience of politicians, especially at the municipal level, is that most of them desperately want to belong...they crave recognition and status. You don't need to buy them. You just have to be rich and smile at them.)
So what's going on is the high school issue being pushed into the background to keep election day simpler, to make it a day of the sort of boosterism we have become accustomed to - the little city that could - with its great plan for the future.
After the election, the rezoning issue will come back And so will the MHS issue. And, oh, it will be messy because by then it's quite possible the economic situation will make expansion of Royal Oaks impossible. Then we'll be stuck with a new high school that it's expensive to get to. It will, however, have acres and acres of grass for students to sit on at lunch hour on a nice day like today.
There will be a public meeting of council this Monday, March 9 at 5p.m. City Hall. It'll be important to be there because the high school, the hockey arena, the re-zoning, the "plan" are all part of the same bundle of manipulation and incompetency. And, believe it, you can't depend on the Times and Transcript to find out what's going on. It's one of the tools of the manipulators.
If you go, don't waste time on the sentimental aspects of the high school. That will just confuse some, turn-off some, and divide some. The central element is the great plan.
1. Is the great plan for the future to encourage urban sprawl and dependency on automobile transportation? Is this realistic? (how manyother cities in the world are thinking that way?) If it's not for urban sprawl, why on earth are we encouraging the development of Royal Oaks? And why are we sticking up a huge high school where there isn't yet a large population? And which may never reach its hoped-for population? That is going to be one curse of a location to maintain - for generations.
2. As for the bilge about NB having the power to build schools whereever it likes - Moncton City Council has the power to take leadership in fighting that decision - and in leading Monctonians in ensuring the provincial government pays one hell of a price at the polls for its arrogance.
3. Where is the solid evidence that a hugely expensive hockey arena will revive downtown? Let's see some examples of where this has happened. There are certainly a great many where is hasn't happened. One of biggest rackets in the western world is sucking at the public teat for professional sports facilities. We're being asked to fork out hundreds of millions for a facility attended by less than 2% of Moncton's population. And not for any great need, but simply for entertainment. It would be cheaper to supply with 2% with free beer and porn flicks for the rest of their lives.
4. Where is the evidence that the arena will turn a profit or even pay the interest on the loan? If it were going to be a paying proposition, do you seriously think Mr. Irving would let you build it and get all that profit?
5.The arena, the plan, the high school, Royal Oaks are all part of the same bag of greed, self-interest, indifference to public need, and simple-mindedness that is so much of the political reality of New Brunswick. Council has to know that. Let them know. We don't have to lie back and let billionaires and hack politicians walk all over us.
Monday. March 15. 5 p.m. City Hall.
Oh, yeah - and show them a copy of the TandT editorial - which says Moncton has to get by with less. We're spending too much. Right. So let's borrow a couple of hundred million for a hockey rink.
(Oh, and hilariiously, we spend too much for senior advisors. We should spend less on such people - as the private sector does!!!!!)
Jody Dallaire has an interesting column on Harper's passion for snooping, prying into private information, his lust from putting more people into prison....
I used to think Harper was dangerous because he was an ideoloque. But he's not an ideologue. I doubt whether he has ideological principles of any sort. He's turned out to be just an old-fashioned opportunist and political hack.
He's very pro-business, it's true. Big business, in fact, sets our foreign policy. But that's not ideology. It's opportunism. Big business is what give his party the big money to win elections. If it didn't, he wouldn't support it.
He likes heavy prison sentences. That's because this country, like all countries, has many people of a self-righteous sort who want more people in jail and, preferably, in dungeons. There's votes in reaching out to those people. It's an emotional issue for them. You can depend on them to turn out on voting day.
Though he's backed off the issue, he used to be opposed to legal abortions. Of course. Lots of votes there. But it's tricky because there's lots of votes in supporting abortion. So he's now quieter on the subject. Lots of votes in supporting highly organized groups like Christian fundamentalists and Zionists. There are very few votes in supporting, say, criminals who need treatment, or Moslems who suffer from persecution. There's money in supporting private radio and TV, none in supporting CBC.
Harper is not a ideologue, and he not an ideological leader of any sort (or even just a leader of any sort.) As his handling of robocalls has shown, he has no leadership qualities. (A secretive controller is not the same as a leader.)
Harper is an old-fashioned, cheap, political hack with no sense of principle, only of opportunity.
Too bad. An ideological nutbar would have been less dangerous.
.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
a footnote to the March 14 blog on fracking.
In the stories in which the Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have pronounced that fracking can be safe, it is mentioned they examined many cases of contamination - and most happened because the petroleum companies cut corners, using cheap and inadequate concrete for the well linings.
Let's think about that for a moment.
The purpose of the bright lads who dreamed this all up was to reassure us about the safety of shale gas. But that message will get through only to those who don't think about what they're reading.
If you think about what you're reading, there are three other messages.
1. Petroleum producers are so unscrupulous and indifferent to the damage they cause that will not do a proper job unless they are forced to by tight rules and very tight enforcement.
2.The politicians of New Brunswick have been too corrupt to design or enforce regulations.
3.Who corrupted them?
That's pretty damned amaturish propaganda. Lucky for them the reporters and editors at the Moncton Times and Transcript don't ask questions.
Let's think about that for a moment.
The purpose of the bright lads who dreamed this all up was to reassure us about the safety of shale gas. But that message will get through only to those who don't think about what they're reading.
If you think about what you're reading, there are three other messages.
1. Petroleum producers are so unscrupulous and indifferent to the damage they cause that will not do a proper job unless they are forced to by tight rules and very tight enforcement.
2.The politicians of New Brunswick have been too corrupt to design or enforce regulations.
3.Who corrupted them?
That's pretty damned amaturish propaganda. Lucky for them the reporters and editors at the Moncton Times and Transcript don't ask questions.
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