....really stupid.
Front page - Craig Leonard, our minister of energy, has announced the new, shale gas rules; and he says they're strong. Well, yeah, I wasn't expecting him to say they were weak and full of problems.
But the opening sentence of the story is a statement by the head of shale gas company that says the rules are onerous, will hurt the companies, and are far too strict.
So there is our valiant minister of energy, standing up to those giant oil companies to defend all us helpless widows and orphans. Indeed, the story dwells on how unhappy the industry is with the new regulations. and on the determination of the Alward government to defend the people of New Brunswick.
Writing a story like that is called propaganda.
1. It still doesn't tell us what the regulations are.
2. It casts the government and the shale gas companies as being at odds with each other when, in fact, they have been in bed with each other for years. (a scene which I prefer not to dwell on.)
3. There is not a single word in this story from opponents of shale gas development. They don't exist.
This isn't a news story. This is propaganda, quite deliberately propaganda, to convince us that we now have tough rules, and the government is valiantly standing up to the industry. Below the "story" is a picture of David Alward. Take a look at that face. Does that impress you as the face of a super-hero who stands up to giants?
Oh - I notice the paper still has no mention of the massive protests against pipelines in the US. Those protests are the reason the industry wants a pipeline across New Brunswick. Nobody else will accept it. It has nothing to do with the charm or charisma of David Alward.
In this story we see the elements of the biggest crisis facing us - the abandonment by big business, government, and the news media of any trace of moral or ethical behaviour. I'll have to return to that on the Faith page.
______________________________________________________________________________
NewsToday still has not a word about the charge by Human Rights Watch that police in northern BC enforce a climate of fear in aboriginal communities through beatings and rape. Prime Minister Harper has refused to even look at the charges. So has the Irving press. However, you can find it all over news media around the world.
And so, with our federal government, we can broaden the powers that operate with no sense of ethics or moral code.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Your Business page continues to be a mystery. The Cochrane Rerport opens with a free ad for a car dealer, then moves to Peter Mansbridge's re-appointment of chancellor of Mt. A. What does this have to do with business of any sort? And why should I give a damn?
It also has a psychology column on how to be happy and successful. It has useful advice - concentrate on what you have, and be grateful for it; practise forgiveness; practice gratitude. Well, I can see the business sense of that. It is precisely those principles that have marked the careers of people like Mr. Irving and shale gas operators.
_________________________________________________________________________
The editorial is the usual kiss-up for shale gas.
Norbert delivers the deep thoughts he promised yesterday. It's headed "Our future depends on finding new approaches". Wow! Heavy. I bet nobody ever thought of that before.
First thing off the bat, says Norbert, is we have to privatize NB Liquor. Way to blaze, it baby; come right out on the big issues.
Develop tourism. Gee! nobody ever thought of that before.
Yeah, and privatize a lot of the infrastructure for health care and education. Actually, Norbert, that isn't a new idea. At one time, all of that was private. In the US, it largely still is - which has produced the most expensive and least effective health care and education systems in the developed world.
These aren't a idea. They aren't ideas at all. They're barely neanderthal grunts - private good, public bad.
In politics, he says, get rid of the spin doctors - the communications staff who feed government views to the public. Norbert - you are a spin doctor for the politicians and for big business. The whole Irving press is an apparatus of spin doctors. Do you ever think before you write this puerile crap?
The number of these high paid spin doctors in our public service is astounding. Yes, Norbert. And there are even more of them and more highly paid in the big business world - and business-financed propaganda houses like Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. And you regularly publish their bilge, and call it news.
This is a column about new approaches that offers no new approaches at all. And Norbert is honest enough to say they didn't originate with him. Quite so. Most of these originated with people who wore bearskins and carried clubs.
He promises to have more for us tomorrow. On Sunday? This a man who can't even tell what day it is.
Bill Belliveau's column is a disgrace. He makes McKenna look like a model of ethical and moral behaviour. It's yet another kiss-up for the pipeline. It's also badly informed. The pipeline debate is NOT driven by Alberta's oil glut. It's driven by the utter refusal of most parts of North American to allow such a pipeline to go through their territory. Any pipeline, given the high rate of accidents and spills, even under the "strictest" regulations, isn't wanted. And Alberta's dirty oil is definitely not wanted.
That's why it's being sent in this direction. And there's no guarantee it will come to us. Ever hear of Portland, Maine? Ice free port. New refinery. Owned by Irving.
And New Brunswick would become a world leader in the integration of fossil fuels and sustainable alternatives, according to Mr. Belliveau. Yeah. And if we had an events center, the Wildcats would win the Stanley Cup.Nobody is proposing to make New Brunswick a centre of anything. The proposal is to make it the dumping ground that nobody else wants to be.
Good, intelligent column by Gwynne Dyer. It's about the retirement of the Pope; and it is not a cheerful one. Unfortunately, I think he's right.
_________________________________________________________________________
Something new is a section called "Focus on Education". I don't know why. It has nothing of any significance to say about education. In fact, most of the "stories" are really just free ads for various schools. Others are just silly.
___________________________________________________________________________
And then we have the Faith page. This time, the sermonette is about using lent to give up habits of anger, malicious language, etc. A good idea, no doubt, and delightfully sterilized and abstract since it mentions no people who do these bad things.
Look, we live in a world that we have made into a moral and ethical vacuum. There is a reason for morals and ethics. It's not just because they are goody-goody things. It's not just because God wrote them on some rocks as sort of arbitrary rules for Moses. And there's nothing abstract about them.
When a Frank McKenna goes public to boost shale gas, and does so without mentioning his close and personal interest in the business, that is amoral and unethical. When the Irving press hides news, lies about it, manipulates it, that is amoral and unethical. When big business enriches itself while making others poor, that is amoral and unethical.
There's a reason for morals and ethics. Any society which abandons them destroys itself. We glorify greed. There are books written on how greed is good, how it encourages economic growth and prosperity.
That's not true. What greed does is to make some prosperous by making billions poor. We have spread destruction, murder, starvation, brutality, torture in Central America and Africa, for example, for our profit - most of it going to big business but, for some years at least, some of it reached the rest of us.
No society can survive that absence of ethics and morality. A system of amorality and not ethics seemed to work from 1945 to, perhaps, the 1980s. It still seems to work for the very, very rich who are getting richer.
But it has not worked for the rest of us. All over the western world whole social systems are collapsing. It's happening even here without us seeing it. Take a small example. CSIS and the RCMP have been ordered to spy on environmentalists. These people, whose concern is that we are causing irreversible damage to our world and are using their right as free people to speak and demonstrate against it, are now classed as terrorists. Why?
Because our amoral and unethical big business world finds them in the way of its greed. So our police now are used not to enforce the law, but to investigate people who aren't breaking it - and then to report their finding regularly to big business. Lack of morality and ethics has caused our governments and our police not to enforce the law, but to use their powers as agents of repression. And to repress freedom.
It's going to get a lot worse. In the US, we've seen a breakdown in social structure as the greed and illegal behaviour of big business have impoverished millions, and sent the money that might have helped them into a defence budget that uses every cent of income tax revenue collected. And much of that money goes into corrupt and grossly inflated contracts.
That will cause even more breakdown and, probably, violence. That's why the US police forces have been militarizing, and why the US so intensively spies on its own people. And it's coming here. Harper and Obama will be entering talk on the matter quite soon. The emergence of a police state is just one more example of our social collapse.
As our social structures collapse, we are also driven increasingly into war. You won't get much sense of this from the TandT because it is not only unethical and amoral, but also blessed with ignorance. As a result, few people have any sense of how close we are to World War Three, and what it's all about. (Terrorism has nothing to do with it.)
Ultimately, the amorality and lack of any ethical code in big business will destroy big business along with the rest of society. That's the reality the churches face.
But churches just love to play it safe by discussing abstractions and trivialities. We get a Pope who thought the issue of using contraceptives was at the heart of the Christian message. We have Baptists who seem to think that Jesus came and suffered and died to deal with the terrible problem of homosexuality. And the sermonettes on the Faith page are common trivialities.
The reality is that the churches live in a world in which the concepts of morality and ethics have all but disappeared. Greed and killing and lying (communicatons) are celebrated.
The church is not being attacked by the amoral and the unethical. Why should they attack it? The church has make itself irrelevant.
There's a real world out there dominated by forces who do not reflect the values or moral codes of any religion I have ever heard of. Jesus came to draw attention to that. Our churches seem more concerned with concentrating on the abstract and trivial.
After all, they don't want to look controversial or unrespectable.
No. The churches are disappearing in a socially respectable way. If any church ever preaches a real Christian message, you'll know. Because CSIS will begin spying on it.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Feb. 15:We made it!
Human Rights Watch is an organization originally aimed at investigating human rights abuse in the Soviet Union. Since then, it has expanded with work all over the world. Recently, it drew attention to Canada, investigating some pretty serious charges concerning the treatment of native peoples - especially women.
Their investigation of focuses on native women and native peoples in general in northern BC. They compiled testimony of widespread fear among native people in the region. There were many cases of brutal beatings, humiliations, and rape. The charges all pointed to the provincial police. (who are the RCMP in BC as they are in New Brunswick.
Charges had often been laid to the "proper authorities" - and the proper authorities simply ignored them.
At last, Human Rights Watch presented its charges (including a note that the "proper authorities" had refused to act on them) to the people of Canada and their House of Commons. Harper's response?
He poured contempt on a highly respected world agency, and told them that if they have charges they should present them to the "proper authorities" - the same ones the report complained about.
In short, we have a prime minister who doesn't care if native women get beaten and raped. He doesn't care if native peoples in parts of Canada live in constant fear. All he has ever shown concern for is letting oil and other resource companies do whatever they like to our people and our environment.
Harper may be many things. But he's not much of a man.
And the TandT isn't much of a newspaper. It never even reported the story.
However, there's a good side to the story. The op ed page has a column by the president of Crandall U. explaining its hiring policies as products of religious belief. The good news in the column is that Harper might not care whether women get beaten and raped, and live their lives in fear, and he might not care whether Canadians get ill or suffer terminal environmental damage - but he still meets the rigorous moral standards for employment at Crandall University. At least, he ain't gay. (Of course, one could say the same for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Jack the Ripper, all of whom would meet the Crandall standard.)
____________________________________________________________________________
The bombshell story is in the NewsToday section, p. 3, Kelly Lamrock, former Liberal minister of education, has joined the NDP. I can't even pretend to have a handle on that story yet. However, it is surely unlikely that Mr. Lamrock has done this simply for personal advantage That alone is a good sign in the politics of this province of self-seeking political hacks.
_______________________________________________________________________
P.1 of that section has the strange story of Dorner, the ex-LA policeman who killed two, innocent people out of rage concerning the police department. The interesting points of this story concern a word that isn't there, and one that is there.
1. The word race does not appear. Why not? Dorner's original complaint was about the racism and brutality of the LAPD. And, in fact, the LAPD has a very long history of brutality and of deliberately encouraged racism. How could the story not have mentioned that?
2. The police burned his hiding place down using 'pyrotechnic tear gas canisters'. That sounds almost cute, sort of like fireworks. In fact, these were highly sophisticated grenades that create temperatures so high they can burn through cast iron armour. They are advanced military weapons. Why are police forces using these?
In fact, all over the US, police forces are being militarized, with armored transport, drones, the works. This seems a little overdone for tracking down the average hood. So why is it happening?
Well, just a guess - this is so a military-style force can be used to put down any unpleasntness of American people like, say, environmentalists or other protestors ( shale gas, pipelines, you name it.)
3. To that we might add a question. Wasn't burning down the cottage rather an extreme measure to get a man who was trapped, and could not possibly get away? It might have been possible, quite possible, to get him alive.
Of course, they might not have wanted him alive. This is a story which, if it were to go on, would be extremely embarrassing for the LAPD. But the LAPD has for years been effective in using the press to quiet any unpleasantness. That's why the American press hasn't asked any questions.
Is the TandT deliberately hiding information? Probably not. There's not an editor in the whole Irving press who has a clue about any of the above.
_________________________________________________________________________
The editorial says nothing.
Norbert contributes a long, boring,soft-core jargon-filled and largely meaningless column about the economic future. It's vague. It talks about things Norbert doesn't understand - like "culture of dependence". If there is a culture of dependence in this province, it's in the economic leadership which depends on (soaks, rips off, etc.) the rest of us to give it tax breaks, cheap loans, special deals to pollute, etc.
The really bad news is that he promises to continue this bilge tomorrow. Oh, death, where is thy sting?
Alec Bruce is well worth reading. He talks about events in Uganda - which sounds pretty far from our lives. In fact, there is a close connection with us as you will see if you read Dr. Bruce Fawcett's (President of Crandall U.) piously nasty column on the op ed page. He speaks as though he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs. Well, Dr. B. - do unto others, etc.
For today, Steve Malloy writes the kind of column that I usually don't care for, the sort so often churned out by Rod Allen and Brent Mazerolle, etc. It's a little story about himself and his personal life. But there's a difference. While it is a personal story, it is not just about him and his life. It's about all of us.
And it's not a trivial story. It's about feelings we all have locked away - but can't forget. This is a column well worth thinking about in the context of our own lives.
Just one, little hint for Steve (hey, I'm a teacher. I mean, we all have our faults, even me.) The story is well told - but it could use extra punch. It's too vague on what it was that you and your mother butted heads over. I'm sure that's a difficult place to go - but you have to go there as much for yourself as for your readers.
________________________________________________________________________
In letters to the editor, you will find "Watch for fast inflation". This one is full of misinformation and missing information about the economics of Canada, and is full of the usual, meaningless buzzwords. (It could have been written by Norbert.)
It's in praise of the "free enterprise" system. I presume that by that he means capitalism though, in fact, capitalism has nothing to do with free enterprise.
The message is that, whatever its faults, "free enterprise" is the only one that works. He says this standing in the middle of an economic and social chaos that "free enterprise" has caused.
The example of Cuba is, of course, his prime example of what is wrong with any alternative to "free enterprise". This shows a certain lack of knowledge.
1. Cuba was for years under a "free enterprise" dictatorship controlled by big business in the US. The nation lived in poverty, education and health care barely existed. The dictator's army stole, raped, killed with impunity.
Today, Cuba is still a relatively poor country, partly thanks to an embargo imposed on it by the "free enterprise" US for over 50 years. Despite that, it now has a public education system superior to that of the "Free enterprise" US. And that education is free all the way through university. That's one reason why, per capita, Cuba far outclasses the US in the production of doctors (indeed, many Americans are now studying medicine in Cuba. And this poor country outclasses the US in health services, infant mortality rates, etc.)
"Income inequality right now is not fair for many, but let's not do things to ruin our economy." Oh? When was income inequality fair? When was that magic age of income fairness under 'free enterprise"?
As to ruining our economy, income inequality and the leaders of "free enterprise" are precisely the things that are ruining it. Our economy cannot recover if most of us are too poor to buy even basic necessities. And it was the policies of "free enterprise" that have caused the economic crisis we are living in. Remember what it cost to bail them out?
As to inflation, you don't have to go to Argentina for a horror story. In real terms, the US dollar is worthless - thanks to the brilliant leadership of 'free enterprise'. Every cent of American income tax revenue goes the military and the defence industries. Everything else is borrowed - with a debt now so high it cannot ever be paid. One day soon, that will break. China will stop lending. And when that happens, the American dollar will be confetti.
Essentially, this letter to the editor could have been written by Mr. Irving. It's advice? Do nothing. in particular don't squander money on people. Just keep sending it to us so we can carry on the fine work that has led us to this crisis.
For a horrible example of where that takes us, see a BBC TV broadcast, "Requiem for Detroit". It's a real kick in the stomach. a story of racism, of extremely bad judgement by business leaders, a bad judgement resulting from the model of business practice in "free enterprise" - weak, very weak planning for the future combined with a complete lack of any morality or ethics in judgement.
I got "Requiem for Detroit" on my tablet (an IPad) by paying a $10 a month subscription to watch old and new BBC programming. It's been money well spent.
I'm having trouble finding out whether this is available for computer - though I'm sure it must be.
Their investigation of focuses on native women and native peoples in general in northern BC. They compiled testimony of widespread fear among native people in the region. There were many cases of brutal beatings, humiliations, and rape. The charges all pointed to the provincial police. (who are the RCMP in BC as they are in New Brunswick.
Charges had often been laid to the "proper authorities" - and the proper authorities simply ignored them.
At last, Human Rights Watch presented its charges (including a note that the "proper authorities" had refused to act on them) to the people of Canada and their House of Commons. Harper's response?
He poured contempt on a highly respected world agency, and told them that if they have charges they should present them to the "proper authorities" - the same ones the report complained about.
In short, we have a prime minister who doesn't care if native women get beaten and raped. He doesn't care if native peoples in parts of Canada live in constant fear. All he has ever shown concern for is letting oil and other resource companies do whatever they like to our people and our environment.
Harper may be many things. But he's not much of a man.
And the TandT isn't much of a newspaper. It never even reported the story.
However, there's a good side to the story. The op ed page has a column by the president of Crandall U. explaining its hiring policies as products of religious belief. The good news in the column is that Harper might not care whether women get beaten and raped, and live their lives in fear, and he might not care whether Canadians get ill or suffer terminal environmental damage - but he still meets the rigorous moral standards for employment at Crandall University. At least, he ain't gay. (Of course, one could say the same for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Jack the Ripper, all of whom would meet the Crandall standard.)
____________________________________________________________________________
The bombshell story is in the NewsToday section, p. 3, Kelly Lamrock, former Liberal minister of education, has joined the NDP. I can't even pretend to have a handle on that story yet. However, it is surely unlikely that Mr. Lamrock has done this simply for personal advantage That alone is a good sign in the politics of this province of self-seeking political hacks.
_______________________________________________________________________
P.1 of that section has the strange story of Dorner, the ex-LA policeman who killed two, innocent people out of rage concerning the police department. The interesting points of this story concern a word that isn't there, and one that is there.
1. The word race does not appear. Why not? Dorner's original complaint was about the racism and brutality of the LAPD. And, in fact, the LAPD has a very long history of brutality and of deliberately encouraged racism. How could the story not have mentioned that?
2. The police burned his hiding place down using 'pyrotechnic tear gas canisters'. That sounds almost cute, sort of like fireworks. In fact, these were highly sophisticated grenades that create temperatures so high they can burn through cast iron armour. They are advanced military weapons. Why are police forces using these?
In fact, all over the US, police forces are being militarized, with armored transport, drones, the works. This seems a little overdone for tracking down the average hood. So why is it happening?
Well, just a guess - this is so a military-style force can be used to put down any unpleasntness of American people like, say, environmentalists or other protestors ( shale gas, pipelines, you name it.)
3. To that we might add a question. Wasn't burning down the cottage rather an extreme measure to get a man who was trapped, and could not possibly get away? It might have been possible, quite possible, to get him alive.
Of course, they might not have wanted him alive. This is a story which, if it were to go on, would be extremely embarrassing for the LAPD. But the LAPD has for years been effective in using the press to quiet any unpleasantness. That's why the American press hasn't asked any questions.
Is the TandT deliberately hiding information? Probably not. There's not an editor in the whole Irving press who has a clue about any of the above.
_________________________________________________________________________
The editorial says nothing.
Norbert contributes a long, boring,soft-core jargon-filled and largely meaningless column about the economic future. It's vague. It talks about things Norbert doesn't understand - like "culture of dependence". If there is a culture of dependence in this province, it's in the economic leadership which depends on (soaks, rips off, etc.) the rest of us to give it tax breaks, cheap loans, special deals to pollute, etc.
The really bad news is that he promises to continue this bilge tomorrow. Oh, death, where is thy sting?
Alec Bruce is well worth reading. He talks about events in Uganda - which sounds pretty far from our lives. In fact, there is a close connection with us as you will see if you read Dr. Bruce Fawcett's (President of Crandall U.) piously nasty column on the op ed page. He speaks as though he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs. Well, Dr. B. - do unto others, etc.
For today, Steve Malloy writes the kind of column that I usually don't care for, the sort so often churned out by Rod Allen and Brent Mazerolle, etc. It's a little story about himself and his personal life. But there's a difference. While it is a personal story, it is not just about him and his life. It's about all of us.
And it's not a trivial story. It's about feelings we all have locked away - but can't forget. This is a column well worth thinking about in the context of our own lives.
Just one, little hint for Steve (hey, I'm a teacher. I mean, we all have our faults, even me.) The story is well told - but it could use extra punch. It's too vague on what it was that you and your mother butted heads over. I'm sure that's a difficult place to go - but you have to go there as much for yourself as for your readers.
________________________________________________________________________
In letters to the editor, you will find "Watch for fast inflation". This one is full of misinformation and missing information about the economics of Canada, and is full of the usual, meaningless buzzwords. (It could have been written by Norbert.)
It's in praise of the "free enterprise" system. I presume that by that he means capitalism though, in fact, capitalism has nothing to do with free enterprise.
The message is that, whatever its faults, "free enterprise" is the only one that works. He says this standing in the middle of an economic and social chaos that "free enterprise" has caused.
The example of Cuba is, of course, his prime example of what is wrong with any alternative to "free enterprise". This shows a certain lack of knowledge.
1. Cuba was for years under a "free enterprise" dictatorship controlled by big business in the US. The nation lived in poverty, education and health care barely existed. The dictator's army stole, raped, killed with impunity.
Today, Cuba is still a relatively poor country, partly thanks to an embargo imposed on it by the "free enterprise" US for over 50 years. Despite that, it now has a public education system superior to that of the "Free enterprise" US. And that education is free all the way through university. That's one reason why, per capita, Cuba far outclasses the US in the production of doctors (indeed, many Americans are now studying medicine in Cuba. And this poor country outclasses the US in health services, infant mortality rates, etc.)
"Income inequality right now is not fair for many, but let's not do things to ruin our economy." Oh? When was income inequality fair? When was that magic age of income fairness under 'free enterprise"?
As to ruining our economy, income inequality and the leaders of "free enterprise" are precisely the things that are ruining it. Our economy cannot recover if most of us are too poor to buy even basic necessities. And it was the policies of "free enterprise" that have caused the economic crisis we are living in. Remember what it cost to bail them out?
As to inflation, you don't have to go to Argentina for a horror story. In real terms, the US dollar is worthless - thanks to the brilliant leadership of 'free enterprise'. Every cent of American income tax revenue goes the military and the defence industries. Everything else is borrowed - with a debt now so high it cannot ever be paid. One day soon, that will break. China will stop lending. And when that happens, the American dollar will be confetti.
Essentially, this letter to the editor could have been written by Mr. Irving. It's advice? Do nothing. in particular don't squander money on people. Just keep sending it to us so we can carry on the fine work that has led us to this crisis.
For a horrible example of where that takes us, see a BBC TV broadcast, "Requiem for Detroit". It's a real kick in the stomach. a story of racism, of extremely bad judgement by business leaders, a bad judgement resulting from the model of business practice in "free enterprise" - weak, very weak planning for the future combined with a complete lack of any morality or ethics in judgement.
I got "Requiem for Detroit" on my tablet (an IPad) by paying a $10 a month subscription to watch old and new BBC programming. It's been money well spent.
I'm having trouble finding out whether this is available for computer - though I'm sure it must be.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Jan.14: This is late because........
I was committed to give a talk this morning (which I much enjoyed) on the history of leisure in Canada. I am committed to three Thursdays, and looking forward to all of them. But they do mean a late blog on those days.
And, since there is not a damn thing in all the news section of today's paper worth talking about, let me return to a yesterday topic, Frank McKenna's speech on how shale gas will make us rich and improve our sex lives.
It was surely notable how light Mr. McKenna was on the health question and shale gas. After all, the Chief Health Officer and most of the medical profession have raised serious concerns about the dangers to health and about our lack of knowledge of how to deal with those dangers. So why didn't McKenna mention it? Indeed, not mentioning it will cause a certain anger among those who respect the health profession - and their own safety. So couldn't McKenna have said something at least polite about it?
No. Absolutely not.
The McKennas of this world don't write all their own speeches. They hire a communications specialist. Communications - that's the business of knowing how to lie without making it obvious. That accounts for a good deal that McKenna left out of his speech.
If he had mentioned the health issue then, as any communications specialist knows, nothing he could have said about it would have reassured anybody. The only message people would hear by listening to even the word 'health' would be that health is a concern. It you say that the health question is covered by strict legislation - it doesn't matter. Simply saying the word 'health' would make people concerned about it. That's why he didn't mention Dr. Leary or her report.
Mckenna was there to lie on behalf of the shale gas industry. That's why he talked about things like the (highly unlikely) seven billion dollars in taxes it would produce. He was 'communicating', not giving a speech.
Similarly, the strategy of the campaign for shale gas is pretty clear now. Don't argue with opponents of shale gas. Don't even admit there are any. And if something awkward comes up - like danger to fresh water, problems of dumping millions of litres of poisoned water - but make a vague reference to "the most strict regulations" which, in fact, don't exist - and which wouldn't be enforced if they did exist.
____________________________________________________________________
The Irving Press is in this 'communications' business, too. It has two roles.
In one role, it is to keep people in the dark by not telling them what is happening. Part of that means trivializing our outlook by reporting only trivial news -like the regular page of smiling strangers holding up giant cheques. You find the same tactic in the columns written by masters of saying nothing - people like Rod Allen, Brent Mazerolle, Mark Abley.
It's other role is to spread propaganda that the publisher wants -like what a good thing shale gas is. For the same reason they have have been careful not to mention the opposition to shale gas and to pipelines, an opposition that now amounts to widespread rage in the US. But not a word about any of that in the Irving Press.
Private news media have always a heavy tilt to bias, lying, and keeping people ignorant. The papers of the Irving press don't lead the way in this. They're just the most imcompetent, most boring, most ignorant, most trivial, most lying.....something like the hooker who's such a sleaze, so coarse, so foul, that she embarrasses all the other hookers in the collection.
There is no point in discussing any news story in this edition. All of them are too trivial or too incompetent to bother discussing. So let's look at the editorial and op ed pages.
______________________________________________________________________________
The editorial opens with a paragraph kissing Mr. McKenna's ass, surely a pleasant reversal of roles for that gentleman.
His speech, says the editorial, struck the right chord with people across New Brunswick and the whole Atlantic region.
Really? The writer had information on feelings throughout the province and Atlantic Canada within hours of the speech? Are you really so stupid, Mr. editorial writer, as to make such a claim? Of course you are. And lucky thing you are. If you weren't so stupid, Jamie Irving would already have fired you.
Premier Alward is also credited with saying something intelligent. If so, I must return to the Catholicism of my ancestors to find out which angel made that miracle possible. In fact, Alward said nothing that he has not said before - and saying it yet again has not made it less boring, or more trustworthy.
Journalism doesn't get much lower in the toilet than it does with today's editorial in the Moncton Times and Transcript. (Though Mr. McKenna's speech is a contender for that title.)
________________________________________________________________________
Norbert's column is just trivial - trivial and ignorant writing on a subject which is not trivial at all - with a closing sentence of rant against people who don't agree with him. Then, as if realizing the silliness of what he has written, he adds a few more paragraphs on quite a different topic, saying nothing in particular about it.
Alec Bruce has a column that's more important than it might seem to be. We have just narrowly missed becoming a country in which police and other authorities would have the right to tune in on our computers to collect information on us, and to do it without warrant, without cause, without anything...
Don't breathe easy yet. Something like this will be coming down the pipe - and sooner rather than later. Harper and Obama will soon be in talks to "coordinate" our homeland security policies - that is, to make Canada as much a police state as the US is.
On op ed, Rod Allen remains convinced, like other staff writers in that spot, that the world gives a damn about his personal life. Allen makes it worse by writing in a style of corny humour that went out with spats. Journalists are "ink-stained wretches", members of the fourth estate". Duh. Haw! Haw!
Donne-moi un break.
What a pleasure to shift to Jody Dallaire who gives us credit for having some brains, for wanting serious discussion, for writing well-informed columns!
With the exceptions of Dallaire and Bruce, this edition is garbage, fit only for the morons Mr. Irving obviously thinks we are.
__________________________________________________________________________
Oh - think back to the days before Christmas. The TandT had a big story headlining p. A1. It was about how shoppers were stampeding Main St. for their Christmas shopping - a brilliant achievement of what had been accomplished with parking meters - and a subtle hint of the wonder an events centre would create.
I thought at the time that whole story was lies. I often pass that area. I had never seen the hordes of shoppers. So I ask the TandT now as I asked it then. Where are the figures for sales in that stretch of Main St. in the days before Christmas? And how do those sales compare with other areas of the city?
I could scarcely believe that such a silly story, even if true, would have been the lead headline for a serious, daily paper. Now, I would dearly love to know whether the whole story was, as I think it was, a lie. Evidence, Mr. editor?
And, since there is not a damn thing in all the news section of today's paper worth talking about, let me return to a yesterday topic, Frank McKenna's speech on how shale gas will make us rich and improve our sex lives.
It was surely notable how light Mr. McKenna was on the health question and shale gas. After all, the Chief Health Officer and most of the medical profession have raised serious concerns about the dangers to health and about our lack of knowledge of how to deal with those dangers. So why didn't McKenna mention it? Indeed, not mentioning it will cause a certain anger among those who respect the health profession - and their own safety. So couldn't McKenna have said something at least polite about it?
No. Absolutely not.
The McKennas of this world don't write all their own speeches. They hire a communications specialist. Communications - that's the business of knowing how to lie without making it obvious. That accounts for a good deal that McKenna left out of his speech.
If he had mentioned the health issue then, as any communications specialist knows, nothing he could have said about it would have reassured anybody. The only message people would hear by listening to even the word 'health' would be that health is a concern. It you say that the health question is covered by strict legislation - it doesn't matter. Simply saying the word 'health' would make people concerned about it. That's why he didn't mention Dr. Leary or her report.
Mckenna was there to lie on behalf of the shale gas industry. That's why he talked about things like the (highly unlikely) seven billion dollars in taxes it would produce. He was 'communicating', not giving a speech.
Similarly, the strategy of the campaign for shale gas is pretty clear now. Don't argue with opponents of shale gas. Don't even admit there are any. And if something awkward comes up - like danger to fresh water, problems of dumping millions of litres of poisoned water - but make a vague reference to "the most strict regulations" which, in fact, don't exist - and which wouldn't be enforced if they did exist.
____________________________________________________________________
The Irving Press is in this 'communications' business, too. It has two roles.
In one role, it is to keep people in the dark by not telling them what is happening. Part of that means trivializing our outlook by reporting only trivial news -like the regular page of smiling strangers holding up giant cheques. You find the same tactic in the columns written by masters of saying nothing - people like Rod Allen, Brent Mazerolle, Mark Abley.
It's other role is to spread propaganda that the publisher wants -like what a good thing shale gas is. For the same reason they have have been careful not to mention the opposition to shale gas and to pipelines, an opposition that now amounts to widespread rage in the US. But not a word about any of that in the Irving Press.
Private news media have always a heavy tilt to bias, lying, and keeping people ignorant. The papers of the Irving press don't lead the way in this. They're just the most imcompetent, most boring, most ignorant, most trivial, most lying.....something like the hooker who's such a sleaze, so coarse, so foul, that she embarrasses all the other hookers in the collection.
There is no point in discussing any news story in this edition. All of them are too trivial or too incompetent to bother discussing. So let's look at the editorial and op ed pages.
______________________________________________________________________________
The editorial opens with a paragraph kissing Mr. McKenna's ass, surely a pleasant reversal of roles for that gentleman.
His speech, says the editorial, struck the right chord with people across New Brunswick and the whole Atlantic region.
Really? The writer had information on feelings throughout the province and Atlantic Canada within hours of the speech? Are you really so stupid, Mr. editorial writer, as to make such a claim? Of course you are. And lucky thing you are. If you weren't so stupid, Jamie Irving would already have fired you.
Premier Alward is also credited with saying something intelligent. If so, I must return to the Catholicism of my ancestors to find out which angel made that miracle possible. In fact, Alward said nothing that he has not said before - and saying it yet again has not made it less boring, or more trustworthy.
Journalism doesn't get much lower in the toilet than it does with today's editorial in the Moncton Times and Transcript. (Though Mr. McKenna's speech is a contender for that title.)
________________________________________________________________________
Norbert's column is just trivial - trivial and ignorant writing on a subject which is not trivial at all - with a closing sentence of rant against people who don't agree with him. Then, as if realizing the silliness of what he has written, he adds a few more paragraphs on quite a different topic, saying nothing in particular about it.
Alec Bruce has a column that's more important than it might seem to be. We have just narrowly missed becoming a country in which police and other authorities would have the right to tune in on our computers to collect information on us, and to do it without warrant, without cause, without anything...
Don't breathe easy yet. Something like this will be coming down the pipe - and sooner rather than later. Harper and Obama will soon be in talks to "coordinate" our homeland security policies - that is, to make Canada as much a police state as the US is.
On op ed, Rod Allen remains convinced, like other staff writers in that spot, that the world gives a damn about his personal life. Allen makes it worse by writing in a style of corny humour that went out with spats. Journalists are "ink-stained wretches", members of the fourth estate". Duh. Haw! Haw!
Donne-moi un break.
What a pleasure to shift to Jody Dallaire who gives us credit for having some brains, for wanting serious discussion, for writing well-informed columns!
With the exceptions of Dallaire and Bruce, this edition is garbage, fit only for the morons Mr. Irving obviously thinks we are.
__________________________________________________________________________
Oh - think back to the days before Christmas. The TandT had a big story headlining p. A1. It was about how shoppers were stampeding Main St. for their Christmas shopping - a brilliant achievement of what had been accomplished with parking meters - and a subtle hint of the wonder an events centre would create.
I thought at the time that whole story was lies. I often pass that area. I had never seen the hordes of shoppers. So I ask the TandT now as I asked it then. Where are the figures for sales in that stretch of Main St. in the days before Christmas? And how do those sales compare with other areas of the city?
I could scarcely believe that such a silly story, even if true, would have been the lead headline for a serious, daily paper. Now, I would dearly love to know whether the whole story was, as I think it was, a lie. Evidence, Mr. editor?
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
feb. 13: Trivia, lies and Frank McKenna....
....That pretty much sums up today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
For trivia, pick almost any page, starting with the headline on p. A1, "Family seeks truth in decades.old murder." Wow! We really need to know that.
Or try Section, p. 7 (the op ed page, the one that most newspapers use for expert discussion of the big issues of the day. Eric Lewis offers his deep thoughts on olive oil in what is really a disguised ad for a store that sells the stuff - a store that has already had free ads disguised as "stories" in several editions of this newspaper.
Brian Cormier, who describes himself as a communications specialist (someone who writes propaganda for high fees), the master of filling pages with nothing, writes on what it's like to write a column. He claims to have written several hundred columns. Big, bloody deal.
I've written thousands - and that was as a sideline to my regular job. And that's way behind the scores run up by most experienced pros.
Anyway, he still worries about missing a deadline. So who cares? Tell you what, Brian, try having a deadline about having to feed a family. Then tell us abut it.
The rest of the paper is taken up Miss Manners, then, in a drop even lower, to propaganda for shale gas, propaganda featuring that nice man, Mr. McKenna, who has done so much for - himself. They're raving about his assignment a couple of days ago to pimp for shale gas development.
Now, when you're dealing with an honest pimp, you know that he has an interest in the product he's tryingto sell you. You know that he not doing this just for you're own good. I could wish Mr. McKenna had been that honest.
A reader sent me a list of McKenna's directorships and other financial interests in a wide variety of businesses. Would you believe that energy companies were among them? He is also, or was, a director of The Fraser Institute, a far right wing propaganda outfit for big business. (For a man who just loves the common people, Mr. McKenna doesn't seem to spend a whole lot of time with them.)
Just how closely is he tied to the shale gas business? Wouldn't an honest man have told us that before giving his boost for shale gas? Wouldn't have an honest (and competent) newspaper have asked him? And also done some checking on its own?
Another reader sent an interesting letter about the question of water and shale gas. Each well, it seems, needs between (roughly) 20 million and 50 million or more litres of water in its operational life. Multiply that by a thousand or so because we'll probably get more than one well.
Where are those billions of gallons of water going to come from? What effect will that have on the available supply of fresh water for forests, farms, animals, people...?
And when they pump out that water, now heavily dosed with chemical poisons, where to they plan to put it?
And shouldn't Mr. McKenna have mentioned the weight of medical opinion that all this poses severe dangers for human life in New Brunswick? And shouldn't he have mentioned the large and growing opposition to shale gas and pipelines that has spread across North America? I mean, that opposition is the only reason Alberta is even thinking of sending a pipeline this way. We're the easy marks who can always be won over by a speech from that nice Mr. McKenna, and a big write up by that lying press.
Mr. McKenna is following the old, New Brunswick fool's game - looking for the one big cure for all our financial problems - like an events centre, for example. None of these work. And they all turn into thefts by the wealthier New Brunswickers to make what are almost certainly fraudulent land deals (as the sale of highfield square or the move of Moncton High), rip us off on taxes, and make big promises that never pan out.
______________________________________________________________________________
Once upon a time - not long ago - Europe was ruled by kings and dukes and other aristocrats. Why did they rule? Well, originally, they were thugs who took power by force and ran countries to enrich themselves. But that faded during the nineteenth century to be replaces by elected government.
Why did they fade? Because they were arrogant, greedy, short-sighted and, worst of all, incompetent asses. The royal family has not been the only one of that lot to inherit less than the normal share of IQ points. a thousand years of inbreeding can do that.
Now, a new aristocracy has arisen - this time not on muscle, but on money. But the rest of the pattern is that same that - well - we're people. That's how we behave.
The new aristocracy has effectively seized power, and put democracy into the background. Like the old aristocracy, they're arrogant, greedy, short-sighted-----and they're incompetent asses in running national affairs. They have created the present economic crisis which is far more severe than anyone is acknowledging. They have led us into one disastrous war after another. They have created a situation in which we can see nothing but war for generations to come. They have driven the US into real (if deferred) bankruptcy.
And Mr. McKenna is one of their chosen boys to "communicate" with us as they close in to suck the last blood out of New Brunswick.
Read all about it in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
The reality is that the fossil fuel companies are plunging to sell as much of the stuff as they can now because they probably have no more than twenty years to sell it. (Oh, I know we have lots. Oodles. So why are we scrambling so hard to find more, including in the fragile environment of the far north?)
And what happens when the price rises enough to send food prices skyrocketing (food comes to to us often from thousands of miles away) What happens to the price of gas as India and China really come on line, and if North Africa and the middle east continue their descent into chaos?
What happens when nature tells us we have to face the reality of climate change, a day that will certainly be obvious within 20 years when it will be too late to do anything about it?
I know we don't like to face it. I know many of us won't, even when it happens.
Big business certainly won't face it. It doesn't look ahead. It never does. Big business wants profit NOW. The future is somebody else's problem And big business IS our government, both federally and provincially.
Can democracy be re-established in New Brunswick? Yes. But there is not much time. This province has to wake up fast, shake off its lethargy and fear, and break both the Liberals and the Conservatives no later than the next election.
to sell yoj.
For trivia, pick almost any page, starting with the headline on p. A1, "Family seeks truth in decades.old murder." Wow! We really need to know that.
Or try Section, p. 7 (the op ed page, the one that most newspapers use for expert discussion of the big issues of the day. Eric Lewis offers his deep thoughts on olive oil in what is really a disguised ad for a store that sells the stuff - a store that has already had free ads disguised as "stories" in several editions of this newspaper.
Brian Cormier, who describes himself as a communications specialist (someone who writes propaganda for high fees), the master of filling pages with nothing, writes on what it's like to write a column. He claims to have written several hundred columns. Big, bloody deal.
I've written thousands - and that was as a sideline to my regular job. And that's way behind the scores run up by most experienced pros.
Anyway, he still worries about missing a deadline. So who cares? Tell you what, Brian, try having a deadline about having to feed a family. Then tell us abut it.
The rest of the paper is taken up Miss Manners, then, in a drop even lower, to propaganda for shale gas, propaganda featuring that nice man, Mr. McKenna, who has done so much for - himself. They're raving about his assignment a couple of days ago to pimp for shale gas development.
Now, when you're dealing with an honest pimp, you know that he has an interest in the product he's tryingto sell you. You know that he not doing this just for you're own good. I could wish Mr. McKenna had been that honest.
A reader sent me a list of McKenna's directorships and other financial interests in a wide variety of businesses. Would you believe that energy companies were among them? He is also, or was, a director of The Fraser Institute, a far right wing propaganda outfit for big business. (For a man who just loves the common people, Mr. McKenna doesn't seem to spend a whole lot of time with them.)
Just how closely is he tied to the shale gas business? Wouldn't an honest man have told us that before giving his boost for shale gas? Wouldn't have an honest (and competent) newspaper have asked him? And also done some checking on its own?
Another reader sent an interesting letter about the question of water and shale gas. Each well, it seems, needs between (roughly) 20 million and 50 million or more litres of water in its operational life. Multiply that by a thousand or so because we'll probably get more than one well.
Where are those billions of gallons of water going to come from? What effect will that have on the available supply of fresh water for forests, farms, animals, people...?
And when they pump out that water, now heavily dosed with chemical poisons, where to they plan to put it?
And shouldn't Mr. McKenna have mentioned the weight of medical opinion that all this poses severe dangers for human life in New Brunswick? And shouldn't he have mentioned the large and growing opposition to shale gas and pipelines that has spread across North America? I mean, that opposition is the only reason Alberta is even thinking of sending a pipeline this way. We're the easy marks who can always be won over by a speech from that nice Mr. McKenna, and a big write up by that lying press.
Mr. McKenna is following the old, New Brunswick fool's game - looking for the one big cure for all our financial problems - like an events centre, for example. None of these work. And they all turn into thefts by the wealthier New Brunswickers to make what are almost certainly fraudulent land deals (as the sale of highfield square or the move of Moncton High), rip us off on taxes, and make big promises that never pan out.
______________________________________________________________________________
Once upon a time - not long ago - Europe was ruled by kings and dukes and other aristocrats. Why did they rule? Well, originally, they were thugs who took power by force and ran countries to enrich themselves. But that faded during the nineteenth century to be replaces by elected government.
Why did they fade? Because they were arrogant, greedy, short-sighted and, worst of all, incompetent asses. The royal family has not been the only one of that lot to inherit less than the normal share of IQ points. a thousand years of inbreeding can do that.
Now, a new aristocracy has arisen - this time not on muscle, but on money. But the rest of the pattern is that same that - well - we're people. That's how we behave.
The new aristocracy has effectively seized power, and put democracy into the background. Like the old aristocracy, they're arrogant, greedy, short-sighted-----and they're incompetent asses in running national affairs. They have created the present economic crisis which is far more severe than anyone is acknowledging. They have led us into one disastrous war after another. They have created a situation in which we can see nothing but war for generations to come. They have driven the US into real (if deferred) bankruptcy.
And Mr. McKenna is one of their chosen boys to "communicate" with us as they close in to suck the last blood out of New Brunswick.
Read all about it in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
The reality is that the fossil fuel companies are plunging to sell as much of the stuff as they can now because they probably have no more than twenty years to sell it. (Oh, I know we have lots. Oodles. So why are we scrambling so hard to find more, including in the fragile environment of the far north?)
And what happens when the price rises enough to send food prices skyrocketing (food comes to to us often from thousands of miles away) What happens to the price of gas as India and China really come on line, and if North Africa and the middle east continue their descent into chaos?
What happens when nature tells us we have to face the reality of climate change, a day that will certainly be obvious within 20 years when it will be too late to do anything about it?
I know we don't like to face it. I know many of us won't, even when it happens.
Big business certainly won't face it. It doesn't look ahead. It never does. Big business wants profit NOW. The future is somebody else's problem And big business IS our government, both federally and provincially.
Can democracy be re-established in New Brunswick? Yes. But there is not much time. This province has to wake up fast, shake off its lethargy and fear, and break both the Liberals and the Conservatives no later than the next election.
to sell yoj.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Feb. 12: Shale gas is good for you.....
......says Frank McKenna. It says so right there at the bottom of page 1 as the Moncton Times and Transcript honours its promise to keep us up to date with all the latest news on shale gas. Yes, sir. Let the chips fall where they may. The Times and Transcript will honour its promise to keep YOU up to date on the latest news about BOTH SIDES of the shale gas issue so YOU can make an informed decision - as if anybody gives a damn what YOU decide.
The whole story consists of quotations from McKenna. Apparently, the reporter asked no questions of him, and made no attempt to find anyone who disagreed with him. Indeed, it's not clear why the paper sent a reporter at all. A tape recorder would have been quite adequate.
The article is highly recommended to retired dairy farmers who miss the old smells of the barn, and that familiar squish when stepping in the wrong place.
Meanwhile, McKenna continues his successful career of speaking up fearlessly for the rights of billionaires to rip us off. He's a rich man, himself, now. And we're very proud of him.
_________________________________________________________________________
The Pope has retired. So?
The Roman Catholic church is in very bad shape, partly due to its complicity in protecting child molestors, partly due to the huge damages it has had to pay, partly due to an eagerness of many church leaders to change its traditional structures, partly due to the triumph of consumerism. The Pope is 85 and in poor health. Retirement seems very sensible. The fact that no Pope in the past 589 years has shown enough sense to retire - though long past their best years - does nothing to change that.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Frank Mckenna story is reported all over again on p. C2, just case you missed stepping on the squishy parts on page 1. Lord, this is one, stinking paper.
__________________________________________________________________________
READ THE EDITORIAL. No, it's not intelligent or informative or even coherent. But read the last paragraph. It praises a new, volunteer that will improve literacy in our schools. Yes. It's made up of volunteers. Isn't that sweet? It also has the blessing of that eminent authority on education and literacy, David Alward. Kiss, kiss. And it's called Elementary Literacy Friends (ELF), - oh - isn't that cute? So I checked it on google.
For an voluntary group, it has a very expensive looking websiite. It's also highly structured with a board of directors.
The chairman of the board is Jamie Irving of Brunswick News. What a coincidence! Isn't it sweet for a busy man to take out time for the little children? Just like Jesus. And there's somebody there from a bank, and somebody from a business group, and the minister of education, etc.
Too bad the editor never had the wit to find out who the "volunteers" were. (Of course, he would have said so if he had.)
This is part of a very dirty story, the story of a soft sell that is happening throughout Canada, the US, and Britain. It's a story that began, for New Brunswick, some years ago with propaganda from AIMS that was repeated by the TandT. It is almost certainly the leading edge of making your children into commodities. It's a long story. So I'll probably save it until Sunday.
Hint - The US currently spends over 800 billion a year on its public schools. I couldn't find the figure for Canada - but it is surely up from its five billion of 2005. New Brunswick has recently been a big spender on education, using the money for critical education measures like providing sewage for Royal Oaks, and building that essential key to good education, an expensive football field. Boy, I'll bet the whole world is looking at Moncton, now.
But more about this massive scam on Sunday.
_________________________________________________________________________
Norbert is Norbert, though with a few decent paragraphs on gun control.
Solid columns by Alec Bruce and Gwynne Dyer.
Alan Cochrane---is must reading for those people who check each day to see which singers, actors, etc. are having birthdays today. The column is all about how hard it is to keep track of your cell phone. For some reason, the word airhead kept going through my mind.
Two, interesting letters in letters to the editor. The good one is "University's money woes writ large, in gold".
"Ottawa doing well by veterans" responds to concerns voiced by veterans and others that our veterans are being abused and denied services they have a right to. Well. The letter says our veterans are being treated just great. And we know that's true because the letter was written by the Minister of Veterans Affairs. It so nice to have that cleared up.
And now for the story that didn't make the TandT.
There are three law suits now before the Canadian courts. The law suits come from Mayans, the native peoples who are 80% of the population of Guatemala. They concern a Canadian mining company called HudBay which operates in Guatemala.
You can check the Hudbay web site. It seems that HudBay specializes in building happy, sustainable communities, with mining a sort of side activity. The site even has a picture of a happy, sustainable town the company built for its workers It seems to be built entirely of happy, sustainable tents.
But some workers aren't happy. Go figure. It seems they were living in their own homes and farming, when company police kicked them out, demolished their homes, and took their land. That's when they were moved to happy, sustainable tents.
In the process of moving these people into happy, sustainable tents, company police gang-raped a dozen of the women, shot and killed some husbands, beat up quite a few people.... And that's what the law suits are about.
There's nothing unusual about it. Canadian mining companies are notorious in Latin America and Africa for brutal behaviour, low pay, unspeakable pollution, arbitrary destruction of communities and, of course, happy, sustainable tents.
I'm still looking for the names of members of the board of directors. They seem shy about it.
The whole story consists of quotations from McKenna. Apparently, the reporter asked no questions of him, and made no attempt to find anyone who disagreed with him. Indeed, it's not clear why the paper sent a reporter at all. A tape recorder would have been quite adequate.
The article is highly recommended to retired dairy farmers who miss the old smells of the barn, and that familiar squish when stepping in the wrong place.
Meanwhile, McKenna continues his successful career of speaking up fearlessly for the rights of billionaires to rip us off. He's a rich man, himself, now. And we're very proud of him.
_________________________________________________________________________
The Pope has retired. So?
The Roman Catholic church is in very bad shape, partly due to its complicity in protecting child molestors, partly due to the huge damages it has had to pay, partly due to an eagerness of many church leaders to change its traditional structures, partly due to the triumph of consumerism. The Pope is 85 and in poor health. Retirement seems very sensible. The fact that no Pope in the past 589 years has shown enough sense to retire - though long past their best years - does nothing to change that.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Frank Mckenna story is reported all over again on p. C2, just case you missed stepping on the squishy parts on page 1. Lord, this is one, stinking paper.
__________________________________________________________________________
READ THE EDITORIAL. No, it's not intelligent or informative or even coherent. But read the last paragraph. It praises a new, volunteer that will improve literacy in our schools. Yes. It's made up of volunteers. Isn't that sweet? It also has the blessing of that eminent authority on education and literacy, David Alward. Kiss, kiss. And it's called Elementary Literacy Friends (ELF), - oh - isn't that cute? So I checked it on google.
For an voluntary group, it has a very expensive looking websiite. It's also highly structured with a board of directors.
The chairman of the board is Jamie Irving of Brunswick News. What a coincidence! Isn't it sweet for a busy man to take out time for the little children? Just like Jesus. And there's somebody there from a bank, and somebody from a business group, and the minister of education, etc.
Too bad the editor never had the wit to find out who the "volunteers" were. (Of course, he would have said so if he had.)
This is part of a very dirty story, the story of a soft sell that is happening throughout Canada, the US, and Britain. It's a story that began, for New Brunswick, some years ago with propaganda from AIMS that was repeated by the TandT. It is almost certainly the leading edge of making your children into commodities. It's a long story. So I'll probably save it until Sunday.
Hint - The US currently spends over 800 billion a year on its public schools. I couldn't find the figure for Canada - but it is surely up from its five billion of 2005. New Brunswick has recently been a big spender on education, using the money for critical education measures like providing sewage for Royal Oaks, and building that essential key to good education, an expensive football field. Boy, I'll bet the whole world is looking at Moncton, now.
But more about this massive scam on Sunday.
_________________________________________________________________________
Norbert is Norbert, though with a few decent paragraphs on gun control.
Solid columns by Alec Bruce and Gwynne Dyer.
Alan Cochrane---is must reading for those people who check each day to see which singers, actors, etc. are having birthdays today. The column is all about how hard it is to keep track of your cell phone. For some reason, the word airhead kept going through my mind.
Two, interesting letters in letters to the editor. The good one is "University's money woes writ large, in gold".
"Ottawa doing well by veterans" responds to concerns voiced by veterans and others that our veterans are being abused and denied services they have a right to. Well. The letter says our veterans are being treated just great. And we know that's true because the letter was written by the Minister of Veterans Affairs. It so nice to have that cleared up.
And now for the story that didn't make the TandT.
There are three law suits now before the Canadian courts. The law suits come from Mayans, the native peoples who are 80% of the population of Guatemala. They concern a Canadian mining company called HudBay which operates in Guatemala.
You can check the Hudbay web site. It seems that HudBay specializes in building happy, sustainable communities, with mining a sort of side activity. The site even has a picture of a happy, sustainable town the company built for its workers It seems to be built entirely of happy, sustainable tents.
But some workers aren't happy. Go figure. It seems they were living in their own homes and farming, when company police kicked them out, demolished their homes, and took their land. That's when they were moved to happy, sustainable tents.
In the process of moving these people into happy, sustainable tents, company police gang-raped a dozen of the women, shot and killed some husbands, beat up quite a few people.... And that's what the law suits are about.
There's nothing unusual about it. Canadian mining companies are notorious in Latin America and Africa for brutal behaviour, low pay, unspeakable pollution, arbitrary destruction of communities and, of course, happy, sustainable tents.
I'm still looking for the names of members of the board of directors. They seem shy about it.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Feb. 11: the missing Moncton Times.....
This morning, I checked the gallery for my paper. None. Okay. So turned to Google to get my computer edition.
The date Feb. 11 came up. And a picture of snow, obviously from Saturday. So far so good.
But then I noticed that most of the stories were ones I had seen before. That's not unusual for the TandT which often runs the same story two days in a row or even twice in the same edition.
So, I clicked to the get the whole of today's edition. And all I could get was the whole of Saturday's edition.
So - muttering words usually used only for the most perverse versions of sex or in religious services, I bundled up to walk to the store for a copy. But Lord, Lord, Lord, there was nothing in it. The thing I can recommend you read is the last letter to the editor. Otherwise, there is zip in this edition.
__________________________________________________________________________
For example, page one has a story which draws on psychologists to explain why most people will not react to help in an emergency situation. They just stand and watch. (This story arises from the unusual response of Joey Leblanc who, alone in a group of people who were watching a woman die in a burning car, ran forward to save her life.)
Mr. Leblanc (despite his age, he has certainly proven he deserves the respect of the title) certainly should be recognized. But they ran this same story, complete with psychologist opinion, ON SATURDAY. Furthermore, the psychology of the "passiveness of the crowd" has been well understood and well publicized for at least 50 years. It became common knowledge internationally that long ago with the murder of a New York Woman whose screams brought no help from the hundreds of people who heard them.
Yes, people in a crowd are passive. New Brunswickers, of all people should know that. That's why they get the governments they do. That's why they allow corporate bosses to bully them. But I don't think the TandT is likely to interview psychologists about that.
_______________________________________________________________________
The story of the former Los Angeles police office who shot three people and is now on the run made p. C1. But it's not the whole story. (In fairness to the editor of that page, he probably doesn't know the whole story - on this or anything else.)
Take a look at the picture of the police officer. Notice he doesn't look perfectly white?
The Los Angeles Police Department has been notoriously racist, brutal, and thuggish for decades - and deliberately so. In the 50s and 60's and later, it actively recruited whites from the old south - men who were guaranteed to be the most brutal of racists.
There's a reason why LA has had riots in its African and Mexican population.
The reputation became so bad that the LAPD turned to television to win public opinion over. That began way back in the 50s with a show called, I think, Dragnet - with detective sergeant Joe Friday. The basic formla was the police were alway polite and honest. It was the general public that tended to be caustic, unreasonably angry or hysterical - "Just the facts, ma'am," said Joe Friday.
Then there was Adam 12, the story of two LAPD officers (not coincidentally, both were white) who were always honest and polite and reasonable. It was the ordinary citizens who were irrational and uncontrolled and even violent.
The LAPD was, to say the least, closely involved in both shows.
Such programmes still appear, still with LAPD cooperation, though now with the mandatory appearance of the occasional officer who is not white. However, the force remains as racist and thuggish as ever.
That does not, of course, excuse the shootings. But it does give a better sense than the TandT story does of what it's all about.
_______________________________________________________________________
There is a curious story on C, p. 1. Much of the world wants Canada to ban the trade in polar bear parts. They mention heads, skins, etc. They don't mention other parts, like testicles, which have a big market in China to restore virility and other ailments.
Canada offers two, pretty silly arguments against the ban. The first is that a ban on selling bear parts would not affect the survival of the species because the Inuit hunt the bear for meat - and there is also the polar bear hunt for sport. Well, yes. But the profitable trade in parts offers an additional and powerful motive for killing. It's financially worth killing a polar just for the testicles.
As well, the official Canadian position is that it is not the hunt which endangers polar bear survival. It is climate change. But thats can't be true.
Mr. Harper, himself, has repeatedly said that there is no climate change.
Well, we may run out of polar bears. But we'll still have a dinosaur for Prime Minister.
_________________________________________________________________
The only useful story in the paper in on D2. It 's about the dangers of deep-fried foods - and how they bring on strokes and well as levels of obesity that cut lives short. It associates these foods especially with the US Deep South.
Yes, indeed. It reminded me of that hamburger I had in New Orleans - meat, cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, bun - all of it - all - deep fried. With French fries on the side.
________________________________________________________________________
Norbert is beneath contempt. I'll have some respect for him the day when he uses his slurs like 'sense of entitlement' and 'culture of dependency' when he uses them on the Irvings and their buddies as freely as he does on those of us who have no choice but to be dependent.
I can understand a man I disagree with. I cannot understand an intellectual and moral coward and bully.
___________________________________________________________________________
And that's it for today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
I guess there's two things worth reading - the story on deep fried foods and the last letter to the editor, "Poliical culture due for a change".
Unlike the writer of the letter, I am not optimistic that the people of New Brunswick will change. I think they will continue to be passive, to be scared, to be bullied, to be lied to and propagandized by their newspapers, to be betrayed by their political leaders, and to be cheated by their economic leaders. I think they will continue to let democracy die.
But I agree with the writer on his main point. If this province is ever to get better, the change can only come from the people of New Brunswick, themselves. It will not come from miracle shale deposits or from more gifts to the Irvings and friends. It will not come the slogans and catch phrases of politicians; it certainly will not come from penalizing the elderly, the sick, the poor for the schools for the poverty the rich of this province have created.
If this province is to get better, then the people have to act more like Joey Leblanc, and less like the slack-jawed crowd who stood around with their faces hanging out while a woman's life was in danger.
The date Feb. 11 came up. And a picture of snow, obviously from Saturday. So far so good.
But then I noticed that most of the stories were ones I had seen before. That's not unusual for the TandT which often runs the same story two days in a row or even twice in the same edition.
So, I clicked to the get the whole of today's edition. And all I could get was the whole of Saturday's edition.
So - muttering words usually used only for the most perverse versions of sex or in religious services, I bundled up to walk to the store for a copy. But Lord, Lord, Lord, there was nothing in it. The thing I can recommend you read is the last letter to the editor. Otherwise, there is zip in this edition.
__________________________________________________________________________
For example, page one has a story which draws on psychologists to explain why most people will not react to help in an emergency situation. They just stand and watch. (This story arises from the unusual response of Joey Leblanc who, alone in a group of people who were watching a woman die in a burning car, ran forward to save her life.)
Mr. Leblanc (despite his age, he has certainly proven he deserves the respect of the title) certainly should be recognized. But they ran this same story, complete with psychologist opinion, ON SATURDAY. Furthermore, the psychology of the "passiveness of the crowd" has been well understood and well publicized for at least 50 years. It became common knowledge internationally that long ago with the murder of a New York Woman whose screams brought no help from the hundreds of people who heard them.
Yes, people in a crowd are passive. New Brunswickers, of all people should know that. That's why they get the governments they do. That's why they allow corporate bosses to bully them. But I don't think the TandT is likely to interview psychologists about that.
_______________________________________________________________________
The story of the former Los Angeles police office who shot three people and is now on the run made p. C1. But it's not the whole story. (In fairness to the editor of that page, he probably doesn't know the whole story - on this or anything else.)
Take a look at the picture of the police officer. Notice he doesn't look perfectly white?
The Los Angeles Police Department has been notoriously racist, brutal, and thuggish for decades - and deliberately so. In the 50s and 60's and later, it actively recruited whites from the old south - men who were guaranteed to be the most brutal of racists.
There's a reason why LA has had riots in its African and Mexican population.
The reputation became so bad that the LAPD turned to television to win public opinion over. That began way back in the 50s with a show called, I think, Dragnet - with detective sergeant Joe Friday. The basic formla was the police were alway polite and honest. It was the general public that tended to be caustic, unreasonably angry or hysterical - "Just the facts, ma'am," said Joe Friday.
Then there was Adam 12, the story of two LAPD officers (not coincidentally, both were white) who were always honest and polite and reasonable. It was the ordinary citizens who were irrational and uncontrolled and even violent.
The LAPD was, to say the least, closely involved in both shows.
Such programmes still appear, still with LAPD cooperation, though now with the mandatory appearance of the occasional officer who is not white. However, the force remains as racist and thuggish as ever.
That does not, of course, excuse the shootings. But it does give a better sense than the TandT story does of what it's all about.
_______________________________________________________________________
There is a curious story on C, p. 1. Much of the world wants Canada to ban the trade in polar bear parts. They mention heads, skins, etc. They don't mention other parts, like testicles, which have a big market in China to restore virility and other ailments.
Canada offers two, pretty silly arguments against the ban. The first is that a ban on selling bear parts would not affect the survival of the species because the Inuit hunt the bear for meat - and there is also the polar bear hunt for sport. Well, yes. But the profitable trade in parts offers an additional and powerful motive for killing. It's financially worth killing a polar just for the testicles.
As well, the official Canadian position is that it is not the hunt which endangers polar bear survival. It is climate change. But thats can't be true.
Mr. Harper, himself, has repeatedly said that there is no climate change.
Well, we may run out of polar bears. But we'll still have a dinosaur for Prime Minister.
_________________________________________________________________
The only useful story in the paper in on D2. It 's about the dangers of deep-fried foods - and how they bring on strokes and well as levels of obesity that cut lives short. It associates these foods especially with the US Deep South.
Yes, indeed. It reminded me of that hamburger I had in New Orleans - meat, cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, bun - all of it - all - deep fried. With French fries on the side.
________________________________________________________________________
Norbert is beneath contempt. I'll have some respect for him the day when he uses his slurs like 'sense of entitlement' and 'culture of dependency' when he uses them on the Irvings and their buddies as freely as he does on those of us who have no choice but to be dependent.
I can understand a man I disagree with. I cannot understand an intellectual and moral coward and bully.
___________________________________________________________________________
And that's it for today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
I guess there's two things worth reading - the story on deep fried foods and the last letter to the editor, "Poliical culture due for a change".
Unlike the writer of the letter, I am not optimistic that the people of New Brunswick will change. I think they will continue to be passive, to be scared, to be bullied, to be lied to and propagandized by their newspapers, to be betrayed by their political leaders, and to be cheated by their economic leaders. I think they will continue to let democracy die.
But I agree with the writer on his main point. If this province is ever to get better, the change can only come from the people of New Brunswick, themselves. It will not come from miracle shale deposits or from more gifts to the Irvings and friends. It will not come the slogans and catch phrases of politicians; it certainly will not come from penalizing the elderly, the sick, the poor for the schools for the poverty the rich of this province have created.
If this province is to get better, then the people have to act more like Joey Leblanc, and less like the slack-jawed crowd who stood around with their faces hanging out while a woman's life was in danger.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Feb. 9: the Faith page....
This blog is aimed mostly at Christians. That's okay because, judging from the Moncton Times and Transcript, all people in Moncton are Christians. There are, it seems, no Jews, no Moslems, no Confuscists, no atheists (a form of faith.) Okay. And here's my position as a start.
1. I do not believe any church should be in a position to dictate to government. (Mind you, I don't think any corporation should be in that position, either. But I guess I'm in a minority on that.) Nor do I think any church should dictate how its members should react to any public issue. They should not be telling anybody who to vote for.
What they should be doing, and aren't doing, is encouraging their followers to discuss these issues in the context of their moral principles. We don't hear much of that from the churches. What we get instead are cutesy little stories about being kind to little children, or being sure to help any man we see lying by the roadside after being beaten and robbed, just like the good Samaritan did so long ago and so far away. Not a word about New Brunswickers living on the edge of poverty who get soaked to keep taxes for the rich down. Nothing on the question of Bill Belliveau and mad steer Flemming saying we should save money by closing up to three-quarters of our emergency centres - also to save money.
Sure. Nail the poor and the sick. Hallelujah.
2. Every society has to operate on the basis of some moral principles. The ten commandments are not just goody-goody statements. They are practical. We don't survive without them. And you will find those same moral principles reflected in just about any major religion you can think of -The Bible, the Aphorisms of Confuscius, the Q'ran, almost all are in basic agreement on moral ethics. (And many, many of the leaders of all those faiths have at some time or other betrayed those ethics.)
3. I'm a Protestant. Most of my life, I thought I was an atheist - so I know lots of Jesus jokes. But I know I'm a Protestant. However, I don't go to church because the churches bore me out of my mind with their irrelevance and their refusal to deal with the world we live in.
4. In sum, while I don't want any church (or any other corporate body) to have a hand in government, I think churches have a responsibility to relate our public life to moral ethics and to the choices we make. I think politicians have a responsibility to develop policies that reflect moral ethics. I don't care what religion those ethics come from. But I want to see some sense of moral principle at work.
I certainly don't see any moral principles of any sort in either the Liberals or the Conservatives. I don't see them in the corporation leadership of this province. And I certainly don't see them in the pages of the Moncton Times and Transcript - not even on the Faith page. So let's take a look at some cases. (and I'm going to wander beyond the boundaries of New Brunswick because there is a huge range of cases that that we should be dealing with.)
A fundamental belief of corporate leaders (and a good many economic profs) is that greed is good. Yes. Greed is good because it's a reflection of nature. (So it is. So are murder and thievery and rape.) You see, if people are greedy, they will make a lot of money and then they will invest it to give us full employment and prosperity.
Sure. If that were true, consider. The rich have been piling up money while the rest of us get poorer for the last twenty or thirty years. It that theory were true, we should all be rolling in dough, now.
So, what do Christians think about the philosophy that greed and self-interest are good? Is that notion worth discussing in a religious context? Or do we go back to mumbling about how Jesus loves the little children?
Incidentally, George Bush signed a law, The Child Soldiers Prevention Act, to protect children from being made into child-soldiers. In Africa, children were being conscripted at elementary school age, trained to kill. (and the girls were also useful for raping.) The enforcement of the act was that no country doing such a thing would be eligible to receive American weapons. Okay. It wasn't a great step. But it was a step.
A few days ago, President Obama cancelled that in the case of certain countries - like Mali and Yemen. The word now is, "Go ahead. Conscript children. And here are some assault rifles for them." Of course, the story didn't make the TandT. It should have made it into a church for discussion. It's not just a traveller beaten and robbed and left on the roadside 2000 years ago who has these problems.
Guess how many wars the US has fought (not all of them official) since 1945. And it has been the aggressor in ALL of them. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the number is 200, and the dead are in uncounted millions, large numbers of them innocent, many children, babies...
Virtually all of them were fought for the interests of big money - getting resources, controlling trade, getting banking control... There are more of them, many more to come.
Would Jesus just yawn, and say, "Let's discuss something else."? What should a faith be concerned with, if not with mass murder and greed?
Why is the Harper government getting tough on First Nations? Why is he allowing leaks to the press that show them in a bad light? Why aren't our journalists digging a little bit to find out what all this is about?
The story is, or should be, obvious enough. Big business is making a huge assault on Canadian resources. That's what's behind a trade deal with China that gives Chinese investors a stranglehold that will exempt them from any change in environment regulations - even if it becomes evident that their operations are killing people.
The assault is on mining, on oil, on shale gas, and even on water. Oh, yes, fresh water is becoming a commodity all over the world, to be sold for private profit. The First Nations treaties and the First Nations people are in the way. They have to be destroyed. That's what this is all about.
That's what the oil piplines to Texas and the east coast are about. Make a fast buck. And damn the consequences.
I think that's kind of a moral issue. Don't you? Shouldn't it be discussed in church? Or is it more important to denounce gays and lesbians? Are mass murderers and plunderers a lesser problem than the gays and lesbians who flock to Crandall University looking for jobs?
We live in world in which big business and government have become one. (You can quote Mr. Irving on that from his statement that he was in coalition with the government. Think about that next time you're imeditating in the Irving Chapel.) Big business controls government, and is driven by greed. That has taken us into our present position of war without end, war that is actually creating the terrorists it is supposed to be fighting. (Terrorists are people on the other side who kill civilians. People on our side who kill civilians are called heroes.)
Coupled with that, the greedy ones want to make even more money by destroying (or at least cutting) medicare, cutting social programmes for the needy,cutting anything public no matter what the cost to the rest of us. Mr. Irving and his friends can advise New Brunswick on how to operate its economy.
Yeah. Like a wolf can advise a shepherd on how to care for his flock.
As if that weren't bad enough, the greedy ones are proving utterly incompetent in planning national economies, and even worse in planning foreign affairs. Millions have died. Millions more are going to die. Billions have suffered. Billions more are going to suffer. The invasions of Iraq and Libya, based on greed, are failures. Iraq is almost certain to collapse in a civil war. Libya is chaotic and ungovernable and is fueling a huge resistance in Moslem Africa. And we are all being pushed to the final war.
Why do the politicians let this happen? Well, some are greedy for a share of the pie. Some have no morality. Some are scared, or shut out. Some, a surprising number, are just dumb.
Why doesn't the general population react to all this? Well, where would the leadership come from? The private news media which are almost entirely owned by big business. From the education system? Hell, parents would demand that any teacher who told the truth be fired. That's why Canadian and American history as taught in the schools are mostly mythology. It's not the education system that causes that. It's us.
Should leadership come from the churches? Well, it should. Mass murder, greed that condemns billions to poverty, are surely issues that concern religious morality. The US was behind the murders of at least a quarter million Guatemalan civilians including clergy and a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government didn't make a peep. So - did your church discuss the moral issues in this? Does your church even know about it?
It's made even worse in New Brunswick because of the fear of public discussion that permeates this province. There are no institutions that have the honesty or the courage to discuss what is happening. Rotary, other clubs, confine themselves to speakers pimping for an events centre, or wet their pants at a chance to hear from a big business leader, or create yet more halls of fame for people who don't in any way challenge their thinking. Unfortunately, that fear embraces even the churches.
Fear had no effect on what Jesus said or advocated. Too bad His church has not followed His example in this - as well as in other - respects.
Morality has largely disappeared in our conduct of affairs. We are facing dreadful trouble and suffering because of that. You ain't seen nothin' yet. We need a sense of morality to survive. We need to see our world in the context of the faith we claim to have. We need leadership to discuss that. But we're not getting it.
Instead, we get a Faith page with a bland and cutesy-poo sermonette, and one that doesn't recognize the existence of any faith except the Christian one in this town.
people of any faith - or even lack of it - should be concerned about it.
1. I do not believe any church should be in a position to dictate to government. (Mind you, I don't think any corporation should be in that position, either. But I guess I'm in a minority on that.) Nor do I think any church should dictate how its members should react to any public issue. They should not be telling anybody who to vote for.
What they should be doing, and aren't doing, is encouraging their followers to discuss these issues in the context of their moral principles. We don't hear much of that from the churches. What we get instead are cutesy little stories about being kind to little children, or being sure to help any man we see lying by the roadside after being beaten and robbed, just like the good Samaritan did so long ago and so far away. Not a word about New Brunswickers living on the edge of poverty who get soaked to keep taxes for the rich down. Nothing on the question of Bill Belliveau and mad steer Flemming saying we should save money by closing up to three-quarters of our emergency centres - also to save money.
Sure. Nail the poor and the sick. Hallelujah.
2. Every society has to operate on the basis of some moral principles. The ten commandments are not just goody-goody statements. They are practical. We don't survive without them. And you will find those same moral principles reflected in just about any major religion you can think of -The Bible, the Aphorisms of Confuscius, the Q'ran, almost all are in basic agreement on moral ethics. (And many, many of the leaders of all those faiths have at some time or other betrayed those ethics.)
3. I'm a Protestant. Most of my life, I thought I was an atheist - so I know lots of Jesus jokes. But I know I'm a Protestant. However, I don't go to church because the churches bore me out of my mind with their irrelevance and their refusal to deal with the world we live in.
4. In sum, while I don't want any church (or any other corporate body) to have a hand in government, I think churches have a responsibility to relate our public life to moral ethics and to the choices we make. I think politicians have a responsibility to develop policies that reflect moral ethics. I don't care what religion those ethics come from. But I want to see some sense of moral principle at work.
I certainly don't see any moral principles of any sort in either the Liberals or the Conservatives. I don't see them in the corporation leadership of this province. And I certainly don't see them in the pages of the Moncton Times and Transcript - not even on the Faith page. So let's take a look at some cases. (and I'm going to wander beyond the boundaries of New Brunswick because there is a huge range of cases that that we should be dealing with.)
A fundamental belief of corporate leaders (and a good many economic profs) is that greed is good. Yes. Greed is good because it's a reflection of nature. (So it is. So are murder and thievery and rape.) You see, if people are greedy, they will make a lot of money and then they will invest it to give us full employment and prosperity.
Sure. If that were true, consider. The rich have been piling up money while the rest of us get poorer for the last twenty or thirty years. It that theory were true, we should all be rolling in dough, now.
So, what do Christians think about the philosophy that greed and self-interest are good? Is that notion worth discussing in a religious context? Or do we go back to mumbling about how Jesus loves the little children?
Incidentally, George Bush signed a law, The Child Soldiers Prevention Act, to protect children from being made into child-soldiers. In Africa, children were being conscripted at elementary school age, trained to kill. (and the girls were also useful for raping.) The enforcement of the act was that no country doing such a thing would be eligible to receive American weapons. Okay. It wasn't a great step. But it was a step.
A few days ago, President Obama cancelled that in the case of certain countries - like Mali and Yemen. The word now is, "Go ahead. Conscript children. And here are some assault rifles for them." Of course, the story didn't make the TandT. It should have made it into a church for discussion. It's not just a traveller beaten and robbed and left on the roadside 2000 years ago who has these problems.
Guess how many wars the US has fought (not all of them official) since 1945. And it has been the aggressor in ALL of them. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the number is 200, and the dead are in uncounted millions, large numbers of them innocent, many children, babies...
Virtually all of them were fought for the interests of big money - getting resources, controlling trade, getting banking control... There are more of them, many more to come.
Would Jesus just yawn, and say, "Let's discuss something else."? What should a faith be concerned with, if not with mass murder and greed?
Why is the Harper government getting tough on First Nations? Why is he allowing leaks to the press that show them in a bad light? Why aren't our journalists digging a little bit to find out what all this is about?
The story is, or should be, obvious enough. Big business is making a huge assault on Canadian resources. That's what's behind a trade deal with China that gives Chinese investors a stranglehold that will exempt them from any change in environment regulations - even if it becomes evident that their operations are killing people.
The assault is on mining, on oil, on shale gas, and even on water. Oh, yes, fresh water is becoming a commodity all over the world, to be sold for private profit. The First Nations treaties and the First Nations people are in the way. They have to be destroyed. That's what this is all about.
That's what the oil piplines to Texas and the east coast are about. Make a fast buck. And damn the consequences.
I think that's kind of a moral issue. Don't you? Shouldn't it be discussed in church? Or is it more important to denounce gays and lesbians? Are mass murderers and plunderers a lesser problem than the gays and lesbians who flock to Crandall University looking for jobs?
We live in world in which big business and government have become one. (You can quote Mr. Irving on that from his statement that he was in coalition with the government. Think about that next time you're imeditating in the Irving Chapel.) Big business controls government, and is driven by greed. That has taken us into our present position of war without end, war that is actually creating the terrorists it is supposed to be fighting. (Terrorists are people on the other side who kill civilians. People on our side who kill civilians are called heroes.)
Coupled with that, the greedy ones want to make even more money by destroying (or at least cutting) medicare, cutting social programmes for the needy,cutting anything public no matter what the cost to the rest of us. Mr. Irving and his friends can advise New Brunswick on how to operate its economy.
Yeah. Like a wolf can advise a shepherd on how to care for his flock.
As if that weren't bad enough, the greedy ones are proving utterly incompetent in planning national economies, and even worse in planning foreign affairs. Millions have died. Millions more are going to die. Billions have suffered. Billions more are going to suffer. The invasions of Iraq and Libya, based on greed, are failures. Iraq is almost certain to collapse in a civil war. Libya is chaotic and ungovernable and is fueling a huge resistance in Moslem Africa. And we are all being pushed to the final war.
Why do the politicians let this happen? Well, some are greedy for a share of the pie. Some have no morality. Some are scared, or shut out. Some, a surprising number, are just dumb.
Why doesn't the general population react to all this? Well, where would the leadership come from? The private news media which are almost entirely owned by big business. From the education system? Hell, parents would demand that any teacher who told the truth be fired. That's why Canadian and American history as taught in the schools are mostly mythology. It's not the education system that causes that. It's us.
Should leadership come from the churches? Well, it should. Mass murder, greed that condemns billions to poverty, are surely issues that concern religious morality. The US was behind the murders of at least a quarter million Guatemalan civilians including clergy and a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government didn't make a peep. So - did your church discuss the moral issues in this? Does your church even know about it?
It's made even worse in New Brunswick because of the fear of public discussion that permeates this province. There are no institutions that have the honesty or the courage to discuss what is happening. Rotary, other clubs, confine themselves to speakers pimping for an events centre, or wet their pants at a chance to hear from a big business leader, or create yet more halls of fame for people who don't in any way challenge their thinking. Unfortunately, that fear embraces even the churches.
Fear had no effect on what Jesus said or advocated. Too bad His church has not followed His example in this - as well as in other - respects.
Morality has largely disappeared in our conduct of affairs. We are facing dreadful trouble and suffering because of that. You ain't seen nothin' yet. We need a sense of morality to survive. We need to see our world in the context of the faith we claim to have. We need leadership to discuss that. But we're not getting it.
Instead, we get a Faith page with a bland and cutesy-poo sermonette, and one that doesn't recognize the existence of any faith except the Christian one in this town.
people of any faith - or even lack of it - should be concerned about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)