July 25: Yesterday, I wrote of how a reporter handled the Greece crisis...

....he characterized the Greek government as radical and leftist-led. That may not seem very important. But last night I was reminded it was important. I was checking the CBC news site. It had a story about the Greek crisis. At the end of the news, there was an invitation to reply to the site, giving some opinion about the news. So I read the replies..

One said that the crisis was to be expected because leftists always make a mess of things. Now, the CBC story never said it was caused by leftists. In fact, it wasn't. The current Greek government inherited a mess created by the right wing government before it. (As well, the current Greek government has yet to do anything that could be called leftist.) So why did the person who replied make the charges he did?

That's because our news media frequently used loaded language deliberately to plant the idea that to be on the left is to be incompetent or even evil.  And so people who really don't understand what's going on just naturally assume that the left is at fault. It can very simple - just by tacking on the adjectives leftists and left-led.

In news that is to come, Pope Francis has been invited to speak to the U.S. Congress within months. This will be interesting because he, recently, has spoken very harshly of capitalism, calling it a cause of mass murder, using the unpapal word 'dung' to describe it.  But in moral terms, virtually all Republicans and Democrats, including Catholics, idealize capitalism. After all, it's capitalists who make them rich by paying them for their votes in Congress. However, I really don't think that Pope Francis will mince his words. His is one, tough cookie. And that creates a problem for the Irving press.

It has never reported on the many, many public statements by Pope Francis on the subject of capitalism. But this time, it will be happening just  over the border and, since no pope before has ever spoken to Congress, it's going to be big news. So, what will the Irving press do?

My guess is that it will lie. For a better understanding of what will happen, see the site below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/us/politics/for-gop-pope-franciss-visit-to-congress-comes-with-tensions.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150719&nlid=25906350&tntemail0=y&_r=0
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The only story worth reading in section A is the front page headline story. Too bad it's so badly written that it's hard to get a clear sense of what it's about. A medical research centre is being launched in Moncton.

The first thing I noticed is that the story is mostly about this as a boost to the economy - all of it highly speculative - in fact, guesses or worse. It reminds me of the pitch for the events centre. What this means in medical terms - I have no idea from the story.

Our beloved MP, 'smirky Goguen was here to get all the possible votes out of  this - though he's such a minor figure in the government, it's not likely he had anything to do with it.

And there is no mention of the opinion of Moncton's medical people about this. That is surely odd.

Then we learn that the medical research centre will be a private for profit business. And it got a big, forgivable loan of $750,000 to get started., plus other funding.  This, says Goguen, will encourage economic development throughout the region. And that statement tells us this smells.

In short, this is major move of private business into our health system. If such a research centre is needed, why should it be private for profit?. Health care is not a business.  It's a social responsibility

But what the CEO says in this story is that health-care is a huge, untapped market in this region. And Health -Care spending in Canada amounts to a "huge number.". In other words, it's something for very rich people to make money out of.

I'd like to know a lot more than was in this story because I think we've been sold out.
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The editorial is a bit of a smarmy one, and really is largely a copy of news story that appeared yesterday. It's about women's equality and encouraging women to get involved in politics and business as  equals.  It's a safe topic, of course. But what might give it more zip would be a list of all the women who are editors of Irving press.

There is an excellent letter on the coarseness of a local lawyer who specializes in getting people charged with drunk driving off the hook. He thinks it's funny to have a car licence plate that reads DUI DR.
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Norbert writes about the federal election race. It's, very sensibly, a cautious column. And a good one.

The guest columnist is the V.P. of the Business Council of British Columbia. It really doesn't say much. And that's just as well, because it's written in the jargon of a high level business meeting, and will have no meaning to over 90% of readers.

Gwynne Dyer is excellent on a topic our news media haven't really looked at. The U.S. wants Japan to re-arm and prepare for war overseas. But the Japanese constitution forbids Japan to have a military for anything but home defence. That is a condition imposed by the U.S. in 1945. So why the change of heart?

In 1945, the U.S. expected to take over China and its market in a walk. It didn't want any competition for Asian markets. It wanted everything. But the Chinese decided otherwise.Now, U.S. big business wants a war with China. But, oh, China is pretty big. So now the U.S. needs a powerful Japan to help it against China and, possibly Russia. (Dyer does give all this information. But that's what it's all about.)

And the Japanese people don't want to used to fight another war. They are quite happy to have just a defence force.

However, the U.S. created a Japanese government after world war 2 that was modeled on the U.S. government. That is, it looked democratic but was actually controlled by a small number of very wealthy families. They want war, just like American wealthy families want war - because there's money in it.

So those families and the U.S. are both ignoring the constitution the U.S. created, and using their power of government to re-arm.

There's a lot more detail here than Dyer gives. But it's needed to understand what's going on. It's a good read.

Alec Bruce does it again.  He tells an interesting and enjoyable story about his home town. But there's really no opinion about anything in this 'opinion' column, and there's no point to it.
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Canada&World is its usual sloppy and often meaningless self. Page B1 has a big story about a federal  (Conservative) minister criticizing the Liberals. It's about the child tax credits. I got my cheque today. Big deal. It comes from the taxes I pay. Harper is simply using our money to buy us for the election. Next year, we'll have to pay it back in taxes. It's a mug's game.

More striking is the article at the bottom of that page. It's about a warning from the UN that Canada's anti-terror bill goes against international obligations and against human rights in Canada. And there's more. Much more.  Our Public Safety Minister replies that it's okay because our close allies use the same measure to protect their own citizens.

Too bad that our Public Safety MInister didn't read those sections of the report   that had to do with our 'close allies'. And the report gets worse.

It mentions our failure to investigate the cases of disappeared aboriginal women, and our failure to exercise oversight on the behaviour of Canadian mining companies outside Canada. Both are disgraceful. Native women are murdered or they disappear - and nobody cares. As for Canadian mining companies, their behaviour is just like that of our 'close allies', the U.S. Their behaviour is brutal, destructive both of the environment and of lives, and often murderous and even murderous on mass scale. It's degrading. It's dehumanizing. And some of our finest families do it.

The report also mentions prison conditions in Canada, violence against women, lower salaries for women, detention of immigrants ( who are held in prison, sometimes for years, with no charge against them), and the issue of how Revenue Canada strips tax-free status from any charity that Harper doesn't like.

This is an important story.

Canada has, of course, always had faults - the treatment of women and native peoples are testimony to that. But we have become much worse. This is not the Canada I grew up in. And it's not the Canada I ever wanted to see. We have become a vicious nation, indifferent to the suffering and death we impose on others,  and offering help largely to the very rich, with a Senate (never worth much) that is now an international disgrace. And we are going back to the bad old policies of the great depression when we starved the poor to give higher profits to the already rich who had caused the depression.

I know I have often said that the re-election of Harper would be the end of Canada. That wasn't just a wild accusation. With the help of the U.S., we may already be too far gone to be a nation again.

B5 has a story on how the U.S. is equipping, financing, and training Iraq troops in the fight against ISIS. It  (with Canada) is also providing air support. That shouldn't be a surprise.  The U.S has been doing that sort of thing for forty years and more. Among the troops it has supported and equipped and trained have been those of ISIS and Al Quaeda. In fact, in more than one sense, ISIS and Al Quaeda were created by the U.S.

U.S. foreign policy with its whole focus on controlling foreign economies and looting foreign countries has been a disaster most of the time since 1945. It's a foreign policy that benefits only the rich, that has killed millions, and simply generates more hatred against the U.S., Britain and Canada all over the world. All that this policy has done is to create war without end. These are wars of pure greed - and they are wars that feed on themselves to create more wars. This isn't really policy. It's unspeakable arrogance and mass insanity.

On the last page, international bankers have now forced even worst conditions on Greece. The Greek premier doesn't believe they will do anything to solve Greece's economic problem - not ever. And  he's right. There are better and more humane ways to deal with this. But the bankers with loans to Greece (many of the same ones who are bleeding Ukraine dry) want blood, and they want it now. When Europe gave money to a starving Greece, the bankers insisted on getting 90% of it.

Whenever there has been a recession or a depression, capitalists have always been able to use it to make themselves richer and everybody else poorer. Read professor Saillant's book on the New Brunswick debt to see capitalism in action.              

July 23: The Irving press does it again.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. I have just finished writing by blog - twice. And twice I have lost it for no reason I can understand.  This, a darkness falls, will be a brief summary.

The commentary page has another commentary from yet another "think-tank" that spreads propaganda for billionaires. This one is the Canada West foundation and, again, it's pitch for the oil industy (but describing itself as a plea for Canadian unity. Yep. Just allow oil pipelines everywhere, and this will be a great country.

It's far better written than the one that appeared yesterday. This is soft-sell guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of even a Stephen Harper. This man is a liar, but one who knows how to  hide it. Sign him up, Mr. Irving.
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The front page headline is about the RCMP taking quicker steps to give police access to high-powered rifles. That's nice - and it took just a year after the event that made it necessary, the murder of three police in Moncton.

Moncton has been big on putting up thank you signs to the police, sending flowers,building a monument and congratulating itself for keeping calm. (I wonder how long the people of Moncton would hold  up in Yemen or Syria.) But when will they demand to know how a disturbed person (or anyone) could be allowed to buy weapon designed for combat.. When will they ask why the police had no file on that sale?

Thanks and flowers are   cheap.

Beside the headline story is another "news" item from a think tank to serve the rich. The Conference Board of Canada calls itself private and impartial. But I notice its board is  made up almost entirely of presidents and senior executives of corporations. If a newspaper is going to publish this sort of thing as news, it should make it clear exactly what the source is.

There's no other news in Section A worth looking at.
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The editorial is another very trivial one, and   quite local. Obviously, the only thing the editorial writer knows about the world is the route from his home to the office.

Norbert has an excellent column. It's a subject that is a difficult one because it criticizes the police. It criticizes only a minority, but it still runs the risk of offending a great many. Essentially, it says that some police misbehave, and see themselves as weapons against the public rather than defenders of the law. He's right. I  have known such police in my bad, old days as a street gang worker and a police pistol instructor. I particularly remember one who couldn't wait for a chance to punch out one of those bearded, peace-loving hippies. It can happen among police as it can happen among all of  us.

This is a sensible column, and a gentle one on a difficult topic.  Well done.

Rod Allen has another trivial story about himself, including the only joke he knows - calling his children 'brats'.

And, oh, it's a bad day for Alec Bruce.

Essentially, he has a story about how recessions (and, I guess, depressions) are good because they are capitalism's way of rising again to its natural perfection. And, if you lose your job don't worry. Just learn to live within your means. It's some of the most condescending rubbish I've ever read.

Oh. And who causes recessions? Well, it's them there politicians. Come off it, Alec. We all know who dictates the economy in New Brunswick. And we all know who gets the really big welfare checks and who pays the least possible in taxes.The same is true across Canada and even more so in the U.S.
And they're the ones who cause recessions.

And such a system, by the way, is not capitalism.When government is a partnership between elected politicians and the wealthy, it's not called capitalism. The correct word is fascism. Check a dictionary.
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The Canada&World section is its usual disaster. There's not a single story worth reading. And there's nothing whatever on what should be a big story - the U.S. obviously wants a war with China and Russia. It will have to be nuclear because the U.S. military really hasn't won a war, even against small nations, in seventy years. I should think some news and analysis on that might be even more important than "Bumper crop of ticks in province".

B3 has a big story on how CPR is fighting a ruling that it has to contribute to a multi-million dollar settlement to Lac Megantic and the families of 47 people killed in a rail accident there. Hint - if the others are paying the settlement, then it must mean they know they did something wrong. One of those companies is owned by a native son of New Brunswick. What is it that he did wrong?

That's the story.Forty-seven people were killed. But, count on it. The Irving press will never tell the story.

Am getting close to the end, and sweating in terror. Will I make it?

B8 has a story on the Greek crisis that tells us nothing we didn't already know. What's interesting about it is the reporters use of adjectives. Check paragraph 4.

'Prime Minister Alexis Tsipris' radical, left-led government....."

Well, for a start, the reporter doesn't know the meaning of 'radical'. He's also using in a sense that implies it's a bunch of wild-eyed lefties - and we all know that they're all crazy, don't we?

Then he says it also leftist. That's another adjective whose meaning isn't clear. But it gets an emotional reaction, and unthinking one, for many people, that it's an evil  government

Then there's the 'left-led" bit. I presume that must be the rest of the government is on the right. My, that's an unusual combination. In fact, the government isn't left-led. There's nothing leftist in anything the prime minister has done so far. He has caved into the (presumably rightist) bankers. Moreover, the reason they have to describe his a a left-led government is because there is no left in it. The left - well, it left in protest at what the prime minister  had done.

This is bad journalism. Even if the government were left, the use of adjectives in this cases is an opinion, not news. It also expresses that opinion in a way that many readers will see as derogatory - it gets an emotional response.

Now, a tense, quick, and careful end.  Leftism scarcely exists anywhere in the world. It's not in China.  It's not in Russia. Certainly not in the US where to be on the left is to believe that sick people should be treated.

We live in a world that is dominated by severely right-wing dictators and billionaires. Even the parties that are called left have moved considerably to the right of where they were. That's true of the Labour party in Britain and the NDP in Canada. We live in the crudest of economic/political systems, one that is based on greed and indifference to social needs. We call it capitalism. But it's nowhere close to what capitalism is.

And, it's a world where greed is so powerful that democracy is almost meaningless - and more wars for greed a certainty.

Is John McCain a war hero?

There really is no blog today. I have written it twice, and both times, somehow, have accidentally erased it, and cannot undo the damage. And at this hour, I'm not up to doing it a third time. And, no, I'm not proof reading this. I have to rush to pick up my daughter. Life is just one thing after another. But, I will mention just a few things. 1. take a look at the site below.It's video of a former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, who is more than the usual expert on China. He thinks a war with China is close because the capitalist U.S. has wanted to control China for over a century. And capitalist China wants the same kind of control over western economies. And decision time is running short, especially since the western empire which has dominated the world for 500 years is collapsing as China is rising. For the sake of the lives of millions of people, perhaps of all humanity, some accommodation has to be reached. But capitalism, based on individualism and openly inspired by greed, has never proved a good means of coming to common agreement. Mr. Rudd puts it more gently. But that's what he means. This, and not Donald Trumps opinion about John McCain, is the real issue (so far ignored by our news media) in the U.S. presidential race. This is well worth watching. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42441.htm 2. There is almost nothing in today's paper worth talking about. It's mostly shabby and trivial. But - There is an important letter to the editor from very angry doctors in the Moncton hospitals. In Moncton, there is a DNA machine (I don't really know what that means) which is very expensive, and which serves the needs of the whole province, including St. John. The provincial government, against the advice of doctors, is buying another one for St. John. This is not a turf war. The issue is buying two machines when we need only one, and while we are slashing health costs. Government officials are saying nothing (except for a few who are good at double speak.) It's the front page headline in today's paper. And, oh, this one really smells. The paper doesn't say so, but it looks as though the "privatize medicare" crowd is behind this, interfering, for somebody's profit, while ignoring the medical profession. Bastards. 3.The editorial is a brainless one about street names. there really are more important issues facing this city. And there are world issues that deserve comment. On B3, there's an interview with the mayor of Vancouver who recently attended a Vatican conference on the environment. He was there to support a papal encyclical which "denounced the fossil fuel-based world economy that exploits the and destroys the earth". An editorial on that might have been more useful than even the street names of Moncton. The Irving press never bothered to print that story of what the pope said last week. Funny how they missed it. Maybe the preacher at the Irving chapel will make it the subject of his sermon. 5. On the same topic of commentary, the paper has the most contemptible, lying, hate-filled and badly written commentary column I had ever seen. It's not Norbert. He does a very good job for today. It's not Brian Cormier who, as always, has nothing to say at all. That's why he advertises himself as a communicator. He communicates without the need to have anything to say. Alec Bruce, well, it's not a commentary. It's a personal story. It's still a good read because it's warm, human, and very beautifully written. But don't do it again, Alec. The stinker is a guest commentary by someone named Marco Navarro-Genie who is president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. That means he's a propagandist for Irving and friends. I don't know whether he's a liar or a fool or some mix of the two. But his column is a vile attack on environmentalists and a kiss-up to the oil industry. (His writing is pretty awful. He should hire a communicator like Brian Cormier.) The commentary is full of loaded language in which environmentalists are always wacky or extremist while oil billionaires are devoted to saving the planet. Sometimes, it's just corny, like a small-town political speech with 'feel good' lines like how oil will bring us closer to "keeping our young and brightest working right here in our region". And sometimes what he says is just a lie. Sorry. But it's either a lie or this man is incredibly stupid. He says that countries all over the world envy Canadians for having business leaders who are so thoughtful about saving our environment that they lead the world. Okay, kid. I'll settle for stupid. In fact, Canada and the U.S. are two of the worst polluters in the world, and two of the slowest in acting on it. Do some reading before you write a commentary, you twit. For that matter, Canada is profoundly disliked in much of Latin America for it's mine owners and others who have caused and are causing severe and irreversible damage to the environment and to human lives, especially in Central America. In fact, the Canadian and American governments are so detested that they are isolated in any general meeting of Latin American leaders. And pipelines are no problem at all. Yeah. This "researcher" and president of a so-called research centre seems not to have heard of the 5 million litre spill in Alberta. And he tell us that oil is a sustainable resource. If it is, it's the only resource in the universe that is sustainable. All resources can get used up. (In fairness, I suspect this stuffed shirt doesn't know what the word 'sustainable' means. He doesn't know the meaning of radical, either. He thinks it'a a sort of dirty word. In fact, a radical is person who goes to the root of the problem. And, oh, Mr. Navarro-Marcus looks very much like a very rotten root of this problem.) And environmentalists are 'extremists'. Gee. Just like them there terrorists. He ends with a note of concern for the future of our children and our culture of the Atlantic region. Mr. Navarro, I have never met anyone (including experts) who can define a culture. Even the Parti Quebecois has never been able to do it. Few people, and I suspect Mr. Navarro is one of them, even know what the word means. This column is ignorant, propagandist, almost certainly lying, hate mongering and, worst of all, very badly written. I can't imagine there is another editor in Canada who would have printed this. Come on, Mr. Irving, you can surely afford a better stoolie than that.

July 21: Be still, my heart....

The front page of the TandT is always something pithy and stirring. Today, Irving reporters asked the tough question of Justin Trudeau. Will he ask for help from premier Gallant in the campaign. And Trudeau wouldn't say anything. Wow! The news doesn't get any hotter than that.

Then, oh, be still my heart, our deputy mayor says we should have a 'sidewalk of stars' for eminent citizens. Great idea! And I know where there's a star available for immediate use. The Bill Cosby star in Hollywood will soon be on the market. Toss in worthies like, oh, the deputy mayor, the president of the chamber of commerce, everybody named Irving, and all that with the new hockey rink, will make Moncton the hub of tourism for the world.

The only story on the front page that IS a story is one about student university and college debt. It's true that the U.S. is even worse. There, people of retirement age are going bankrupt because they're still paying for student loans. It took me a dozen years to pay mine, and I worked during most of        those schools years, and had scholarships for the last four of them. On balance, I lost money by going to graduate school.

There is something very, very wrong with our handling of education: and there's something wrong with our economic system.  Countries poorer than Canada and the U.S. offer education free.  Tiny Cuba,through half a century of American sanctions designed  to   impoverish it, offers free education from kindergarten to Ph.D.

But that's the difference between an economic system designed to meet the needs of society - and one designed to enrich billionaires at the expense of everyone else.

The rest of section A news ( like most of the first page) is trivia.
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The editorial is even more distasteful than usual. It's a fee ad for a new lending company in town. Whoever this editorial writer is, he seems to have no knowledge of anything.

Norbert contributes a thought-provoking column - which is what an opinion column is supposed to do. He doesn't like ideologies - but I suspect that's because he isn't clear on what ideology means. It's a system of thinking and planning. Some ideologies don't work. Some do. But to have any intelligent political and economic system, you need some ideology on which to base your thinking - a sense of priorities, a sense of values.

As for conservatism, it has never really existed in Canada. Roughly, it is an ideology that sees all people a part of a community based on planned development to benefit all. I suppose the closest thing to conservative in Canada is the NDP.

John A. never called himself a Conservative (and he wasn't one.) He called  himself a Liberal-Conservative. But that meant nothing, either, because he was really a stoolie for big business - just like almost all the premiers of New Brunswick. Diefenbaker had some elements of conservatism about him. Brian Mulroney had no ideology at all. He was simply a con artist out for himself - and a thief.

A liberal is one who puts the emphasis on personal freedom. Until a hundred and twenty-five years ago, the Liberal party was liberal, but only in the sense that it wanted the rich to be free. And that's what makes it pretty much like the Conservative Party.

The NDP began (as the CCF) as a combination of elements of liberal and conservative ideology, and with a strong sense of religious (Christian) ideology.

The column says that Liberals and leftists lose touch with existing social realities? Are you serious, Norbert? Do you really believe that Harper is in touch with existing realities? In fact, very few people in any party are in touch with existing realities.

The realities of today are that the wealthy pretty much rule the world. They own the governments. They become richer by imposing poverty on most of the world. They destroy our rights. They create wars to get richer. And they have driven people to a frenzy by the constant emphasis on hatred and violence and fear created by the newspapers they own.

I"m not criticizing Norbert, here. He's thought-provoking in this column. And he provoked me to think. Good for him. That's what an opinion column should do.

Oh, it's true that the early Liberals of Canada were for free trade - but  that had nothing to do with ideology. They wanted free trade because it was cheaper and more profitable for them. But - as industrialization picked up and Canada developed companies like Massey (manufacturing agricultural machinery like tractors), Canadian manufacturers  couldn't compete with cheaper American products - so the Liberal party changed its tune to oppose free trade. . It wasn't ideology. It was money.                                                                                                                    

Alan Cochrane contributes to the stimulating debate over "should old railway cars be used in paintball games? " So much for keeping us in touch with social realities.

Gwynne Dyer's column is an important one. It's about the slump of the Chinese economy, and the impact it's having on daily   life in China. He hints at the most important part of this story - but stops at the hint..

Hardship in China could lead to civil unrest, even revolution. And why should we care?


Well, it is no secret that the U.S. wealthy want control of China. They've wanted it for over a century.  Nor is it any secret that the U.S. has been building a wall of weapons, including nuclear ones, around China. Nor is it a secret that Japan has been encouraged to re-arm for a war - with China.

The very wealthy in the U.S. might well decide that it's now or never to take on China. (No. that's not an ideology. That's just greed.)

Today's replacement for Alec Bruce is interesting. It takes a quite un-ideological look at what is happening in Greece. It's a look that pays no attention to the morality (or lack of it) shown by international bankers. But, from a purely practical point of view, it argues that if  Greece were to (quite possibly) leave the European Union, the effect would be felt all over the world - even in metro Moncton.

Yes, what happens all over the world happens to us. That's why we should pay attention to it. And that's why a real newspaper would pay more attention to the rest of the world.
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In Canada&World, Canada's Energy Minister, Greg Mitford, says Canada must increase its  exports of oil. Yep. Gotta get more oil burned up in this world. It creates jobs for quite a few, and vast fortunes for a very tiny number who sometimes give back a little bit of money for something named after themselves. And don't worry about climate change. That's just a bunch of freaks and fanatics. Canada, one of the world's worst polluters, and a world leader in doing nothing about it, wants to sell even more oil. Hey! Who do you trust? A foreign-looking guy like Suzuki? Or a real Canadian like Stephen Harper?

Throughout history, we have known greed. Greed isn't an ideology. It's something worse, rather like a mental illness. Greed creates  stupidity. And it's stupidity that destroys.

Oh, B3 has the story that this year is breaking global heat records. Don't  worry. Mr. Harper and Mr. Irving will soon set an even high record.

So we do have to face an ideological issue. What is more important to us? Profits for the very rich? Or human life?

On B3, the Canadian Senate  (a body of grunting hogs and thieves) wants to control CBC funding (by cutting it), and wants to explore means of privatizing it. CBC is the only honest and competent news source we have in this country. They want to destroy it. And I doubt very much that this idea came from the Senate. It came from Harper. He's wanted this for a long time. He wants CBC to be something like the Irving press because the Irvings are his kind of people.

B4 has a full page of smiling groups holding up cheques for scholarships, for mattresses for veterans - all good causes, but for needs that should not have to depend on charity. If we are proud of those who do this work, we should have contempt for our society that makes such charity necessary.

Tell you what, Mr. Gallant, next time Mr. Irving asks for a handout from our tax money (or another Irving wants a hundred million dollar hockey rink), tell them to hold a cookie sale.

The last page of B has a story about the situation in Greece. It's a story that anyone who reads Canadian history of the 1930s or who reads the Irving opinion columns on the question of New Brunswick's debt, already knows.

Greece has been placed in deep trouble by corrupt governments and their billionaire friends in Greece and in banking. Now, the corrupt and the wealthy run free with their stolen money; but the rest of the Greeks have to pay.

That sort of thing is exactly what happened in the great depression of the 1930s and, just as today, the news media owned by the rich, screamed their message that everybody but the rich had to pay. In consequence, the rich could cut salaries, make vacations unpaid and working hours longer, cancel pensions - and get very much richer as everybody else got poorer.

It's always like that in Central America and in much of Asia and Africa. And people who protest get beaten up by the police and put in jail. (I have never even heard of big business executive or owner) being beaten up by police or jailed for the human misery they create.
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There is no news that the UK government is now breaking the law by bombing Syria - Syria has never attacked the UK and that's supposed to be a requirement for going to war. There's still not a word about our pilots bombing Syria and Iraq (also illegal under international law).

There's not a word about the continuing slaughter of the people of Yemen (among the poorest in the world) by Saudi Arabia (the richest in the world.) Nor is that war legal since Yemen has never attacked Saudi Arabia. Nor is there a word about the continuing and daily slaughter of people in many countries by U.S. drones. (This, too, is illegal since the U.S. a)has not been attacked by the people it's killing and b)the U.S. has never declared war. How's that for a democracy in which the people rule?)
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I'm no longer astonished by how much our news media lie to us. But I am astonished at how we react to what should be terrible news. It reminds me of an old and not very good joke.

News flash - 650 Turks killed in train crash said the Moncton radio station. "Oh", said the people of Moncton, "the poor man."

Us humans are like that.

When thousands of Americans were killed on the day of 9/11, Canadians immediately offered help and sympathy. Many Canadian churches held special services of mourning.

Then the U.S. murdered way over a million people in Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11. The evidence is clear. Blair and Bush lied, and used the lies for a mass murder. And, of course, Saddam Hussein was tried and hanged for war crimes.

But I never even heard of a church service mourning or offering prayers for all those murdered men, women and children. And the mass murderers, Blair and Bush,  have never been arrested for war crimes. And both attend church regularly. Jesus wants them, I guess, for sunbeams.

The U.S. murdered uncounted millions, most civilians, in Vietnam. They died because they wouldn't accept U.S. capitalism. Stephen Harper proposes a huge memorial to victims of communism. Can you imagine him proposing a memorial to the victims of capitalism?

And I cannot recall Canada ever doing anything to help U.S. victims in Vietnam. Nor did any church sponsor a pancake breakfast with prayers for those who were murdered in that war.

The U.S. was complicit in the murder of something in the range of a quarter million people in Guatemala. Among the dead were Roman Catholic priests, nuns, laymen....One of them was from this province. Did any Roman Catholic church in the province have a memorial service for all those who were murdered?  Was sympathy expressed in the Irving press? Was it even mentioned?

Us humans live in an imaginary world, not at all like the real one.We believe that 'we' are good, and that 'they' (Russians, Chinese,, Muslims) are evil. And, I   guess that Russians, Chinese, Muslims feel that "they' are good and "we" are evil.

That is something that Norbert would call a "social reality". So it is, but my ideology tells me that sometimes we have to change social realities.

July 20: What can I say?

The newspapers of the Irving press are designed, as a leading purpose to keep New Brunswickers in ignorance of what is going on  in New Brunswick and around the world. So,we are trained to think that it's important that today is the birthday of Squeaky LaBeef. And that Charlie Hunnam  gave a thoughtful birthday gift to Jessica Chastain.    (Whoever all those people are.)

There's also a front page story about a musician who enjoys travelling to concerts.

 Nor are the editorial and commentary pages any help.

The editorial pretends to be about protecting our wildlife. But it's really about protecting those creatures which attract tourist dollars. Norbert has a column which - well - he thinks that,  politically, we should all be in the "thoughtful"  centre. Norbert, I know of no people in the centre who are especially thoughtful. Indeed, people in the so-called centre are often there because their newspapers keep them so ignorant, they can't think at all. And a paper that never, never criticizes anything done by the Irvings can scarcely claim to be in the centre of anything. This is just a silly column.

For his commentary, Craig Babstock tell us funny stories about stupid criminals. That's not a commentary. That's a stand-up-comic routine. We need commentary to help to understand news. Why are things happening? What should we be doing about them? Does the city council have any plans for Moncton besides holding street fairs and building a $100,000,000 plus rink to be a toy
for a wealthy man? Does Moncton have a lot of house fires? If so, is that a sign of bad regulation and substandard housing? Does the city seriously plan to spend money on new busses for a city whose most prominent feature is empty busses?

We don't need jokes. we need informed and intelligent commentary about things that really matter to us.

Alec Bruce's column is replaced by a couple of university professors. But that's not the whole  story.They also conduct studies for a far right  propaganda "think tank" called Fraser Institute. I expect that very, very few serious academics would have any respect for such work that is really propaganda to help the very, very rich. Anyway, I doubt whether a whole lot of people in New Brunswick will read this article about amalgamation and de-amalgamation of communities in Ontario and Manitoba. I wonder what genius of an editor thought that this would be a hot item for the Moncton Times and Transcript.

Steve Malloy, like Craig Babstock, doesn't really have a commentary, either.----but..
well, he writes about how people, just about all people, abuse animals. He writes it well, and with what I can only call a passion. I would prefer to see a real commentary. But this one really carries a punch. So all is forgiven.

Canada&World is the usual disaster scene. The lead story is that Irving Oil is no longer shipping oil to its refinery in New Brunswick by rail that goes through Maine. Why not? Is it going through New Brunswick now? How much oil? Irving won't say. It's none of our business what goes through our province or how much it is. This is our democratic response from the company that accepted "some" responsibility for a similar cargo that killed  47 people just a year ago.

Result? There is no story. Or, rather, there is a story but this isn't it. The headline should read something like "Irving tells people of New Brunswick to F-off".

Two hundred "hidden homeless" people age 16 to 18 live in Fredericton. They stay indoors, when possible, in the homes of friends. They have no regular place of sleeping or eating, no money, no family, no guidance, no models.... This is the result of a study by UNB.  Moncton is bigger than Fredericton. How many homeless teens does Moncton have? What has city council done about it? Has it had time to do anything besides scramble to borrow money for a hockey rink for a rich man? Why isn't the provincial government doing something?  Doesn't the Irving press have reporters to look into this? Wouldn't it occur to the opinion and commentary editor to ask for a commentary about this?

C8 has the big story about the U.S. dropping leaflets over Syria to say that the U.S. is bringing freedom to Syria. Right. The U.S. is famous for bringing freedom - well, except in Libya, Vietnam, Iraq (having your country impoverished and split into pieces isn't what freedom means), Afghanistan (where the U.S. put the world's most corrupt government into power), Guatemala or any other place one can think of in Latin America.....  When you hear that the U.S. is coming to free you, look for a deep, deep shelter.

There is, of course, no follow-up to the oil pipeline spill of 5 million litres in Alberta - though interesting things have recently come to light. The company has said it followed all regulations. And, it says it had a fail-safe system that automatically would stop the oil within seconds on even a tiny leak.

In fact, the system never stopped the oil at all. It was a passing worker who noticed the leak a long time after 5 millions litres had leaked.

And even AFTER the leak, the oil company is still saying it's perfectly safe.. Alec Bruce might want to rethink some of his columns about how safe this all is, and how the regulations are so perfect.

The Irving press doesn't seem to have the story of the U.S. embassy to Cuba re-opening. And nobody has suggested why this is happening. Now, that would be a commentary that makes the news understandable.

The story that the U.S. wants to be friends with Cuba is propaganda. The U.S. held Cuba under a murderous dictator for 50 years. It has done, and still does that, all over Central America. As in those other countries, people were forced to work for starvation wages, children got virtually no education, nobody but the rich got medical care- so most Cubans died early - all so American (and Canadian) billionaires could make huge profits. Haiti, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and others still live through brutal conditions - including mass murder. Anyone who tries to establish democracy and to improve conditions is either murdered by the romantically named "special ops", or find the country torn apart by U.S. financed and armed 'rebels'.


Latin America is a part of the American Empire - with all the brutality and exploitation that means. Latin Americans are fleeing to the U.S. not because they love it. They're fleeing to escape the horrors the U.S. has created in their countries. (And with some Canadians joining in for the plunder)

Castro was the first one to break the American grip, and govern Cuba for the benefit of Cubans. He introduced medical care, free education all the way through university, financial planning and much more.

The U.S. was furious It feared Castro would set an example for all of Latin America. It bombed Cuba. It equipped and paid an invasion force. It tried, many times, to kill Castro. It paid agents to set bombs in resorts. It had another agent who bombed a Cuban civilian airliner, killing all aboard.

Castro tried very hard to stay friendly with the U.S. The U.S. government was the first one he approached to establish good relations, And the U.S. government turned him down. It insisted it wanted only the old Cuba - poor, uneducated, and wide open to U.S. big business. Then it went on to (illegally) put Cuba under trade sanctions to keep it poor. And it named Castro a terrorist when, in fact, all the terrorism had been carried out by the U.S.

Of course, the Irving press carried none of this.

But Castro survived all of it, and made Cuba a better place than it had ever been under U.S. rule. Castro's accomplishment in the face of tremendous odds was one of history's great accomplishments. Like him or hate him, Castro was a great man who stood up to the enormous power of the U.S.

And that, sort of, is why the U.S. now wants to restore relations. It faces serious rebellion against U.S. brutality all over Latin America.  That's why, in Ecuador, Pope Francis said, "Capitalism is dung".  (Of course, the Irving press didn't report that, either - thereby proving the pope is right.)

The U.S. needs to be "friends" with Cuba - and to re-establish U.S. capitalism there to deter other countries from following the Cuba example.  Friendship has nothing to do with it. Nations don't work that way. This is to do with solidifying U.S. 'dung' all over Latin America.

Greece didn't make the news today. The Irving press needed the space for a really big story about how an Ontario company makes money by selling dinosaur bones. (Hint to that company - check out staff at the Irving press.)
___________________________________________________________________________

But Greece is really quite a big story. It's a big story because it is the triumph of Germany after its loss in World War Two. It is close now to what Hitler dreamed of - German dominance of Europe. It was Germany that pushed for the tough terms, not the others. They knew what it was all about. Hitler, in death, has won. Look now for more moves to unite Europe politically as well as economically, and all under German dominance.  This is yet another, major change in the world's direction.

And it signals an even bigger change. Greece really no longer has an elected government. All the power is in the hands of the bankers. They set the taxation levels and, oh, the Greeks are going to suffer for that. They set the social service level. And that means there is no social service level, no medicare, no pensions,... All public works have been given to the bankers to be redeveloped as privately owned (and expensive) institutions. Prices for millions of the homeless and hungry and ill and destitute are going to go up.

This is why the Pope referred to capitalism as dung.

And this is going to be the model for all of Europe - and Canada, and the U.S. For Canada, the game started many years ago with Irving press writers who sneered at civil servants, opposed social services, and kissed Irving asses. Now, Canada and the U.S. are well on the way to the abuse that's being heaped on Greece.

(Oh, yesterday, I said the Greeks had been forced to sell public works such as energy. I was wrong. They weren't forced to sell them. They were forced to GIVE them to the bankers, who will now sell them to fellow-vultures who will raise prices.)

Tell us again about how evil Hitler and Stalin were. Unregulated capitalism can match them any day - and it's working on it.

I found two items of interest in understanding what's going on in Greece. The first is by a writer I have learned to trust. The second is by a man who well knows the reasons why Greece is being destroyed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42418.htm

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/11/behind-germanys-refusal-to-grant-greece-debt-relief-op-ed-in-the-guardian/

On reflection, I think the Pope was wrong to call unregulated capitalists 'dung'. Dung is useful. He should have just called them "bastards".

July 19: Thoughts on a rainy Sunday

I despise the Toronto Sun almost as much as I do the Irving press. So when I first read its story about a very, very young Princess Elizabeth being taught the Nazi salute,  I though it despicable for a newspaper to run such a story about a child who had no idea of the meaning of what she was doing - and to run the story for pure sensationalism.

I still think that, but......

....when I saw the commentary on this in The Guardian, it put the story into a different context. And that was the difference between cheap sensationalism and intelligent journalism.

Elizabeth did nothing wrong. She was a very young child. But the man teaching her how to do the salute was quite a different matter. He was her uncle, Edward VIII who was a supporter of Hitler. That's why Churchill sent him so far away - to be governor of Bermuda. He would, without doubt, have betrayed Britain in order to get the throne back. And he was not Hitler's only admirer.

EVERYBODY knew, long before 1939, what Hitler was doing. Everybody knew he was a dictator. Everybody knew about the prison camps for Jews and gays and anybody else Hitler didn't like. Everybody knew that Naziism was founded on racism.   Everybody knew about the arbitrary killing and beatings and arson against Jews carried out by official and unofficial Nazi groups.  Everybody in England and Canada and the US and all over Europe knew all about it years before the war..

And it wasn't just the dim-witted Edward VIII who admired him. It was us - the whole western world. We had no concern whatever for the Jews or any of his other victims. We had no concern that he was a dictator - which means, incidentally, we did not go to war to defend freedom and democracy.  If that were true, we would have gone to war at least seven years earlier. But we didn't. And we didn't lift a finger to help the Jews because we were as anti-semitic as Hitler was. We didn't help them before the war, during it, or after.

Western capitalism rushed to do business with Hitler. Hollywood producers (Most of them Jewish) made an agreement with Hitler that they would not make films critical of Naziism. The only Hollywood figure with the integrity to break that rule was Charlie Chaplin with "The Great Dictator" and, oh, he was persecuted for that - by the US - long after the war had ended.

Western manufacturers rushed to sell Hitler the steel he needed for the tanks that would sweep across Europe. And where to do you think the oil that was stockpiled before the war came from? Germany had no oil fields. And many of the tanks and bombers Hitler needed were built in factories owned and returning profits to people with names like Ford. Another of Hitler's admirers and profiteers was an American whiskey gangster named Joseph Kennedy  who used his time as U.S. ambassador to Britain to grab for himself the assets of a Britain that was sinking because of war costs.  His son was, of course, John F. Kennedy.

Many, many western capitalists, almost all of them profoundly anti-Jewish, supplied Hitler with money. But it had nothing to do with religion, anyway. Hitler was courted as the barrier who would prevent the spread of left-wing and socialist and even communist ideas to a west made shaky by years of economic depression.

When the war was over, we took out our self-righteousness on Edward VIII, and erased the memory of the partnership of out political and economic leaders (and us) with Hitler from our historical memory.

I think a Netanyahu   goes much, much too far in his aggressiveness (to put it kindly). But I can understand where he's coming from.

Meanwhile, we go on making mistakes learned from the myth we call our history.


http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/18/queen-nazi-salute-video-royal-home-movie-
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The Irving press has studiously avoided telling us about the trade deals that Harper is completing. Again, the information comes from news sources that are in the same gutter as the Irving press. But they have competition with other gutter newspapers. So they occasionally let something true and important slip through.

What's happening is that Harper is making deals that actually destroy the power of our governments and our courts to impose any control whatever on corporations based in Canada or abroad. In effect, Canada is rapidly ceasing to exist as a nation. And words like sovereignty and democracy are rapidly ceasing to have any meaning.

Despite that, I'd be willing to bet that Harper will get a healthy vote from the Atlantic provinces, the ones he has done most to destroy. Let's hear  it for Goguen!


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/19/why-stephen-harpers-trade-deals-are-losing-their-cachet-walkom.html


http://www.troymedia.com/2015/06/29/canada-a-world-leader-in-surrendering-its-sovereignty/

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/07/17/stephen-harpers-anti-pension-obsession-hits-ontarians-cohn.html
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Meanwhile, Greece is the model for what we are all becoming, the world that was promised in George Orwell's "1984". It's almost here.

Greece has been converted to a nation of slaves and paupers. This was a set-up. The Greek debt wasn't created by clumsiness or lavish salaries or social services. It was the deliberate product of massive corruption in the capitalist system.

To pay that created debt, Greeks are being forced to live in utter poverty for generations to come. As for the "aid" Europe is extending to it, almost all will go immediately into the pockets of the bankers.

There will be no social services, no pensions, no government ownership of electricity or water as all services will be privatized for private profit, with prices controlled only by the capitalists who will take them over.

Given the rate of unemployment, salaries for the few who are employed will be low - and there will be no benefits. Capitalism   will operate without the restraints of law. Children will go hungry, poorly educated. Many will die, all so well-fed bankers can enjoy resorts like Larry's Gulch, and gambling on the Riviera.

(and some billionaires will, no doubt, donate church buildings with special music. And named after themselves. God will be so impressed!)

And more Greeces are on the way. Greece is the model for the new Naziism that will protect the very rich from the spread of that awful socialism with all its fussy concern about human rights and democracy.

But, as Jesus would have said, "Hey,  ya gotta balance yer budget."
___________________________________________________________________________

Luckily, in our times of deepest stress, humanity produces inspirational leaders like Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Ghandi, Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump.

http://time.com/3963767/donald-trump-john-mccain-apology/

I'm not sure that it any longer matters who wins an American election. But an ignorant, irresponsible and greedy egoist like Trump still scares the hell out of me
_____________________________________________________________________________

The western world has always been profoundly unChristian. But with capitalism and its elevation of greed to a moral principle - and its only moral principle - we have, especially in the last 500 years brought it to something more than unChristian - to something that is actively anti-Christian.

For much of the past 2000 years, the Christian churches have been actively cooperating with anti-Christianity. They sent missionaries, but that had less to do with helping conquered and impoverished people than it did with getting the missionaries into heaven. Perhaps, by converting kidnapped slaves, millions of them, they got them into heaven,   but they left them with all the suffering and scars of slavery..

But there was a time from 1870 or so and dwindling into the 1960s when the churches actually began paying attention to the message of The Bible. The Salvation Army fed and housed the poor. Prohibition, despite its reputation as being self-righteous and tampering with people's rights, actually arose as a response to the severe damage done by alcohol in the industrializing cities - and the churches played a leading role in the movement. Prohibitionism also laid the foundation of women's rights.

The old CCF party, largely created by clergy and unionists, was founded on Christian principles which laid out most of our present day social services like medicare, and encouraged the development of pension plans for all. It became the NDP, which still operates on principle though now in a somewhat diluted state..

Churches (especially Presbyterian) played a major role in the development of public education which provided opportunity for even the poorest. And they were not simply branches of the church as they are in Bible schools. Churches were also major recreation centres for children in such groups as Boy Scouts, Canadian Girls in Training -and they weren't just places to "hang out". There was real development going on.

There are still traces of this in the Catholic church with its social action movement which, among other things, played an important part in settling the Irish conflict with Britain. Pope Francis may well be the only world leader today who is Christian enough to take a position against the cruel and often murderous treatment of million by unbridled capitalism.

But, oh, most of the clergy are a pretty mealy-mouthed, even kiss-up lot. They completely ignore most Christian  (and Judaic) teaching. Just say  you believe in Jesus - and you're home free to spend eternity praising the Lord and clapping hands for Jesus.

That's it? For eternity?

You can't get Flix in heaven?

Donne-moi un break.

July 19: Why. it isn't oil and at all. It's bitumen. Oh, that makes it different.

The Irving press at last has the story of the oil spill. But the reporter managed to write the whole story without calling it oil. ( I mean, why alarm people for no reason at all?)    And what is bitumen?

Well, when it hardens, it's called tar. When it's more liquid and is going through pipes, it's called oil - perhaps still heavy oil at that stage, but oil. Sometimes, the Alberta oil fields are called the tar sands - and that's why.  But would you ask at your local gas station if you can fill up your car with bitumen?
So why use that word in a news story?

Well, you don't use it at the gas station because the attendant would say, "Sorry. We don't have any of that bitu-stuff. We just sell gas." But you don't use it in a news story when you don't want people to get the full meaning of the story.

That's why not a single environmentalist was interviewed for the story. It's all company officials and regulators. And it's all so reassuring. The spill, we are told, was capped as soon as it was discovered. Okay.

And how soon was that? Ten minutes? A week? More?

And we are assured it didn't flow into a body of water. Well, it did spill into wetlands - but that's not at all the same. And it's in a remote area; so no residences were affected. Well, if no residences were affected, it doesn't matter. It'll only affect plants, wildlife, and, yeah, some water and fish.

We are casually told the spill is the worst in the last several years. That's nice. And just how many spills were there in those several years? And how big were they? And did they get into fresh water anywhere? And what effect have they had?

But I guess the reporter didn't want to bother important people with a whole lot of silly questions.

So I checked the editorial and commentary pages for fuller discussion of what happened. I mean, they would surely be offering comment since this is an issue of special importance and debate (if not reporting) in this province.

On the editorial page, Norbert has a very fair and reasonable column on assisted suicide. There's also an excellent letter about how our military veterans in long term care are being abused by the shift to privatize food and cleaning services for the soldiers that we piously claim will never be forgotten. But the only people who seem to remember them are the business vultures who give them terrible cleaning, inedible food - and who cost more than the public service they used to have. The Irving press is sure not to follow up this story and let us know what's happening. Mr. Irving wouldn't like that.

Brent Mazerrole, once again, gives us a shallow commentary that really says nothing significant about anything. That's not a criticism of him. It's a criticism of Irving being cheap, and using reporters to write commentaries. You need specialists to do that, specialists trained in the fields they comment on.

Otherwise, all you get, and this paper has proven it many times, is trivial stories. It could be done cheaply by buying columns (like Gwynne Dyer's) for the whole chain. Judging by the advertising, these papers make lots of money. But the shortage of commentators and reporters suggests terminal cheapness at the top.

I have just been to the library to return a book by Gwynne Dyer which is a collection of his columns which Dyer also has the integrity to add discussion of where he was wrong on some points he made. I was surprised at some of the mistakes. (I thought these were mistakes he should have recognized as he wrote them.) But we all make mistakes, and I still think Dyer the best in the business of foreign affairs and the military. And I certainly agree with his conclusion in today's column that the    US agreement with Iran  will change nothing in the middle east. It's all part of a mess that was created when Vice-president Cheney, representing the oil industry, told a president who was the village idiot to invade Iraq. Since then, it's become much worse. And it's not going to get better as long as the oil barons are calling the shots.

Then, at last, Bill Belliveau mentions the " bitumen" spill (and actually calling it oil) - but only in one sentence. And the only conclusion it comes to is blaming the politicians. I don't buy that.

The politicians are, certainly, a wretched lot. But we have two parties that are owned by the very, very rich who make vultures look like Florence Nightingales. And those two parties have enjoyed almost all political power in this country for 150 years. Even now, after all the evidence of lying and corruption and illegality - not to mention the sell-out of Canada - the Conservatives could win the next election with special thanks to the voters of the Atlantic provinces. Even now, the Liberals are still within striking distance though the party is still dreadfully weak in its candidates, and dreadfully weak in its leadership.

And how can this happen?. Well, I don't know about the rest of Canada, but the people of Atlantic Canada are afraid of their own shadows. I think that's why they make no effort to be informed -because that might make them different from their neighbours - and God forbid they should be different.

And you add to that newspapers owned by a person who uses them to trivialize and to propagandize.

For an example of glorifying the trivial and kissing up, turn to A4 for a big photo and a half page story (that makes it one of the bigggest stories in the paper) on  how two Irvings donated their cottage to a Wesleyan Bible camp. (It makes me want to rush this Sunday to the Irving Chapel, with it's "special music" by the Perry Trio. Perhaps I might be permitted to join them for a chorus that links the faith to entrepreneurship......
"My brother's a street missionary.
He saves all young ladies from sin.
He'll save you a blonde for five dollars.
My God, how the money rolls in."
__________________________________________________________________________

There is, again, no world news to speak of, and little of any sort in the section called Canada&World.

The US, daily bombs with its drones in whatever country it feels like bombing that day. That kills, as nearly as I can understand from limited reports, more innocent people than terrorists. Many, many more. It's illegal. But the U.S. is the only country in the world that is allowed to do illegal things. It's called American Exceptionalism. (And that's their term, not mine.)

It supplies bombs to Saudi Arabia to be dropped on innocent people, all of them among the poorest in the world.

Canada is killing people in Iraq and Syria - and we have almost no news about what we have been doing these countries that are none of our business. We are there, as we are in Ukraine and the Baltic Sea because we are an American colony. The British handed us over between the two world wars,borrowed us back for World War Two, then dumped us again.

The US is supplying Islamic terrorists with money and weapons to destroy Syria. But they aren't called terrorists because they're on our side.

Harper is concluding trade deals which mean the end of Canada as a distinct nation of any sort, and which surrender control of our  economy and our environment - which means just about everything.

Yes, what happens across Canada and  around the world does affect us. Greece is the model for what our capitalists intend to impose on the world and on us and, for that matter, on the U.S. The oil barons of this world - Canadian, American, Russian, Saudi Arabian become proud champions of their country only when they need us to get killed. Otherwise, they have nothing but eontempt for us or for the governments they buy.

The world has become much, must worse since World War Two. Everything we thought (and are still told) we fought for has gone. And the keys to that enormous loss have been the major capitalists and the news media they own.

Will it work? Almost certainly not. Almost certainly, it will destroy itself. But that will probably come too late for us.  We need change. We need very radical change. (Don't be afraid of the word "radical". That simply means getting the root of the problem.) We need to get used to looking at news media which tell us the truth about that is happening.  We need to think - and not just try to "fit in".

We need to get angry at the killing we do - and not just at the people who, by fighting back, kill us.

______________________________________________________________________________
We also need the churches to wake up. Going to church should not mean just getting yourself saved. That attitude, which is almost all I ever see in the sermonettes of the faith page , is if anything, self-serving, selfish,  unChristian and un any religion. (Today's Faith page is a shameless display of  the type, as well as a display of childish thinking.) That seems to be a characteristic of all fundamentalist clergy. Perhaps that's why the Irvings seem to choose only fundamentalists to write for that page.

Since World War 2, the U.S. sometimes with Canadian and other help has killed seven or eight million people - maybe more - in illegal wars. Do the churches have nothing to say about this? Would Jesus have nothing to about that? Or about the tens of millions of refugees we have created? or the even more we have starved, crippled, orphaned, widowed?

(There, there, child, the sermonette would say. Don't fuss about that. Just say you believe in Jesus, and you'll get to go heaven and stroll on the golden streets of the new Jerusalem.)

Finally - Norbert's column was quite decent, yesterday, I think, but had an odd conclusion. He said the last of the living war criminals is now facing justice. He was referring to  an accountant who worked in the death camps. Well, he's probably the last of Nazi war criminals.

But what about George Bush Jr.  (and senior) and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair and all their buddies.who went to war illegally, who lied about the reasons, who killed huge numbers of civilians?  Are war crimes only crimes when the other side does them?

Do a column on that, Norbert. Show your integrity.

Or not.