June 10: A long one. So make yourself a drink and a snack.

In my copy of the current Brunswick News, the there's a big story about how a local man in making vodka. Then there's a hot story that a family in a nearby village wishes to keep a couple of horses on its property. There's not a single story in the first section that's worth reading.

Are there any wars going on in  the world, any starvation, any refugee hardships? Not in the Brunswick News.

The owner of the paper is the wealthiest man in the province. He and the government (whether Liberal or Conservative) are on very friendly terms. And,  despite his impact on the province and his ready access to financial assistance and his reluctance to pay a large property tax or any tax at all, a story about him in the paper usually appears only if he is taking bows for giving charity to somebody. This 'charity' looks like pure PR.

The Brunswick News is not designed to spread news. It's designed to keep readers in ignorance of what's going on the the world, to put them into a stupor with regular features such as which famous people we have never heard of are having a birthday today.

Here is a very interesting looking at the Irving papers.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/07/06/news/irvings-media-monopoly-and-its-consequences

The current boss of Brunswick News is Jamie Irving, grandson of the owner. Jamie Irving has a master's degree in journalism. I bet his old professors are bustin' their buttons over that.
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The Irvings are reminiscent of a common phenomenon throughout history.  A person, often a warrior, became a ruler because of his military skill and the support of a core of warriors who became his aristocracy. His son then inherited the title - and the sons of the warriors became lords and dukes and earls.
Such as system commonly led, sometimes within just a generation, to a leadership that was low on brains - but which convinced itself it was superior to the common people - almost in a racial sense. It, therefore, had a right to rule and a superiority to all other humans. As the generations passed, this produced remarkably numbers of people quite unfitted to the power they inherited. (One thinks here of the British House of Lords, of many of the monarchs,  and the generals who became generals only because they were aristocrats (which explains the problems of the British high command in the Boer War and in World War 1. It also explains the ideocy of the charge of the light brigade.)

The same things happen with an aristocracy of wealth. The Rockefeller family, for example, goes back well over a century. But there is little sign of any inherited intelligence in it. The reality is that all the but the first one were born into wealth. The rest simply inherited wealth - and power and a belief in their superiority to common people.

It is suggestive that the  descendants of such families, despite their financial ability to do so with ease, rarely move to advanced studes in university.)
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This item will give pleasure to those who hateTrump. But it really doesn't matter.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/06/05/trump-self-incriminates-draws-rebuke-latest-unhinged-twitter-rant

I doesn't matter because all the U.S political powers in Congress and Trump himself have been following much the same policies as followed by Bush and Obama. All of them have aroused racial hatred - exactly as Hitler did - and have used that hatred to win support for wars that will benefit the wealthy - just as Hitler did.

Hitler was not a isolated phenomenon. All the empires of Europe and the U.S. were built on the assumption that the native country (whichever it was) was home to a super race that had a right to abuse others.

It's been used by many national leaders for thousands of years. And capitalism has embraced it fully.
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Keep an eye on Trudeau. The major purpose of defence spending in the U.S. - and now in Canada - is to make huge profits for billionaires to be handed over by corrupt politicians. It contributes nothing whatever to Canada. But it does place us in great danger of being dragged into more U.S. aggressions.

Among other problems, the U.S. cannot get enough Americans to join the army - not since Vietnam. So its army now relies heavily on 'mercenaries' - highly paid thugs.

And every dollar that we give to defence billionaires is a dollar that cannot go to fighting the biggest war ever - climate change. We have very, very little time to deal with it. And we have a prime minister who may be the weakest in Canadian history.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/06/liberals-massive-increase-defence-spending-budgetary-coup

On the other hand, we may need a massive army as a result of climate change. The western world cannot deal with the 80 or so million refugees it has created. How do you think the west will deal with the hundreds of millions of refugees we are still creating?

Big business is ruled by greed and, frequently, by the stupidity created by greed.  If we want to survive we need the real patriotism that is demonstrated by saving Canada (and the rest of the world) from climate change. That - not fighting wars for American billionaires - is what patriotism means.
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The Irving press (like much of the North American press in general) frequently attacks the public sector.  It NEVER attacks the private sector. We are raised to believe that private business is good, and public business is bad.This sample is about Canada. But it applies to most of the press all over the western world.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/behind-numbers/2017/06/attacking-public-sector-corporations-miss-inextricable-link
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The following is a story about a local protest which is not likely to get much sympathy from the New Brunswick government or from the  Brunswick News. (Of course  not. Both the government and the Brunswick News are owned by the Irvings. The protest involves an oil pipeline that Irvings want to build.)
March over the Nashwaak River to highlight the secrecy & risks of the Energy East tar sands pipeline project.(The following is a statement from the organizers.)

FREDERICTON, N.B. - A march will be held on Saturday, June 10th in Fredericton across the Nashwaak River, 1:00pm-1:45pm. Starting at 1:00pm, people will meet at the gravel parking area beside 955 Union Street (borders the Nashwaak River and is just below the overpass of the Walking Train Bridge), and then march across the trail bridge over the Nashwaak River.

This march is part of the 'Hands Across The Water' events held in June along the proposed tar sands Energy East pipeline route in New Brunswick. This event is organized by the Fredericton chapter of the Council of Canadians.

"New Brunswick and Indigenous communities have been left in the dark about the route and the risks of the Energy East tar sands pipeline project," says Mark D'Arcy with the Council of Canadians - Fredericton chapter.  "Since 2014, there have been no public meetings (except one in Edmundston over the pipeline risk to their drinking water), no Provincial Environmental Impact Assessment, no community notices along the pipeline route, and no readable maps."

"Since 2015, both the City of Fredericton and the Council of Canadians - Fredericton chapter have asked TransCanada to hold a public meeting for Fredericton residents and conduct a spill modelling study of a tar sands bitumen pipeline spill into the Nashwaak River," says Mark D'Arcy.  "We are still waiting two (2) years later."

"There are 3 tributaries crossed by the pipeline at the head of the Nashwaak River," says Jean Louis Deveau, Chair of the Council of Canadians - Fredericton chapter.  "A spill into any one of these in the middle of the night could go undetected, spreading quickly down the entire stretch of the Nashwaak River to Fredericton. There is no current technology that allows the tar sands bitumen to be captured by booms, and fully cleaned up from the bottom sediment where it sticks aggressively, as documented in the catastrophic spills in the North Saskatchewan River in 2016 and the Kalamazoo River in 2010."

“The risks and consequences of a tar sands bitumen spill are simply too great for our watersheds and our homes,” says Mark D’Arcy. “More than 380 waterways in New Brunswick would be crossed by the Energy East pipeline.  If you live close to a stream, river, or bay where a bitumen spill would spread (releasing life-threatening toxic gas requiring immediate evacuation), the installation of early-warning air sirens, a 1.6km Emergency Evacuation Zone for all residents, and lowered property resale values would become the new reality for your home, cottage, or farm.”

“Considering the size and risk of the project, the lack of readable maps available to public and communities along the proposed pipeline route in New Brunswick is a travesty to the National Energy Board’s stated mandate that the review process be "fair, transparent and respectful", says Mark D’Arcy. “Our communities deserve online maps that are understandable and easy to read. These maps are contrasted by the easy-to-read and understandable maps, as well as a zoomable map on their website, provided by Kinder Morgan for their Trans Mountain Project on the west coast."

"And it is important to show our solidarity with the Wolastoqewiyik (Maliseet People), since the Energy East pipeline would cut across the entire length of their ancestral territory, a territory based on the watershed boundaries of the St. John River Basin," says Jean Louis Deveau. "The Wolastoq Grand Council held a press conference in Fredericton on January 29, 2016 to announce they were opposed to the Energy East pipeline."

"Right here at this location we are reminded of two recent events that give us grave concern about the ability of our province to regulate this pipeline properly and protect our waterways,” says Jean Louis Deveau.  “First, Irving Oil, a partner with TransCanada in the Energy East project, was not ordered to clean up their property directly across Union Street after they removed their oil storage tanks in 2003. As reported by CBC New Brunswick, the Department of Environment and Local Government refused to discuss the soil contamination citing "it is protected under the Privacy Act.”

“Second, the failure to insist that the proposed Sisson Brook be developed as a dry mine, and to insist on large bonds up front for cleanup, compensation, and reclamation,” says Jean Louis Deveau. “The integrity of the Sission Brook tailings pond, located at the head waters of the Nashwaak River, has to be maintained forever; it is important to remember that the Mount Polley tailings pond was only 20 years old when it had the catastrophic failure. Instead of the proposed $50 million reclamation bond, the Province of New Brunswick should insist on a mine reclamation bond of at least $750 million which would cover the cost of dealing with the open pit mine and treating the tailings pond with a wastewater treatment plant.”

"It's our future too", says Tina Oh, a recent recipient of the Starfish 'Canada's Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25'.  "Canada will be unable to meet our greenhouse gas climate targets for 2030 if we build these tar sands pipelines. Young people, your children, don’t want runaway climate change. We don't want survival. We deserve more than that. We want our future to include a clean & just transition for workers & communities."

Tina Oh and friends from Mount Allison University have started a social media campaign to show support for these anti-Energy East events this month.  They are asking people to post a photo of yourself or with friends with a sheet of paper(s) saying 'the future I want includes'…." #HandsAcrossTheWater

"We prefer that we move into the direction of alternative energy - something that sustains life, not destroys it", says Clanmother Alma Brooks. " There’s a worldwide movement happening. Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels so there is no reason to delay."

The final Hands Across The Water event is on Saturday, June 17th in Red Head (Saint John). Starting at 1:00pm, the 2nd 'March to the End of the Line' starts at the intersection of Red Head Road and Hewitt Road, the parade takes ~ 30 minutes, and arrives at Anthony's Cove Road for a picnic on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. This family event ends at 4:00pm.  This event is organized by Red Head Anthony's Cove Preservation Association.
_________________________________________________________________Expect nothing from Trudeau on this. Expect less than nothing from the Conservatives.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-cholera-idUSKBN18Z17N

But who gives a damn. We're killing them all anyway by starvation and bombing. Oh, and offhand, do you know why we're killing all those innocent people?
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Here's a story about the racket that Trudeau wants to suck Canada into. The 'defence' industry is wildly corrupt - as are the politicians who feed contracts to it. And much of it has nothing to with defence. Much of it is building weapons for the sake of the high and corrupt profits to be made.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-warcollege-8june-idUSKBN18Z2A2
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Here's an item that's couple of months old, but still news.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44496.htm
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Britain and the U.S. have killed mlllions of inncent people. And in most our press, the killers we send are heroes 'serving their country'.   Actually, modern terrorism, which was developed by the CIA who trained the Taliban in Afghanistan, is an American invention. And the horror of the wars in Syria and Yemen is that the U.S. uses terrorist methods in them. But, somehow, it's the vicitims who are evil in our news. And when Muslims use the terrorist tactics (as in London) that they learned from the U.S., then they're evil, too.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47203.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47199.htm

The United States Empire is the natural, if illegitimate, child of the British Empire.

Land of Hope and Glory, mother of the free,
How can we extol them who are born of thee.
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set.
God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,,,,

(If Muslims had a similar song, we would brand it as blasphemous and evil.) But, apparently, God wants us to kill people and steal their resources and abuse the people as Canadian mining companies do. Just as God wanted us to murder and displace the native peoples of the Americas.)
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Oh, why is Trump putting on the pressure to break the North American Free Trade Agreement?

It's to make it easier to kill government regulation of business in Canada and the U.S. It's rather as though the rest of us decided to ignore traffic lights, to drive drunk, to carry machine guns through the street.

Big business doesn't want any regulations to limit it. It will be in Canada and the U.S. But it doesn't want to pay taxes, or to protect the environment, or to put controls on things like pipelines. In effect, it wants to live outside the rule of law, to ignore traffic lights and to drive drunk.

Both Trump and Trudeau are on the side of big business as are both the Liberals and Conservatives.
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American foreign policy, especially since 2000, has created vast areas of instability and chaos. There was no reason for the wars in Afghanisan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen      - or  those wars encouraged by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. There is no reason for hostility to Iran. But the US has created death, starvation and horror over much of the world. And the only reason for it is to give more money to super-wealthy U.S. corporations. (and to the British and Canadian ones that suck up to their American brethren.)

We have created a very dangerously unstable world.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/06/08/terror-attack-in-iran-exacerbates-war-tensions-in-gulf/
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Britain's Jeremy Gordon, while losing the general election, won it. The rise of his Labour Party was a shock to the Conservatives of   prime minister May. Most observers see the rise of the Labour party to be the real outcome of the election. Just days after the election, many British are hailiing this as the future. So does Bernie Sanders, the American democrat with some strong socialist views.
Let's hope Sanders is right because the only alternative is the Nazi Empire that we are becoming a part of.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/06/08/jeremy-corbyns-bold-vision-puts-uk-verge-amazing-political-upset

No, to say that we have drifted into naziism is not an exaggeration. Nazism was dedicated to making billionaires richer. To  rouse support for that, Hitler stirred up patriotism and a racist hatred toward Jews.

And that is what our governments are doing, just shifting the hatred over to Muslims, maybe Mexicans.....anybody who looks different will do....
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http://thesaker.is/the-crisis-in-qatar-yet-another-clumsy-attempt-by-the-three-rogue-states-to-weaken-iran/

Here, in New Brunswick, we don't have to worry about war in Quatar - or war anywhere or starvation or mass murder. That's because our Brunswick News rarely mentions it. It needs all the space it can get for the real news. Today's headline is that a village got fined a hundred dollars for not reporting a water problem. The paper goes downhill from there.

The commentary page has its usual non-commentaries. One for example, is not a commentary but a news story. It's about a new provincial system requiring people who 'lobby' any elected any governmental official (you know, for favours like forgiving taxes or running oil piplines over fresh water), will have to register as lobbyists.

Will companies do that? Almost certainly not. And if they do, will that in any way cut down on lobbying? No. And will Brunswick News ever report on the results of this? Almost certainly not.

 It's like passing a law that hookers have to dress like nuns.

Then we have the usual column by a lawyer/politician who has nothing to say except he wants to be everybody's friend. He thinks Richard Nixon was a great man because he ended the Vietnam War. Duh - Mr. Murphy, the U.S. got booted out of Vietnam. Don't you remember all the TV news of terrified refugees and a panicky U.S. army? His vice-president, Spiro Agnew (who had to quit office because he was caught knee-deep in corruption), is a hero to Murphy because he called opponents names.

He also hails the city government for  building an events centre with tax payers paying for it. He seems to think this will make us rich. Now, let's think. If an events centre will make us all rich, do you think there is the slightest chance the big business in this province would let a government build it and get all that profit?

The World section is mostly trivia and ads. There is no mention of any war anywhere in the world, no mention of the millions who are starving. But there's a great photo of an American and a Canadian politician shaking hands.

And the Faith Page? The great issue for Christianity is that we should never feel we have to apologize for helping others. Yeah. I've been worried about that.
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Who causes terrorism? Mostly it's us.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/10/u-k-s-corbyn-told-truth-about-terrorism/
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Britain is attacked by terrorists?   We shed tears and express sympathy. Iran is attacked by terrorists? We place sanctions on Iran.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/07/bucking-bernie-sanders-democrats-move-forward-on-iran-sanctions-after-terror-attack-in-tehran/
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https://theintercept.com/2017/06/10/the-worst-of-donald-trumps-toxic-agenda-is-lying-in-wait-a-major-u-s-crisis-will-unleash-it/
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Isn't it terrible the way terrorists attacked London? It makes you wonder who trained them and who supplies them to this day.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-was-allegedly-behind-the-london-bridge-attacks-who-is-behind-the-isis/5593524
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What the attacks on Manchester and London were about may not be so simple as our news media suggest.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/1.794803
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I well remember the jubilation of my Jewish friends  (and me) and the Israeli victory in the six day war. A lot of that jubilation of me and of my Jewish friends has faded as Israel has become the great aggressor.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/six-day-war-50-years/.premium-1.794628
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If the story below is true, it could be bad news for all of us. My experience of Jews in Montreal was very extensive. Most notable among then was a profound respect for education and for open and public discussion of serious matters.
I frequently (many times a year) spoke at churches and synagogues. I learned early that in the synagogues I had better have something important and serious to talk about. In churches, I leaned I had to keep it light, and have a few jokes up my sleeve.

I also learned that, by far, the biggest and most frequent audiences were Jewish. I live now in a city with almost no Jewish population - and the lack of any serious discussion of anything is very evident.

There are aspects of Judaism that are important to all of us. I would hope to see them saved.

http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1.794665
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Sorry this one went on so long, and is late in being posted.

June 8: A change of style for today.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kabul-spring-offensive-1.4139885

Sorry this one is late. It's late because the article above reminded me that news, even truthful news, means little without an understanding of the broader picture. The news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, for example, told us only that Kennedy had been killed. There was no credible indication of who had killed him or why. There still isn't. But why he was killed and who did it, is  the part that makes this event important to understand.

The latest suggestions are that he was seeking an end to the cold war, and had refused to mount a full-fledged attack on Cuba. So it was, perhaps, U.S. government agents who killed him.

So I thought there is a need of some explanation to explain things that are happening now.

Russia invaded Afghanistan for 10 years - 1979 to 1989. The resistance of Afghanistan was astonishing and, like the British of over a century earlier, the Russians had to get out. Afghanistan had been slowly moving toward democracy. It continued to move that way, with difficulty, after the Russians left - though it then suffered a civil war with the Taliban.

The expulsion of the Russians was done with American help. It was the CIA that arranged arms shipments, and that created and trained al Quaeda and the Taliban in the guerilla fighting that, when the other side does it, we call terrorism. The Jihadist groups fighting in the middle east today, are descendants of that American training. (And, indeed, are still commonly supplied by the U.S.)
Then, just over twenty years after the the Russians backed out, the U.S. and other NATO countries invaded.

No. it had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack on the U.S. In fact, there is no evidence that the Afghanistan government had anything to do with that attack.  When it happened, the U.S. demanded that Afghanistan send Bin Laden to the U.S. for trial. The Afghanistan government said it would - but with two conditions. It wanted to see some evidence against bin laden, and it wanted the case tried in a world court. Otherwise, Bin Laden was likely to face a kangaroo court and execution. The U.S. refused, then invaded.

Nor was the U.S. trying to bring democracy to Afghanistan. No country, not even the U.S., has the right to force any type of government on any country. As well, the U.S. happily overthrows democratic governments to install dictators. Guatemala is an obvious case. So was Chile, Haiti, Cuba, Panama  as well many other South American states.  The Phillipines, for over 40 years, was under an American dictator. It supports dictators in Congo and other parts of Africa. And it just loves the King of Saudi Arabia.

U.S. corporations saw World War Two as their chance to take over from a floundering British Empire. But this time, their empire would be the whole world. It was an extension of an older idea of U.S. conquest that was delicately called Manifest Destiny. And of course, it had the blessing of God - just as the British Empire and Dutch and French and Spanish empires once had once had the blessing of God for their mass murders and exploitation.

The jewel in this empire would be China. That's why, late in world war two, the U.S. warned the British not to reconquer Hong Kong, the heart of British control of China. But Churchill defied Roosevelt, and took it. The U.S. continued to support dictator Chiang kai-shek,  a Christian gentelman and American ally who was perhaps the world's biggest drug dealer. But he lost - and so the U.S. lost China.

The war in Korea was fought not to defend South Korea from an aggressive north or to save democracy. Neither the North nor the South was a democracy. And the North and the South had both been aggressive toward each other  for years before the Korean War.

So why fight the North?  The U.S. wanted a base for the invasion of China. The Vietnam war was fought for the same reason. The U.S. lost lost both wars.
Then came the invasion of Afghanistan. Why?

The official story was that the 9/11 attack had been planned by Afghanistan. In fact, it had not. And Afghanistan had offered to provide for a full investigation of that by world courts. But the U.S. refused, and invaded. So what was the real reason it invaded?

For a start, we now know that the Bush administration had been planning a war on Afghanistan well BEFORE 9/11. We know that Russia had wanted it badly enough to fight a ten-year war. And that, of course, was well before 9/11. Here's a possible reason why both Russia and the U.S. made such an effort.

https://whowhatwhy.org/2012/09/10/the-real-reason-for-the-afghan-war/

 Osama bin Laden is dead. He was the U.S. excuse for the war. So why is it still being fought? The resources issue gives us a reason that is in accord with the reason for wars in Iraq and Syria and Libya, the slaughter of the Maya peoples in Guatemala. It also explains the many U.S. controlled dictatorships in South America. (In fact, the search for land and resources runs through the whole history of the U.S. since Columbus.)

And the involvement of NATO? NATO itself is a piece of empire building. It exists to provide hangers-on for the U.S. empire.  Britain hangs on to it so British corporations, their empire lost,  can still plunder as servants of the American Empire. They are the birds who follow the cattle to pick up their droppings. And that is also why Canada sent troops to Afghanistan.

Oh, the U.S. also justifies its invasion by saying the Taliban enforce terribly cruel laws in areas it controls. Very true. The Taliban do enforce cruel laws. Thieves get their arms cut off, and they are left to bleed to death. That is cruel and terrible. But exactly the same laws are enforced by the best arab friend of the U.S., the King of Saudi Arabia. In fact, the political and social views of kings of Saudi Arabia are almost identical to those of the Taliban.

So, this looks like most of the wars in U.S. history  - fought to enrich corporation bosses. And the attractive part of it is that those corporation bosses don't do any fighting - and they commonly don't pay any of the cost. That's left to the rest of us.

And let's remember that killing people to make bigger fortunes for billionaires does not make us patriots, and it is not a way to 'serve your country'. (Just remember, people on the other side have been trained to think the same way. Wars are fought by 'patriots'  --against 'patriots', by people who are serving their country  --fighting against other people who are seving their country.
In fact, empires have nothing to do with patriotism. The British armies that killed and plundered all over the world  to build an empire were building it to make the very wealthy British even wealthier. The soldiers and the British people got nothing out of it but brutal poverty. There was no patriotism in that, just murdering and plundering for a handful of the wealthy.

And they were serving their country? How did their country benefit from this?  Common British soldiers got nothing but years of abuse and barely survival pay. British civilians got vile jobs with long hours and no holidays and low, low pay in the factories of the wealthy. Anyone who lost an arm or leg in the very dangerous machinery was simply fired on the spot. There was no help. This rule included children. (It happened in Canada, too.)

The Boer War was fought to steal South Africa's gold.  The poor fought it to make the rich richer. That had nothing to do with   'serving one's country' or being 'patriotic'. World War One was fought, primarily, to prevent a united Germany from becoming an industrial state that would challenge the industries of Britain and France.

The Korean War was fought (and lost) to give the U.S. a base for an attack on China. Canadian 'Peacekeepers' were sent Haiti as a front for the U.S. in getting rid of an elected president, and imposing an American puppet. Canadians had the usual slogans dangled in front of them for serving in Afghanistan. They were being patriotic.. They were serving their country. And, oh, yes, Afghanis were evil (like almost all Muslims except for kings of Saudi Arabia.)I see no reason for anyone to be proud of all that. Or of the Canadian bombings in Libya, Iraq, Syria.

There is nothing new about a Trump, nothing new at his spewing hatred at Muslims. There's not even anything new about his fighting wars to make money for the very, very rich. Hitler did exactly the same thing. (That's why, in the 1930s, Canadian and American big business rather admired Hitler.)
That's why, on November 11, I would certainly honour those who served in our armed forces. But I would also apologize to them for our betrayal of all those things we told them they were fighting for.

And the situation now is worse than anything I have above.

 The wealthy have not only lied to us about wars for centuries. They have not only sent tens of thousands of Canadians to death.  They are losers. Despite the most expensive military in the world in the U.S., despite their massive killing all over the world, including bombing millions of civilans to death and including the starvation forced on Yemen, they have been consistent losers.

The U.S. is an empire in collapse. The temptation to save all by going nuclear is very much evident.

There's also another reason we have to stop these wars.

Climate change, despite the assurances of the oil industry, is happening. We have, maybe, twenty years to get it under control. If we don't, we will see climate wars far worse than any nuclear war. And corporate bosses have proven over the cenuturies that they are too greedy to recognize that. (Oh, I know they can fool the chamber of commerce. But that's easy.)

Here in Canada, we know, or should know, that the Liberal and Conservative parties are both owned by corporations. The same is true of both major parties in the U.S.

It's worth thinking about that.

And if you're worried about evil people, think of the British, Americans and Saudis who are deliberately starving the people of Yemen to death. Onward, Christian soldiers...

Sieg Heil!
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On a more optimistic note, here's a site sent to me by a reader.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/591a2e4be6f2e1c13df930c5/1494888038959/RethinkX+Report_051517.pdf
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A footnote. In 1918, Canada sent some 4,000 troops to Russia. Their role was fight the revolutionaries in Russia, and to restore a czarist regime. Many of the soldiers supported the revolutionaries, and rioted on their way to embarkation. The had to be forced by other troops with rifles and fixed bayonets to board the ships.

The leaders were arrested by the government. But the commander of the force, General Elmsley, ordered them released because he saw no reason for Canadians to be forced to fight in a war that had nothing to do with Canada. General Elmsley knew patriotism and 'fighting for one's country' had nothing to do with fighting a war to make a few of wealthy even wealthier.

June 5: Warning - more of me than usual.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/faces-of-north-climate-change-1.4120055

Climate change is happening. At the other end of the world from Canada's north, what may be the biggest iceberg in history is breaking off Antarctica. (Brunswick news hasn't noticed it yet.)

I'm slow in reporting on Gwynne Dyer's book 'Climate Wars' because I'm slow in readinig it. So far it's a masterful piece of work. But it's a complex blend of scientific study and  Dyer's  own insight into how governments will react - and why. I don't doubt that he's right. But it's profoundly depressing.

For just a few important passages - world population has tripled since 1940. Agriculture can't keep up. Africa is already in a food crisis. China faces the displacement of hundreds of millions as rising oceans and dying rivers destroy its farmland. The U.S. has stalled in food production as the south west runs out of water. (Among other things, it is running out of water in the deep reservoirs that it was been pumping out for water its crops.) Organizations with access to considerable expertise foresee even worse and imminent  crises in Mexico and much of Latin America.

You may not believe the scientists on this. But the U.S. army does; and it is, accordingly, preparing for the Climate Wars to come.
Similar food disasters are beginning in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other parts  of the world. China, alone, is likely to produce climate refugees in the hundreds of millions.

Canada stands to get off lightly - as will Russia and most of Europe . Greenland will blossom as will both the Arctic and Antarctic. But they won't blossom enough for the hundreds of millions of refugees. So China, for example,  might well go to war with Russia for productive lands in Siberia. The U.S. might well expect Canada and The Great Lakes to replace the water it is losing. And that will have a profound effect on Canada.

None of this is in the distant future. It's soon. And that, too, is slowing down my reading. I come to a point at which I don't want to read it. And it conveys a sense of hatred of the oil billionaires and their arrogance and greed and stupidity - and of the politicians  (Trudeau among them) who are servants of the oil industry. And of the journalists who don't tell us what is happening.
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In Saturday's paper, columnist Brian Murphy was in top form by the standards of Brunswick News. It was about Andrew Scheer's election as leader of Canada's Conservative Party. As usually, Murphy had nothing by trivia to say.  (Well, the headline on it said Scheer's victory is proof that Canada cannot stomach a Trump. But Murphy offers no proof of this, or of anything else.)

He has nothing to say about the things such an election should be about. It should be about the winner's fundamental social values, about the priorites he should have (such as serving the public - all of it). No, it's all just about image and winning, and serving the interests of big money.  What Murphy calls policy is really just style.
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Finally, I was struck by a CBC headline on the recent terrorist attack in London, England. The headline was "Brutal and cowardly act."

Now, headlines are important. They, more than any other part of the story, commonly set the tone for our reaction to the event. In this case, the tone is clear. Muslims are evil. Yes, the attack was certainly brutal. (I don't see what's cowardly about it. When our side kills helpless people, our side are called heroes fighting for their country.)

But, yes, the attack was brutal. I have no quarrel with that view. But-----
The U.S. and Britain killed a million and a half people in Iraq. The majoriy were civilians and, yes, they included babies by the thousands. The U.S. and Britain also lied about the reason for their attack.

Have you ever seen a headline calling this a 'brutal and terrible act'? In fact, the U.S., with notable help from Britain, has killed innocent civilians all over the world - drones, forced starvation (Yemen), mass murder - Guatemala, Iraq, Syria and many, many others. In fact, the U.S. is by far the world's leading terrorist.   (As a matter of fact, it is the one that taught terrorism to the Muslims of Afghanistan back in the days when Russia was attacking Afghanistan. And that is what produced Osama Bin Laden.)

In fact, that CBC headline was propaganda. It creates an emotional reaction that Muslims are evil. The failure to use such headlines in the case of American terrorism is a similar form of propaganda. I don't think it's entirely deliberate. But its impact is still propaganda. And our thinking is very much shaped by headlines.

Seig Heil!
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Here is the giant iceberg that's forming in the Antarctic - and this is just the beginning. But we gotto burn more oil. It creates jobs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/jun/02/aerial-footage-of-the-split-in-the-larsen-c-ice-shelf-archive-video
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Onward, Christian Soldiers...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/03/mediterranean-refugees-migrants-deaths
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Meanwhile, let's pass around the hat for uranium-mining millionaires who are being cheated out of their right to make higher profits.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/05/public-lands-uranium-mining-arizona-grand-canyon
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Here's a film about the Bilderberg Group, a regular gathering of politicians and very high ranking bilionaires and their hangers-on to decide what policies governments should follow. Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our billionaires are thinking of us?

(Several years ago, one of the attendees was former N.B. premier Bernard Lord. Unfortunately, the results of these meetings are not made public. So we can only guess at what wonderful things Mr. Lord did for us.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcHszo89ugc
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In World War Two, British and Americans were told they were fighting to bring peace to the world. The reality is that American big business as looking forward to world conquest, and Britain was getting used to being a 'fetch' dog for the American empire.

So was Canada. The Canadian involvement in Afghanistan was almost certainly illegal. Ditto the use of 'peacekeepers' in Haiti.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/05/28/every-gi-who-invaded-vietnam-iraq-etc-was-a-criminal-by-international-law-us-armys-own-law/

This site is a very short list of illegal American wars since 1945. The slaughter of Mayans in Guatemala, for example, is not included. Nor is an earlier invasion of Guatemala. And there have been many, many others.
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The U.S. is far, far the world's biggest spender on weapons, now somewhere over 600 billion dollars a year. that provides enough weaponry to destroy the planet many times over. But, oh, they need more. That's why Trump  is hitting up Canada and the rest of NATO to spend more on defence.

Is it needed to protect us? No. Russian spending is way below the U.S.  at 70 billion or so. Even China has a far smaller budget than the U.S.  Not that it matters. I mean, how many times can we kill the whole world?

In all countries, this kind of spending is highly destructive of education, of health care, even of food supply. So why do we ignore these to spend money on inflated arsenals?

Because there are huge profits for large companies that make weapons. Yes. It's all a simple matter of redistributing wealth from everybody to the already wealthy.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/06/05/more-mass-destruction-weapons/
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This story is more than a month old. But, so far, the New Brunswick news media haven't noticed. Canada is a big player in one of the most vicious industries in the world.

http://miningwatch.ca/blog/2017/4/24/mining-affected-communities-water-becoming-more-precious-gold#sthash.ct4n9auL.v75oFhgu.dpbs
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Despite its title, this next article is really about the enormous power over government that is held by the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/02/hiding-the-ugly-business-of-torture/
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The U.S. with what is far the world's largest military budget. has not been able in 16 years to defeat bands of guerilla fighters in Afghanistan. Nor has it ever been clear why the U.S. invaded Afghanistant in the first place.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-solution-is-in-the-hands-of-the-people-of-afghanistan-the-us-must-leave-for-peace-to-reign-in-afghanistan/5593379
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The next is a site which, by its title, seems radical, indeed.  It's good. But it's a little gentle on the root cause of our problems. Capitalism is, of course. It is the major capitalists and their political flunkes who attend the Bilderbord Group to give politicians their marching orders. Almost all wars are fought on behalf of major capitalists. Their greed requires the effective destruction of governments so that they can abuse the rest of us as much as they like. The greed also given them permission to murder, enslave, impoverish  uncountable millions. They kill their own people by destroying  health care where it is provided by government. They destroy education by making it an institution for private profit rather than for learning.

Of course there's a place for private business. But that place does not give it the right to mass murder, to starve millions,  to threaten the whole planet. They rather resemble the mafia, though on a far larger scale.

The also show signs of brain damage due to greed. If they get all the power they want, if they don't pay taxes, if they destroy the environment, if they impoverish everybody else, who will be able to buy their products?  (However, the process won't last long enough for us to find out. As things are going, they will soon destroy themselves as well as well as u. This might be an interesting topic to discuss over coffee in the barn next time you're at the Irving Chapel.)

None of the above is exaggerated. The wars in the middle east are about oil - not about good guys and bad guys. The unrest in Latin America is about dreadful abuse of employees   (including murder), and a wish to operate with no controls whatever. Thus the behaviour of Canadian mining companies in Latin America. And always with the cooperation of Canadian governments.

For a good article about that, take a look at a Canadian magazine called Monitor. It has a review of "The Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America" by Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber. Yes, the big Canadian capitalists act just like the American ones. So do the Chinese ones and the Russian ones.

Make no mistake. The world's leading capitalists are killers running loose. And we have very little time to stop them.  The greed and mass murder all over the world has created, especially for the last 17 years a destruction of any sense of world order. And we can expect no help at all from the Liberal or the Conservative party. Americans can expect none from the Republicans and very, very little from the Democrats.

I felt a need to get all that in now because we are very, very close to shackles on the internet. It is already spied on by government agents in many countries. But even more shackles are coming. That's why many politicians speak "false news" - usually referring to blogs on the net. In fact, if you want false news, you can find it in The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Toronto Globe. Our local Brunswick News specializes in trivia, ignorance and lies. Almost all these commercial news media are owned by the same people who want to own the world. In their 140 or so years of existence, most privately owned news media have always been pedlars of false news.

But the rumours about 'fake news' suggest somebody wants to see action against websites The very wealthy want absolute control of us. So we are quite  likely to see a crackdown on web sites. Exactly like Hitler's Naziis, most of our politicians are closely tied to billionaires. And the Naziis, with the full agreement of the German wealthy, cracked down on anybody who disagreed. We are already much like Hitler's Germany.

(Why do you think Hitler set out to conquer at least Europe and Africa? Like Trump, Hitler fed on German hatred of an ethic group. But that was no reason for a world war. Like American wars going back centuries, Hitler wanted control of markets and resources to make his local capitalists wealthy.)

Why did the U.S. enter the war? to help Britain or to help the Jews? No. U.S. capitalists didn't give a damn for either. Because Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. No. The U.S. navy had been designed largely for war with Japan for a good twenty years before Pearl Harbor. It entered to the was because it wanted China, and Japan was capturing too much of it. As well, U.S. capitalists saw a chance to get economic control of China by defeating Japan -and also by getting parts of a collapsing British empire. (That's why Roosevelt ordered the British in 1945 not to recapture Hong Kong, the heart of Britain's trade empire in China. It was to be recaptured by the U.S. to make American capitalists richer. - But Churchill defied him, and ordered the recapture.

Sorry for that long bit.  There's a great deal we have to think about. And we don't have much time.

Oh, the article - it's a daily net newspaper. Despite its name, (Naked Capitalism) it's not nearly so radical as one might expect. It's focus is heavily on the U.S. It has good material. Alas! it's weak on good writers. Many of them are highly knowledgeable, but too many write in a style that is too elevated for us normal people.

June 2: Let's start by catching up.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-truth-our-empire-killed-millions-404631.html

http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/

http://www.alternet.org/culture/six-most-evil-presidents-us-history

http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/aftermath/many_truths.html    the 'heroic war with mexico.'

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yves-engler/un-occupation-haiti_b_16070764.html

Haiti, under its series of American-appointed dictators was, like Cuba, essentially a slave state with tortures and murders a matter of daily routine. When the Haitians had the nerve to depose their dictator and elect a government, the U.S. formed an army of thugs to invade - supposedly to prevent a social breakdown in Haiti. Then they promptly exiled the elected president (and Canada, without even a whimper, sent "peacekeepers" to help      destroy democracy in Haiti.) And then it was easy to set up a phony election, and get a president who was an American puppet.

We all know how Mao  tse tung has some considerable responsibility for a huge famine in China. It's less well known how British business people inflicted severe starvation and drug addiction and poverty on China to make big profits for British business. (clap, clap, clap says the chamber of commerce.) It made British businessmen rich, though, so rich that by the 1930s (and even much earlier), the U.S. desperately wanted to replace Britain in the China market.

http://www.bckaleidoscope.org/uploads/9/2/6/6/92665638/4_1_f12_how_britain_starved_china.pdf

here's an alternate view of Columbus

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/8-myths-and-atrocities-about-christopher-columbus-and-columbus-day/

https://eyesoncolombia.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/how-panama-was-stolen/

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/06/10/canada_starved_aboriginal_people_into_submission_goar.html

In western history, there was nothing new in the appearance of a Hitler. And there are plenty of Hitlers still around - on both sides.

Promises of WW2?  None were delivered on. The UN was deliberately sabotaged by the U.S. for lack of obedience to it. Payments were withheld. NATO was formed to replace the UN as an obedient piece of the U.S. empire.

Mind you, the U.N. still has a good deal of the obedient puppy about it.  Almost all American wars since 1945 have been illegal and loaded down with war crimes. But the U.N. hasn't said a word.
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Trump cancelled the Paris climate agreement? So what? The oil industry has never paid any attention to it. And it's bought politicians have helped it every step of the way. Note how Trudeau has been dancing around the issue.

Have you ever heard a leader of the oil industry say that we  have to control oil? Of course not. If they were on a sinking Titanic, they'd be looking for contracts to punch holes in the side of it.

When they read of the Arctic ice melting, they don't think of this as a sign of climate change at all. No. It raises the possibility of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic seabed so we can burn even more of it. And the Canadian government? Oh, yes, it will honour its commitment to reduce emissions in Canada. But that can be done painlessly for the oil industry by building pipelines to export Canadian oil to other countries to they can burn it and destroy the atmosphere.
New Brunswick governments think this is a great idea. (That might explain why they recently didn't post a New Brunswick beach that was almost certainly heavily polluted. In fact, they didn't even bother to test it though they knew that rains were a major contributor to the pollution.

(This is the same New Brunwick government that a hack lawyer and Brunswick News columnist recently praised for the wisdom of its premier.)

Are the leaders of the oil industry being cruel in their behaviour? No. They don't have enough brains to be cruel. What drives them is greed.
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The same thing is happening at the bottom of our world.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/02/giant-antarctic-iceberg-hanging-by-a-thread-say-scientists

Isn't that good? Now, we can drill for more oil with all that nasty ice out of the way.

And there are others.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/republican-senators-paris-climate-deal-energy-donations

Note that these senators got $10 million dollars in election funding from oil companies. Wasn't that philanthropic of the oil companies? Our chambers of commerce should be holding expensive dinners for them. clap, clap, clap.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/super-rich-evade-on-average-nearly-third-of-their-due-tax

Hey. It's their money. They work hard for it. It would be a lesson in life to see their calloused and work-scarred hands.
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Don't worry about this. If there were any problem, Brunswick News would tell us all about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/18/climate-change-is-turning-antarctica-green-say-reseatchers
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/17/receding-glacier-causes-immense-canadian-river-to-vanish-in-four-days-climate-change
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I'm not so jubilant about this next story as The Guardian is. Both the NDP and the Greens have a long way to go in recognizing how flabby our political system is and how far we have to go. And the Canadian people have even farther to go. And our privately owned news services are not a help in getting us anywhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jun/02/need-climate-hope-imagine-the-promise-of-green-left-wing-victories-in-canada
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"Common Dreams" has almost a whole issue on Trump's withdrawal from the Paris accord. But don't waste your time blaming Trump. He didn't do this all by himself. Blame the ruthless greed of the oil industry. Blame an American empire which has been warring on most of the world since 1945. (It's an empire that's now collapsing on its own. But the damage of its fall can destroy all of us.) Blame corrupt and lying news media for not telling us what's happening.
But the us, the millions of us, who will go on voting Liberal or Conservative or Republican or Democrat even as the earth shatters under our feet.
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And here's a site that gives news of the middle east that is so lacking in our own press.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47152.htm
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Few people will even remember the U.S. invasion of Panama. (It was a war crime - but only when other countries do it.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4078.htm

The American empire is dying. But we should prepare for the consequences as it flails about in its death throes.
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Hitler destroyed not only Jewish people. His 'final solution' also created a Jewish mindset that is destroying Judaism, itself.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38772.htm
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Kind words for Trump are few. I can accept some of the optimism of this article,  but not much much of it. He might get rid of his jihadist allies - but I don't see any solution from him that changes the thrust for power for American billionairies.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article196524.html
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Is a world-wide conglomeration of billionaires being developed to rule the world? Of course.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/02/hna-group-corruption-scaramucci-trump-jeb-bush-clinton-guo-wengui/
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And here's a sobering look at Russia.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/31/comprehending-todays-russia/
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Here's a more intelligent look at the middle east, the kind of intelligence and honesty you will not find in most of our private news media.

http://gwynnedyer.com/2017/preposterous-times/
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This is what I meant when I said that the effect of Hitler's genocide of Jews has led Jews, themselves, to abandon much of their Judaism.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/six-day-war-50-years/.premium-1.793196
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And here is another aspect of the Israeli abandonment of much of Judaism.

http://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-1.793025
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And can you imagine any privately owned news medium in North America with the  guts or integrity (or intelligence) to criticize its own society in this way?

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/six-day-war-50-years/.premium-1.793013
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Yeah, yeah, I know. Christians teach love and peace. But Islam is evil, and it teaches killing. So read this, anyway.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/1.791954

So let's get out their and cheer for our oil industry which is bringing love and peace to the middle east. (No charge. Us taxpayers pay for the good work our oil industry does.)

May 31: Angels in bombers

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/quebec-missionary-murdered-in-guatemala
I found story above just recently, though I've known of the murder it describes for some  time, some 34 years.

Canadian and American big business have a brutal and murderous record all over the world. Canadian mining companies, for example, are  notoriously destructive of lives and environments. They and others have a long history of juvenile labour, extremely low pay, environmental damage, beatings, assassinations and, when useful, mass murder.

Canada is THE major player in mining all over the world. And here's what we are doing...

https://intercontinentalcry.org/a-legacy-of-shame-canadian-mining-companies-leave-behind-decades-of-violence-in-their-wake/

Funny how that never made our news media.

American billionaires are heavier on the field of agriculture, with such sweethearts as the Doles who have been known to play a role in overthrowing governments by force. These, too, keep people poor, in fear and, sometimes, dead.

And that's where, sometimes, agencies like the American CIA step in. And that's why the democratically elected government of Guatemala was overthrown by CIA leaders and American money and weapons to bring in a dictator from another country. What followed was the deliberate massacre of the Maya people of Guatemala, over 200,000 of them. Whole villages and small towns were wiped out - men, women, and children, and buried in the great pits where their homes had stood.

They had to be killed because they were demanding minimum wages, decent working conditions, a protected environment....

But none of our news media noticed.

The Christian churches of Guatemala did notice. And their sympathies were all with the Guatemalan people. So it was necessary to murder the priests, too, the missionaires, the nuns. (A friend of mine visited an office where a priest had been murdered. Traces of his blood were still on the wall.)

A young man from Buctouche, New Brunswick, not far from where I am now sitting, decided in the late 1970s to devote his life to being a lay missionary.  (Buctouche is a very holy site, indeed. It is where the chapel financed by the philanthropy of the Irving family is located. Commoners can even gather for coffee and discussion in the barn. of the chapel.)

The lay missionary from Buctouche was a Roman Catholic, though, so he was probably never exposed to the  sanctity of the Irving Chapel which probably has the most expensive clergy money can buy. And they are in no danger or being shot for their principles.

Anyway Raoul  Leger went to Guatemala.  And there, in 1981, he was murdered by the hired killers of the CIA.

Surprisingly, the nearest newspaper, the Moncton Times and Transcript, never reported this tragic death. Indeed, none of the New Brunswick newspapers have ever mentioned the war in Guatemala at all. And that is almost universally true of all the privately-owned news media in North America.

Too bad that Leger was just an ordinary guy with decency and charity. If he had been an Irving, the chamber of commerce would have held a dinner for him.

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Oh, just recenly, on Memorial Day in the U.S., Donald Trump thanked those Americans who have died in battle "to defend the U.S.'  So true. Without them, Iraqis and Afghanis and Yemenis and Libyans and Vietnamese would be storming ashore at New York and Florida and Los Angeles Not to mention all those Sioux and Hurons who invaded the U.S. and Canada, and the Cubans, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians, Libyans, Haitians, and Canadians who had to be killed to keep America safe from their warrior hordes.
And I have no doubt there were clergy who applauded his words when Trump said (on U.S. Memorial Day, "Those soldiers who died were all angels sent to us by God." (He meant only the ones our our side, of course.)

Watch for that latter piece of pious cowdroppings in the next Brunswick News Faith Page.
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Read this one carefully. It's a declaration that the U.S. has th right to enter any country in the world without its consent in order to inspect its imports and exports. Canada, of course, will comply right away. Other countries will have more integrity.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47145.htm
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American military power has not been - to put it kindly - distinguished in the last  70 years. It has certainly been brutal, but weak on production. It has murdered millions. But it has one very, very little. At best, what it has done is to  drive much of the world into chaos.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47150.htm

And Trump, on Monday, announced that the American military are 'angels sent by God".    (I can't think of anything disgusting enough to top that statement.)
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47142.htm

Read this, and think over what Trump's "angels from God" have done to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria. We are seeing evil as bad as any evil that Hitler did.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47148.htm

I selected this because it seems to me The Canadian Legion should be devoting itself to helping our veterans, not to glorifying war. It should be reminding us that we have not done a damn thing that they were told they were fighting for. It should be asking why we  have a small military force sitting on near the Russian border as bait. It should be asking why we bombed Libya and, more recently, Iraq. It should be asking why we sent troops to fight an die in an illegal war in Afghanistan.  It should be asking why Canadian peacekeepers were sent on a mission to Haiti with the purprose of restoring the dictatorship.
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This is a good example of the U.S. 'commitment' to democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/general-manuel-noriega-feared-panamanian-dictator-cia-asset
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American naziism

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/31/portland-train-stabbing-racial-violence-trump-america

Must have been some of them there angels from God.
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British Columbia looks like a win for the NDP and Greens. But maybe not.
Over the last fifty years, the NDP has backed a long way from its founding principles. And the Greens have never developed a full, political philosophy. It's nice to hear they want to do something to save the enviroment. But to do so will be one hell of a struggle against some very wealthy, powerful, and well-connected people - many of whom also own most of the news media and most of the Liberal and Conservative politicians.

And have the people of British Columbia understood the war they are taking on? I rather doubt it because neither the NDP nor the Greens have shown all that much savvy in recent years. What they propose is revolutionary because it has to be in world dominated by ruthless billionaires  (and a wimpy federal
government.) I doubt very much that the people of British Columbia understand that.
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Beware of Trudeau. He could made Sephen Harper look like a sweetheart.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/17/dont-be-fooled-mckibben-says-climate-trudeaus-no-better-trump
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Trumps angels of God are back at work.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/30/the-u-s-has-ramped-up-airstrikes-against-isis-in-raqqa-and-syrian-civilians-are-paying-the-price/
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As I read the above, I wondered about our respect for patriotism. Hitler's soldiers were being patriotic when they took Jews to death camps. I like Canada. I'm happy when it does well. But I certainly would not agree with everything it does. And to fight for one's country? Sounds good. But what does it mean?

Does your country ask you to fight? How does a whole country ask that? What about the role of politicians and news media who sell you on the idea? And who do they represent?

Canadians were killed  (and murdered thousands of civilians) in the Boer War. What did that have to do with being patriotic or fighting for  their country? The U.S. killed a million and a half Iraqis who were no threat whatever to the U.S.  The war was based on lies about Iraqi weapons that didn't exist.  It was really a war to steal control over Iraqi oil.

Where was the patriotism in that? What did it possibly have to do with "fighting for ones country"?

And how does murdering a million and a  half people square with what Americans call their 'American set of Christian values"?

Anyway, it's one thing to kill for your country. It's quite another to kill for your capitalists.

And why haven't our clergy had the guts to point that out?
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And here is required reading for dimwits of the chambers of commerce who hold expensive dinners to clap, clap, clap for 'Philanthropists."

http://www.countercurrents.org/

Hint to philanthropists -   stuff your charity. Pay your taxes.
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http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/05/24/resisting-imperialist-militarism-on-memorial-day/
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http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/04/07/from-syria-to-monsanto-a-moribund-system-of-deceit-and-destruction/
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We don't hear much that's nice about Trump. So here's an item worth reading.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article196524.html
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This is what often happens when we send people (angels of God) to fight for their country.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/world-watches-as-yemen-descends-into-total-collapse/5592791
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I am, very slowly, reading Gwynn Dyer's book, "Climate Wars" Ii begins with a chapter of very high level, US government studies on climate change and its impact for the future. These high level groups are no tree-huggers. They include leaders of the military, government advisors like Henry Kissinger  and many others. What they conclude is stunning. Yes. climate change is happening. Yes, it's measurable now. Yes, it's going to get much, much worse.  (Typically, they're doing this study not to help any of us, but to prepare for the years when wars will be fought under more difficult conditions. One of their concerns is that the US is due to suffer such severe climage damage that agriculture throughout the southwest and the plains will be destroyed. So, logically, it will be necessary to kill people in some countries to steal their food.

Remember, these are not, for the most part fuddy-duddy scientists who don't know nearly as much as oil barons. Nor are they nature lovers. These are very cold, calculating people who have spent their lives killing.

I'm finding it a slow read, partly because I do so much checking as I go. But it's also slow because it's a terrifying read. I read it at night. (And it's not ideal bedtime reading.)

As I read, I'm writing a blog summary of it. So I'll be sending it out.

May 29: Their evil. Our wimpiness.

Just a few opening lines about my local Burnswick News. Saturday's issue is a column by a lawyer/politician who appears each week  to say nothing. This seems a man of no particular political values except getting back into the game, possibly, and making contacts. This time, he heaps praise on the province's current premier as though this were the second coming. (In fact, he has so far been a person of no distinction whatever.

Above this inane column is a huge photo of the premier - which adds nothing to a column that already had nothing. Why add the big picture? Because it fills a lot of space and it's cheap. No editor of a decent paper would ever have accepted that column.

On the good side, the Faith Page had an interesting column by a member of Moncton's mosque. That's a nice break from a long, long line of Protestant clergy. Now - I    wonder if the    paper will remember there is also a synagogue in Moncton.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/torturers-of-the-new-iraq-

I mention this as a sample of the disaster that U.S. foreign policy has been since 1945. It failed it's real purpose in the Korean War (to create an American base next to China). And, in failing, it killed a third of the population of North Korea by the most intensive bombing campaign in history.

Result? it solidified the rule of the dictators of South Korea -who used the war to murder tens of thousands of political prisoners.

Then there was Vietnam. This was a humiliating defeat for the U.S. And it killed  - well, that's anybody's guess. Official American figures are that some hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were killed. Vietnam puts it at over  four million. Given the high use of  intensive bombing, of napalm, of destroying people and vegetation with mass poisonings, the Vietnamese figure is more likely.

There was Guatemala where the CIA directed the murders of over 200,000 Mayas. And our news media still haven't told us.

There is Afghanistan which has been going on for 16 years - despite the fact that there is no evidence that Afghanistan did anything to the U.S. Then there were a million and a half killed in Iraq. Again, this was a war that had no evidence of any threatening behaviour by Iraq. As in the case of Afghanistan, American and British governments simply lied about reasons for the war.    And it has produced thousands of refugees from a society broken both economically and socially. There is still fighting in Iraq, some by jihadists taking advantage of the chaos, some as a result of the social breakdown.

Syria - again, no reasons for the war. But the damage is so great that Syria is not likely to recover as a society. The same is true of Yemen.

In short, we have seen seventy years of disastrous wars, disastrous for the U.S. as well as for its victims. The worlds most expensive military has been unable to defeat or to stabilize or to reconstruct the countries it has ravaged. Much of the world has been so destabilized that it will remain chaotic for generations to come.

In summary, the American drive to rule the world has failed. It has failed at enormous cost, so enormous that selling weapons all over the world has become one of the most important industries in the U.S. And that is increasingly turning loose the recipients of those weapons - Saudi Arabia, for example, and the Muslim jihadists who are now fighting Americans in a good deal of the middle east.

This has been 70 years of terrible failure for U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. military. And it's going to get worse, much worse.

1.4133747http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inuit-climate-change-health-1.4110299

Yes, climate change is happening. It's already profoundly affecting large areas. Africa, for example, is being swept by starvation as crops die due to lack of rain. It's also happening in parts of  South America.  In, it will create vast areas of flooding, destroying  (among other things) much of China's agriculture, thus driving it to war over with Russia over Siberian lands.. And this permanent drought is happening in the U.S. southwest as well as in large areas of Latin America. Think of the possibilities from that.

The world food supply is shrinking while while the world population is growing. You think 80,000,000 refugees is a lot? Just wait till it's 800 million and more.  Look at the chaos Europe is in now in dealing with refugees. Imagine the chaos in Europe and the U.S. and Canada when the real wave of refugees hits.

Here, where Trudeau, like Trump, has pretty much abandoned the climate change issue, we have done virtually no planning for dealing with the biggest crisis the world has ever seen. Instead, we're pouring money and lives into wars to make it possible to pump out and burn even more oil. And it's just not the danger of oil we have to worry about. It's the collapse of any world order in the face of enormous waves of refugees.  As well, the U.S. has not, in 70 years shown the ability to bring peace and order to any part of the world.

This is insane. So why are we doing it?

We're doing it because oil barons effectively control our governments. We're doing it because we're scared of the very wealthy and powerful in our society.
This is not a small matter to be handled with town hall meetings. We have to show some courage, and take control of our own nations and our own lives.   We have to reset the role of government so that it serves us and not our financial masters.

Or we can sit back, and let the geniuses of our financial world make all the decisions, the same ones who have, in the last seventy years, fought endless wars and, with every day. have created greater chaos.

For an insight into this, read Gwynne Dyer, "Climate Wars". I came to know Gwynne many, many years ago when we were both 'regulars' on the same CBC radio show in Montreal. And I came to have a great deal of respect for his insights - far more than I have ever  found in meetings with oil executives. Dyer is now a major world authority on the catastrophes we face. I have never met a businessmen of any sort who is. ( His column, good enough to appear in major news media all over the world, isn't good enough for Brunswick News. It needs the space for a local lawyer/ politician of unspeakable triviality.

Here, in New Brunswick, our leading business family seems to have remarkably little education for the power it wields. Even a dolt like George Bush Jr. had more.
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Haaretz is a little narrow in its coverage. But it is available in English, and it is the most honest newspaper I know in the English world. In this report, Angela Merkel is doing what Justin Trudeau should be doing - but won't. Canada is going to pay, and pay heavily, for being a puppy to the U.S.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-1.792506
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And Israel's respect for human rights is a lot like that of the U.S.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.792206
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Israel's behaviour toward Palestine (and toward those Israelis who are arabs) has been shameful and criminal.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/1.792523
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al Jazeera began under the guidance of excellent Canadian journalists as a very fine newspaper. I has, alas, slipped since then. But it still has good moments.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/05/united-states-insanity-170522104610470.htmlutm_source=Al+Jazeera+English+Newsletter+%7C+Weekly&utm_campaign=ebff903dc4-
EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e427298a68-ebff903dc4-225407993
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And this one is all too true. We have been looting Africa in trillions of dollars worth of minerals for well over a century. We have looted it of millions of people for the slave trade. We haven't even paid decent wages to the people we forced to dig up and hand over their own resources. This has been accompanied by 'heroic' wars of empire by Britain, France, the U.S., Italy. This has gone on for centuries, and we're still doinig it.

The old empires murdered, starved their victims by the millions. In more recent years, it has included western heroes like Winston Churchill who deliberately starved millions to death in India, And it still goes on. (Churchill blamed his mass murder on the people of India. We still do that -  as in our treatment of the refugees we create.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/05/africa-poor-stealing-wealth-170524063731884.htmlutm_source=Al+Jazeera+English+Newsletter+%7C+Weekly&utm_campaign=ebff903dc4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e427298a68-ebff903dc4-225407993
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The Guardian says the Great Barrier Reef off Australia is beyond saving, and it's collapse is due to climate change. But they're just asking scientists. So what do they know. Let's be calm and wait for a more professional opinion from oil executives. They know everything.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/25/great-barrier-reef-2050-plan-no-longer-achievable-due-to-climate-change-experts-say
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In the middle east, the U.S. is not fighting to destroy ISIS or terrorists of any sort. To look at the purpose of U.S. involvement, one needs only to look at the region. Any sense of membership in the nation is being destroyed. Countries are breaking up into factions. Borders are ceasing to exist. Any government role in serving the people has been destroyed. Everywhere the U.S. has attacked, national and social structures have been destroyed. That that's the purpose - to make all of those nations so shattered as to give oil companies a free hand in looting them.

Our Brunswick News constantly tells us that our big business leaders know exactly what they're doing. And so they do. Too bad Brunswick News never tells us exactly what they're doing.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47142.htm
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This should be common knowledge. It's isn't because our news media lie to us.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47136.htm
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On of the most vicious killers of this world is Britain's Prime Minister, Theresa May. Of course, it's hard to think of a British PM in all of British history who has not been a vicious killer. (Yes, even THAT one. If you get all indignant and say I'm wrong, try me.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47133.htm
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This makes more sense out of the Kennedy assassination than anything else I have seen.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47141.htm
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The whole world is waiting for the sunshine.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/27/dapl-company-hired-war-terror-contractors-suppress-native-uprising
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Trillions for weapons. Nothing for the hungry. Not for the hungry in Africa and the middle east and South American. Not even any for the hungry in Canada, the U.S. and Britain. And there never has been.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/27/world-plenty-g7-must-fight-famine
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This is about war, about war itself. It was written to make people think on Memorial Day. And Canadians should do some of that on Nov. 11. Exactly why have we fought our wars? What did we tell ourselves we were fighting them for? (I have long wondered what Canadians were thinking when they sent young men off to die while killing Dutch farmers in South Africa.)

What is it we said they were dying for? Have we honoured what we said? Were Americans in World War Two told they were dying so U.S. big business could launch endless, new wars? Heck, they didn't even get free speech out of it in their nation where domestic spies monitor their phone calls, and where big business hires mercenary thugs to beat up people who complain about oil pipeliness. (And I shall always remember New Brunswick's days of men wearing camouflage and carrying   combat rifles threatened a crowd of men, women, and children who didn't want oil company polluters destroying their land.)

And the churches were silent, as always.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/29/we-need-memorial-day-to-obscure-the-unbearable-truth-about-war/

In seventy years of war with millions of dead and tens of millions starving to death, is this a better world?
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Poverty is rising in Europe. And when that happens, people usually don't look for a cure for it. They look for someone to blame. And they seldom blame the billionaires who cause it. They find some group they've been conditioned to hate and fear. That is what gave rise to Hitler. It's happening in the U.S., too - and it has given rise to a Hitler there who, like Hitler, takes the national anger out on Muslims - and on some groups of native Americans.

And it's happening in Canada.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/24/growing-poverty-fuels-europes-extremism/

And everybody ignores the real reasons. You cannot operate a national economy while letting the wealthy hide their money, and by giving the wealthy bloated contracts  (as is often the case in the defence industry).

And, for something to remember on Nov. 11, Canadians surely did not die so that the wealthy could avoid taxes.
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This is an incomplete blog, today. But, oh, it's long. And I'm tired.So again, I'm  going without a spell check. (It's good training for you.)

May 26: ----- just disgust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html?_r=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/monsanto

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/health/roundup-herbicide-cancer-allegations/

Don't waste your time on Brunswick News. It will never carry this story - though it has been an issue in this province.

Norbert Cunningham has a Churchillian column on the Manchester bombing. He dwells on the evils of bombing innocent people, and talks of how we shall overcome. Norbert, where were your words when the U.S. and its friends  (like us) were killing innocent people - and children - by the millions? And we still are.

And how can a columnist pour out this mindless crap when the U.S. is deliberately starving millions of innocent people to death? Norbert calls the bomber 'inhuman'. Quite so. But what are we?

Nor has this newspaper ever said a word about why our side is killing so many people. Most of the killing is because our billionaires want to loot the resources of other countries. That's been the history of the western powers since Columbus.  But Brunswick News would never say that. Instead, it gives us mindless and self-righteous blather.

The editorial cartoon is just as bad, and another sample of kissing up to the wealthy. A steam engine labelled employer is valiantly pulling two passenger cars labelled jobs. But those nice employers are being held back by a huge anchor that represents worker safety.

Damn right. If workders want jobs, they should accept risks. Risks are good for profits. The Brunswick News NEVER criticizes business.

Nor will it ever examine  what appears to be a coverup at the highest levels regarding our beaches. They have been polluted for ten years - without notice of pollution ever being given. At a minimum we  should be examining that for 1.gross government neglect and 2.criminal conspiracy. But that's not going to happen. And the people of New Brunswick are just going to sit there with their faces hanging out.

We cannot have a democracy as long as our people are kept in ignorance by propaganda news media. Worse, we are facing an era in which the very wealthy are progressively increasying their share of national wealth while the rest of us get poorer. We are also in for dramatic increases in  'defence' spending which will further enrich the wealthy but destroy fundamental services like education and health.

Common sense should tell us we cannot survive such a gross shifting of all the wealth to the already wealthy. We can't survive it. And, for that matter, the wealthy can't , either. They need us. But they're very, very greedy and, despite the slobbering worship of the chamber of commerce, they aren't very bright. We are heading for a major crash.

But don't worry. The  Brunswick News will blame it all on Muslims and unions.
And New Brunswick will go back to sleep.
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I recommend this article strongly. Justin Trudeau is quite possibly the shallowest prime minister Canada has ever had.  And no other has been able to match his success in making the news while, for the most part, doing nothing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/justin-trudeau-jogging-yoga-shirtless-photos-pr-stunts
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Trump is, of course, an ass. But it's a mistake to blame him for everything. To a large degree, he fits into a pattern of presidential and big business thinking in the U.S. Yes, it's terrible he ignores the dangers of climate change. But he is scarcely the inventor of ignoring climate change. That's been a characteristic of the wealthy in almost every country - particularly those connected to the industry. (It's as though they think climate change won't affect them because they are, after all, upper class.)

Canadians might note that Justin Trudeau has been much like Bush and Trump on this issue.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/25/pointed-present-trump-pope-francis
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In the midst of mourning Manchester, we forget.....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47121.htm

And this is only a small part of the tens of millions killed by the U.S. since 1945. On Nov.  11, as we remember World War 2, we should also remember why  (we were told) it was fought.  One reason was to create a UN that would enforce international law on war. The U.S. has broken that law every year since 1945 with invasions, drones, Seals (assassins). And not a peep out of our news media or the U.N.
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American foreign policy has been a disaster, particularly in the last 17 years. There is nothing to be gained in AFghanistan to justify the cost of that war. (And no sign it will ever be won.) the middle east is a hopeless mess which Trump now plans to make worse with a war on Iran. In Syria,  the 'rebels' are, for the most part, not Syrians. And the Syrian government has withstood years of attacks on it despite the massive supply of the U.S. to the 'rebels' and to jihadists. There seems no possibility of an American victory there and, certainly, no victory that would not risk a confrontation with Russia.

After more than seventy years of aggression, the U.S. position in the world is weaker than it was at the start. That's what happens when governments are controlled by big business.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/26/iraq-and-afghanistan-6-trillion-bill-americas-longest-war-unpaid
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Another story missed by Brunswick News. The  Philippine president has been stunningly murderous in his own country. But he's still a good friend of the U.S.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/23/read-the-full-transcript-of-trumps-call-with-philippine-president-rodrigo-duterte/
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Wikileaks is a site loaded with information. And it's all from American government sources - and if you can't trust information from the American government, whose information can you trust?

https://wikileaks.org/+-War-Military-+.html#
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Remember that news video of the jihadist 'white helmets' supposedly rescuting a child from Syrian government forces? The is the one that got a special Oscar in Hollywood. (That video had a good deal of fakery in it - but we'll skip that part.) Here are those same 'white helmets' making themselves useful at terrorist executions. And it's all paid for by the U.S.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/05/yet-another-video-shows-u-s-funded-white-helmets-assisting-public-executions-rebel-held-syria.html
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When Trump announced a more than $300 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, he said it was good because it would create jobs in the U.S. Well, yes. So would feeding the starving peoples of the world. So would providing housing and education for the millions of middle east refugees.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/25/trump-plunges-deeper-in-mideast-chaos/
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And, of course, the U.S. is still arming and financing jihadists it claims to be fighting.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-and-israeli-made-weapons-in-hands-of-isis-terrorists-discovered-by-syrian-government-forces/5591949
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Well, it's getting late, and it's been a hard day. So I haven't proofread this blog. So sue me.

Americans recognize memorial day, and Canada Armistice Day in memory of the people we sent to fight and, often, to die. I was wildly jubilant street in Montreal on the day World War 2 ended. I remember the exulting crowds. I remember thinking my father would be coming home at last. I remember a poster, a new one, that said "We're won the war. Now we've got to win the peace." It puzzled me. Of course, why had won the war. Didn't that mean we now had won the peace, too?

No. It didn't. We had the chance, but we threw it away. The only ones who  have   achieved peace are those many who have closed their minds to what we are doing to the world and,  ultimately, to ourselves.