Oct. 9:Welcome to Nazi North America

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-report-global-warming-climate-change-1.4854363

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/the-guardian-view-on-climate-change-a-global-emergency

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-scientists-fear

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-climate-change-ipcc-report

https://truthout.org/articles/earths-ice-loss-is-a-nuclear-explosion-of-geologic-change/

Climate change is for real. And we have no idea how quickly it may happen. As it happens, expect refugees in the hundreds of millions. Expect collapsing markets. Expect wars to kill the refugees, to steal neighbouring land.....

We've known about this for almost 40 years - and we  have barely lifted a finger to deal with it.  In particular, the owners of the oil industry have been too greedy to notice what is happening. (
gee - why do Blaine Higgs and his Conservatives come to mind?) We are on the edge of one hell of an abyss. Nor do we read much about it in the irving press.

And we still aren't doing anything.
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https://www.rt.com/op-ed/440431-veterans-suicide-us-war/

Donald Trump is forever praising his military for doing his killing for him. He never notices that they are also killing themselves.
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The forgotten war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/05/heavy-price-paid-for-war-in-afghanistan
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/07/sara-benjamin-netanyahu-and-breach-of-trust-trial-begins-in-jerusalem

This story will probably never make the irving press.
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A Saudi journalist was last seen entering his country's embassy in Constantinople. He has not been seen since. Of course not, our democracy-loving friends in Saudi Arabia, our agents of the future in the middle east, and the buddies of the oil industry, are our friends, the ones the U.S., Canada and Britain supply weapons to so they can massacre the people of Yemen. It's a safe bet the journalist was murdered by Saudi officials, and his body disposed of.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/kamal-khashoggi-mohammed-bin-salman-saudi-arabia

These are the friends of the God Bless America crowd in the U.S.
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Why is The Guardian the only major newspaper I quote? Because for all its slippage in the last thirty years and more, it is still the best  commercial  newspaper in the world. (okay. second best after Haaretz, but Haaretz has a smaller coverage.)
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And the story that will never appear in the irving press of New Brunswick....

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/31/analysis-shows-canadas-87-richest-families-now-hold-much-wealth-12-million-lowest
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Yet another story that the irving press will never print.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/17/dumbest-policy-world-report-details-how-canadas-massive-fossil-fuel-subsidies
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And another...

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/01/disgusting-short-sighted-and-shameful-ontarios-right-wing-govt-nixes-basic-income

New Brunswick readers will find virtually no news about Canada in their newspapers. The best source for Canadian news is Common Dreams. Type in common dreams for your search. When it comes up, go to the upper left hand corner symbol of three horizontal lines with a list of countries below it. God down that list and press Canada.
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My local irving press has one of its routine bone-headed commentary columns on how the U.S. is far more powerful economically than China is. (It comes, of course, from The Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, one of this world's propaganda houses for billionaires.)  In fact, though, there are many ways of measuring an economy. And to add to that, China is already second to the U.S. in the commonest measures, and it's economy is growing much more quickly. All the signs are that China will outstrip the U.S. in the near future.

The article was written by a SENIOR FELLOW of the Atlantic Institute. And what does SENIOR FELLOW of the Atlantic Institiute  mean? Not a damn thing.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-is-on-the-road-to-becoming-a-fascist-state/5656408
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50396.htm
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Brazil has just elected one of the world's more dangerous men. His election, among other things, means the destruction of what's left of the Amazon rainforest - with climatic effects we can only guess at. It also means a strong movement of American corporation bosses into that country.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50395.htm
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https://off-guardian.org/2018/10/08/bias-the-new-impartiality/
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https://thesaker.is/future-of-western-democracy-being-played-out-in-brazil/

Sounds extreme? It is not. We are living in a process that began at least as early as 1930s naziism. With people like Ford in Ontario and Trump in the U.S., we are walking the same path trod by Hitler.

Hitler had the massive support of the big capitalists in Germany. Trump and Ford (and Higgs in New Brunswick) have the same support.) We are ruled by people whose only interest is the profits of those who pay them. (Where do you think Hitler got his money to create the Nazi party? It wasn't from passing around empty beer mugs at taverns.)
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The very, very complex story of what is happening in Syria, Iran, etc.
The simple explanation is that western capitalists want the resources and full control of those countries. That's how this all started back in World War 2. That's why children are being starved to death in Yemen.

That's why we betrayed everything we said we were fighting for in World War Two and in every war since then. The only change since 1945 is the addition of the determination of American capitalists to conquer a world that they can have unlimited plunder for private gain.
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Oct. 6: Our very dangerous world.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/theinvestigators/the-investigators-trump-taxes-1.4850942

Now, how about an expose on taxes not paid by New Brunswick's wealthy? No. The irving press is too busy criticizing the government for spending too much.
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Another story that didn't (and won't) make the irving press.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/04/ontario-six-nations-nestle-running-water
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This story may seem overdone. I don't think it is. Comic books do project values - of some sort - on children. And Walt Disney was an ardent admirer of Hitler. And since his death, his comics have continued to project American 'values' and racism.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/05/ariel-dorfman-how-we-roasted-donald-duck-disney-agent-of-imperialism-chile-coup

This story comes from Chile, a country whose government was overthrown by a U.S. planned and financed revolution. I had a Irish film maker friend who was working in Chile at the time. He was the kind of film maker whose work would not be appreciated by the new, fascist government. So he got out of Chile just ahead of the soldiers who were looking for him.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/05/heavy-price-paid-for-war-in-afghanistan

The U.S never had a legitimate reason to invade Afghanistan. Contrary to popular American myth, Afghanistan did NOT carry out the 911 attack. Nor did it shelter anybody who did. Indeed, it had volunteered to send any Afghanistan person the U.S. charged with being part of plot to face an international court.

The invasion of Afghanistan was to get control of its considerable natural resources for American billionaires. It is also strategically useful for American military aggression.

That means Canada had no business being there, either. We might remember that on Nov. 11. (But we won't.)
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/05/child-among-three-palestinians-shot-dead-by-israeli-army

But who gives a damn? Right? Certainly the irving press couldn't care less.
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I'm not convinced by this article on using free public transit to cut down on the use of private cars. For a start, many cities - like the one I live in - are huge stretches of urban sprawl, a system that cries for transportation by private cars.
But it's good to see that some people are thinking about how we are going to deal
with our urban sprawl because climate change is moving in on us, and moving in quickly. And we may have to learn that acres of of single family bungalows might not be  good idea.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-englers-blog/2018/10/free-public-transit-could-challenge-reliance-cars
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The world war we are flirting with. Make no mistake. We are very, very close to a nuclear war which will, necessarily, be a nuclear one. And the idea that such a war could be won is a very dangerous idea.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/06/syrias-no-fly-zone/
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This next column was written by a man whose credentials will turn off most readers. However, whatever his political beliefs might be, this is a sound column. American police, for many, many years, have been killing far more Americans - over a thousand a year - than terrorists do - a point that Trump and the U.S. news media have not noticed.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/06/one-killer-cop-convicted-get-with-the-revolution-and-get-rid-of-this-whole-system-that-needs-killer-cops/
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Yes. Climate change is happening. And it's happening very, very quickly. But our provincial Conservative leader, Mr. Blaine Higgs, thinks it's more important to develop fracking.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/05/drought-laden-rainforests/

Mr. Higgs can make cavemen seem like intellectuals.
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The U.S. is far the world's biggest spender on weapons. And it puts pressure on all its allies to spend heavily on weapons. And this has little to do with defence. It has to do with giving massive profits to the billionaires who own American defence industries.

Because of that, spending has to be cut on unnecessary things in the U.S. - like public education, health care, relieving poverty......

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-the-political-power-of-weapons/5656172

That is why we are, every day, living under the threat of global devastation.
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We've had bits of news about China brutally putting Uyghurs (Chinese Muslims) into concentration camps - holding at least a million of them. That may not be the whole story. In fact, it may not be the story at all.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-uyghur-problem-the-recruitment-of-uyghur-muslims-to-join-al-qaeda/5656293
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Those American military heroes we see on TV news on parade have  quite a record of killing children.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/illegal-sanctions-pompeo-arranges-mass-starvation-of-iranian-people/5656154

Where the hell are our Christian churches in this?  (I guess they're in the same place as Germany' s Christian churches were with Hitler.) Maybe the Irving Chapel will discuss this in its closing service for the year. And maybe hell will freeze over first.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50380.htm

Oh, I know. It's all settled. But just think. The U.S. supreme court now has a majority of justices who are highly partisan, who have long records of serving the very, very rich and favouring them in their decisions. - though none of the others have Kavanaugh's long history of lying. The U.S. is destroying itself.
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American dollars at work - to starve children....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50381.htm
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The United States now has the largest empire in world history. Think of that on Nov. 11.  Is that what Canadian died for in two world wars?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50382.htm
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And here is a frightening possibility for the start of World War 3, one that has Canadian troops nearby when it happens.

https://off-guardian.org/2018/10/06/us-switching-to-ukraine-as-location-to-start-world-war-iii/

I was not surprised to read that Canadians of Ukrainian descent have been contributing money to nazi elements in Ukraine. Those Ukrainians who came to Canada before World War One were attracted by democracy. But those coming later have tended to be, to put it kindly, far right wing. And, to put it more accurately, nazi.
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https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-is-a-major-midterm-issue-corporate-media-are-ignoring-it/

It's not just American news media who are ignoring climate change. Our very own Brunswick News is notably silent on the issue - as is Blaine Higgs, leader of the Conservative party, who could well be our next premier.
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https://theintercept.com/2018/10/05/dear-susan-collins-the-opposition-to-brett-kavanaugh-includes-churches-law-professors-and-conservatives-even-his-own-friends/

Note that the critics of the U.S. government include the churches - institutions notable in Canada for their failure to say much about anything.
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Short summary? The western world is under the thumb of billionaires who couldn't care less about climate change, and who want a war in the middle east that would almost certainly become a world, nuclear war. That war is now so close, it could happen at any time because these billionaires own most western governments and most news media.

Democracy has become debased by political leaders who win power not by any vision for the future and its needs but by capitalizing on our disillusion with political change by tapping into anger at the perceived threats of immigrants - based on religion, language, skin colour. Instead of dealing with real issues, these politicians get people to vote for them based not so much on what they stand for as to distract them from their many dissatisfactions. Thus Donald Trump in the U.S., the far right in Germany, Doug Ford in Toronto, the People's Alliance Party in New Brunswick.......and, of course, Hitler in the Germany of the 1930s.

On Nov. 11, think. Think first of those who served us in two world wars. Then think of how we have forgotten all that we said they fought for, and have turned to fighting wars to make billionaires richer.
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Ah, the New Brunswick News.

Banner headline. Page one. The Moncton Times and Transcript. "Get stoned drivers off the roads: Higgs"   Blaine Higgs, of course, is the leader of the Conservatives, and probably the future premier of New Brunswick. And he says, fearlessly, that such driving is not being stopped. (In fact, as the police say and the paper mentions, the controls he is demanding ARE in place.)

But no matter. In a province in which the wealthy pay no taxes and suck deeply off ours, in a world facing destruction of its whole planet, the fearless Blaine Higgs puts his finger on the real issue - stoned drivers. And the irving press thinks this drivel is worth reporting. And it's really the high point of the whole first section.

The editorial page has the political cartoonist's only, and repeated, theme - the Liberals are bad.

Norbert Cunningham has quite a reasonable column on the U.S. treatment of our trade with it. His point, a very reasonable one. is that the U.S. exploits us. Indeed, the reality is that we are subjects of the American empire - just like Venezuela or Haiti. And if we step out of line, we will get it just like Venezuela will. Indeed, we may well get it even while standing in line as climate change makes Canada an attractive target for a suffering U.S.

A less useful column is by Brian Stephenson who decries the province's debt but who, as all irving press reporters, never mentions that we have that debt because the wealthy don't pay taxes. (In fact, I don't think that any party in the recent election mentioned that.)

And he thinks we have to improve education? I'm not at all sure the education system is the problem. New Brunswick is not anything that could be called a province of intellectually active people. Political debate, in any real sense, scarcely exists. Intellectually interesting activities - theater, music - are almost unheard of. In fact, this is a province that rather looks down on any activity that involves thought. At the new, hundred million dollar events centre, one is more likely to hear somebody with a guitar singing through his nose than to hear a symphony orchestra.

The  problem may not be the schools. It may be a much deeper social problem. I am not an admirer of any political party I  have seen in this province - though  I like some more than others. But it is surely a sign when the winning Conservatives had what was far the most ignorant and possibly damaging policies. That's comparable to the singer with a banjo who sings through his nose.

If relatively new political parties like the Greens and NDP want to have any impact on this province, they are going to have to work hard all year every year, educating the voters.

Then there are two pages that are restful reading on world and Canadian news. Apparently, nothing much has  happened in any of these. No wars happening and no wars threatening.  No children being deliberately murdered or starved to death. No American and Chinese fleets confronting each other. Nothing happening in Venezuela..... This is a great section for insomniacs.
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Oh, for those who think I went too far in criticizing the People's Alliance party for its criticism of French rights in New Brunswick, check out the Moncton Times and Transcript of Oct. 5 for a quotation from a village mayor who accuses the French of  "hatred, bigotry and a sense of  entitlement".

I've lived through enough bigotry and racism to know it when I see it.
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Oct. 4: It took two minutes to read today's irving press.

For three hours I have been writing this blog. Then, sudenly, everything has been erased. It happened twice. I have no idea why.  Damn! It's now been six hours and I'm now proofreading. I can only hope nothing happens before I finish.
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 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/04/libya-war-zone-eu-
refugees-tripoli-fighting

For a century, British, American and European capitalists have been making countries like Libya into hells. That has created millions of refugees, broken families, enormous misery. Tough luck, say our billionaires.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/trump-administration-planet-boil-refugee-camps

Meanwhile, in New Brunswick our Conservative deep thinkers are concentrating on important things - like developing shale gas. And the People's Alliance thinks our big problem is that we  have too many French-speaking people.

Duh - we'll worry about climate change when it happens, duh...
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We are doing nothing significant about climate change. The Conservatives haven't even noticed it's happening. And the other parties, even the Greens, are more silent on it than they should be. This is the greatest issue of our time, perhaps of any time. And we have very limited time to deal with it.  You would never know that from our news media - or our corporate bosses who simply refuse to notice it is happening. The Conservative aim to develop fracking is both evil and stupid. That no party shows any willingness to recognize how serious this is is insane.

https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-is-a-major-midterm-issue-corporate-media-are-ignoring-it/

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/more-doubling-day-now-1200-law-professors-and-counting-have-signed-letter-declaring

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/04/accuser-silenced-and-witnesses-ignored-fbis-kavanaugh-probe-denounced-sham-and

https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/bret-kavanaugh-is-a-liar-a-perjurer-and-belongs-in-jail-instead-of-on-the-supreme-court/

The important thing to remember here is that this is not a legal trial. Indeed, the Senators are not judges in the legal sense. Nor is the real issue whether Kavanaugh is a rapist. The question is whether he is impartial enough to sit as a supreme court justice. And he is not. He has spent his career as the servant of the very, very rich and, politically, of the GOP. He also has a long history as a fervent republican and as a notorious liar for their hearings going back over many years.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/03/drums-war-are-beating-icj-ruled-us-sanctions-violate-treaty-iran-so-pompeo-just

On Nov. 11, Canadians will remember and honour those who served in our wars - though most Canadians don't even know what all those wars were. (Most stop at the two world wars.)

Worse, they have long since forgotten what we promised we were fighting for - a world of peace and cooperation and of respect for international bodies like the UN.    Britain and the U.S. threw those rules into the dumpster very soon after 1945. Trump's dumping of the International Court is just the latest example

And Canada has uncritically followed that line from the start. The Canadian interventions in Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti and Syria are examples - as is our ignoring of U.S. criminal behaviour in countries like Iran and Venezuela.

We have broken all the promises we made. We have destroyed all we said we were fighting for.  I wonder whether any of the distinguished speakers and clergy of Nov. 11 will have the integrity to mention that.

Nah....
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/04/international-court-of-justice-strikes-down-us-sanctions-against-iran/

As in the case above.... The U.S. wants a war with Iran. It  has never forgiven Iran for kicking out British and American capitalist buzzards in 1948 to take control of their own oil. Then, they imposed a brutal, murderous and plundering Shah. And those terrible Iranians had the nerve to kick him out and elect their own government.

God bless America. (It needs all the blessing it can get.)
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Here's the true story about Venezuela - the one you'll never find in most western news media - including, i'm sorry to say, the CBC.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/03/creating-a-coup-climate-the-historical-roots-of-u-s-foreign-policy-towards-venezuela/
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Though Canadian historians tend to ignore this, the U.S. has, many times, made plans to invade Canada - some of them more recent than you might think. And the events of climate change  (such as the submergence of American coastal cities like New York or the drying up of US freshwater) could well revive such plans.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-invasion-of-canada/1691
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Remember - human behaviour commonly does not change much. Guess who just loved Hitler in the 1930s.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/hitler-s-carmaker-the-inside-story-of-how-general-motors-helped-mobilize-the-third-reich/5571
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50374.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50370.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50372.htm
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2018/10/get-outside-and-save-world

But what does Suzuki know? He's only one of our leading scientists. Mr. irving studied at Acadia University for two, whole years. And we know he's concerned about us ordinary people because his newspaper tells us so.
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In Canada, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Funny how the parties in New Brunswick's recent election didn't notice that. And it's going to get much, much worse. Greed is on a big roll in our world.

http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2018/10/canadas-incredible-expanding-wealth-gap

Hey! New Brunswick's just gotta cut taxes for those rich people.
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http://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/cameco-ruling-shows-need-outlaw-tax-haven-use

I'm sure Mr. irving would never do this. And if he did, his fearless journalists would report him for it.
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Under international law, the U.S. has no right whatever to be in Syria. But when has the U.S. ever given a damn about international law?

https://theantimedia.com/us-marines-syria-join-battle/
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https://theintercept.com/2018/10/04/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation-corporate-regulations/
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article202998.html
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Now, the news  from New Brunswick which I'm sure will excite our readers in Russia, France, Ukraine.....

The irving press is bloody awful. Commonly, it can be read without any loss,   within two minutes. And it takes as long as two minutes only because I find the print on the comics page hard to read.

However, it had a fascinating column on page 1 for Oct. 3 by David Gauvin. The city has just completed building a hundred million dollar events centre. We were told it was  going to flood us with money. Now, we are learning that it costs money. Before it even opened,  the city  had to bail out its basketball team for $330,000 dollars - and it's still not going to draw fans. We are also learning that it will cost many, many thousands of our money for every show that comes - even if nobody attends.

Now, let's see -- who wanted us to spend a 100 million on an events centre? Oh, yeah. It was a member of New Brunswick's wealthiest family who happens to own the hockey team. And the local newspaper, also owned by New Brunswick's wealthiest family, was a big booster for the centre.

Then there's a big commentary by Herb Emery who has a biting column on how the province must control it's deficit spending. Maybe so. But, as usual, he doesn't mention how much of that deficit is caused by wealthy families that pay no income tax at all - and, often, very little municipal taxes. Nor does he mention that our bought governments routinely hand out very large sums from OUR money to these same families. But, of course, the irving press would never mention that..

There are 2 and 1/2 pages that are supposed to tell us all about Canada and the whole world. They never get past Canada. Nor do they say much even about Canada. And they have a column on a favourite theme of the irving press - the government spends too much money. The writer is Chris Morris who, like all irving writers, has never noticed that the wealthy pay no taxes at all.

Thursday's paper has a good headline story. "Former top judge slams NB for 'voting to abolish bilingualism.'"  Funny it never had a story on that during the election.

Then there's another column to please the rich  by what is really a propaganda house called The Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Oh, and an editorial criticizing our government spending. This one, too, has no mention of the fact that the wealthy don't pay taxes. The irving press might be lying. But it's consistent in its lies.

Canada and world is covered in a section that has just three stories. The biggest one, hold on to your hats, is that Calgary had a snowstorm.

New Brunswickers have no idea what is happening in their own province. (It certainly has no mention, for example, of scientific projections that rising water levels will make our downtown unlivable within the lifetimes of most of us.)

Outside New Brunswick? There's no mention of Americans starving the children of Yemen to death. There's no sense that the U.S. seems determined to invade Iran for no good reason, and that such an invasion would almost certainly force China and Russia to take a stance - and that would mean nuclear war. There's no mention we could find ourselves in a war with Venezuela for no good reason. Oh! And there's no mention we could find ourselves forced to supply our Great Lakes to the U.S. because of American squandering and abuse of their own clean water supply.

That's why it was easy for the Conservatives to run on a platform that was almost invisible. That's why it may be easy for the Conservatives to open up fracking in this province. That's why the Canadian People's Alliance could run a campaign with only one plank worth mentioning - forbidding glyphosate spraying. (Which it will certainly drop if it can form an alliance with one of the old parties.)

The Greens and the NDP had to run in campaigns in which the voters had no idea what was happening in the world, in Canada, or even on their own doorsteps. So both, though on the right track, perhaps, ran campaigns that were pretty wimpy.

New Brunswick is a province that is  comatose, and made so by most of its news media. Any political party that hopes to make any useful change in this province has to develop a full programme - certainly more extensive than those of the Greens and  the NDP. And it's going to have to get out and sell that programme every day until the next election. Otherwise, this province will NEVER change.

It's not just a matter of a campaign once every four years. We have a population that is deliberately kept in ignorance and daily fed on lies.  Changing that is not just a matter of winning a battle. It's a matter of winning a war.

Oct. 2: A Bad Day for News.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/canada-usmca-1.4845494

Trudeau and Freeland have to smile at the U.S. free trade deal. To be honest and admit that they were bullied into it would cost the Liberals the next election.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kitimat-lng-canada-1.4845831

Brilliant. Just what we need, more greenhouse gasses. And our taxes will be subsidizing this.
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This hasn't made most of our news media.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/trump-administration-planet-boil-refugee-camps
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Israel will soon demolish another Palestinian village. (But the story will never make New Brunswick's irving press.)

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/30/could-this-be-the-last-day-of-school-west-bank-khan-al-ahmar
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And in a related story....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/29/two-children-among-seven-people-shot-dead-by-israel-say-officials
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When Trudeau and Trump are seated together - and smiling - beware. Somebody just got shafted.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2018/10/canada-capitulates-trump-trade-renegotiated-nafta
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What is now called Canada had slaves. New France had aboriginal slaves - though this didn't work well since it was too easy for them to escape into the wilderness. So it also had Black slaves. Funny how few history books mention that. At a former convent in Montreal that overlooks a busy intersection, there is a statue in remembrance of a Black woman, a slave in New France, who was torn apart by horses.

Black slavery was common in Canada until just decades before the American civil war. And what continued was gross discrimination against Blacks. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were notorious for that. But the rest of Canada was no slacker.

Until very recently, Canadian Blacks were commonly forced to live in ghettos. They were denied all but the cheapest paying jobs. They could not even be clerks in stores. For the men, the major employer was the railway system at low, low pay. Canadian universities commonly would not accept them either as students or faculty. Churches were often segregated. I was advisor to a Canadian Film Board production - Show Girls. It was about Black women of the 1940s and 50s who worked as singers and dancers in night clubs because there was no other work for them. (On Sundays, they sang in the choir of Montreal's Black church.)

Black men were not permitted to serve on most Canadian police forces.

Famously, and well into the 1960s and later, Black men could not get haircuts in White barbershops. The is famously told  in a poem about Fredericton, New Brunswick - 'Oh city so white you will not cut a Black man's hair...."

And, though things have improved, there is lots of bigotry that remains.

http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/talking-radical-radio/2018/10/histories-anti-blackness-canada-and-todays-social
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https://www.thenation.com/article/pharmaceuticals-drugs-taxes-healthcare/

Well, why not? The very rich, in general, don't pay taxes anywhere in the western world.  Indeed, they constantly have their hands out to governments for more free money. That's why we have increasing poverty of the many accompanied by increasing wealth for the few. That's why Canadians will pick up part of the tab for a hugely expensive liquid gas operation in B.C.

And that's a system that is going to crash. Don't worry, though.

The very rich have their money safely hidden in special banks. They'll do just fine, just as they did fine in the last, great depression. I saw that as a child. And I have never forgotten the humiliation of being poor. Neither will you....
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....largely ignored in the irving press....

https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/02/everyone-washes-their-hands-as-gazas-economy-goes-into-freefall/
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/02/the-biggest-prison-on-earth-a-history-of-the-occupied-territories/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/02/regime-change-2-0-is-venezuela-next/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/01/battle-for-the-ages-priciest-us-weapon-the-f-35-just-attacked-one-of-worlds-most-primitive-fighters-the-taliban/

The US, led by its capitalists, has locked itself into an economy of throwing money at very expensive   (and often unnecessary) weapons. That's why Americans can't have medicare or decent salaries for teachers or free universities....
________________________________________________________________

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-us-military-industrial-complexs-worst-nightmare-the-deployment-of-russias-s-300-air-defense-system-in-syria-may-destroy-and-expose-the-f-35/5655682
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50349.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50355.htm
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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181002-report-israel-killed-26-palestinians-wounded-2300-in-september/
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https://www.mintpressnews.com/global-de-dollarization-spells-jolts-and-crises-for-us-economy/250111/

But don't worry. I'm sure all our wealthy masters have long since converted most of their money to gold and other safe investments.
________________________________________________________________

https://truthout.org/articles/brace-for-impact-as-the-climate-end-game-has-arrived/
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As the U.S. and parts of Canada dry up due to climate change and commercial purposes thrust on  the Great Lakes, we could soon be facing tremendous pressure to dry up the Great Lakes.

https://truthout.org/articles/can-the-great-lakes-continue-to-fend-off-an-increasingly-thirsty-world/https://truthout.org/articles/brace-for-impact-as-the-climate-end-game-has-arrived/
_____________________________________________________________

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/01/video-a-short-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections/
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Then there's New Brunswick and, for our sins, the Brunswick News which is all the daily papers of New Brunswick, all owned by one man. And the big stories of Canada and the whole world are????

Okinawa has had a gubernatorial election won  by  man who is opposed to having a U.S. military base there.  There's also a big story about changing place names in a local county. And one about hunters bagging a really big moose.

Everything YOU need to know.

 Important local news?  "Man injured by cow." In other local news  YOU need to know, a couple got married in a bowling alley, and an man in jail for a shooting was denied parole. Wow! Hold me back.

Oh, Chris Morris, who now seems to be the analyst on politics, has a large column on the election saying nothing that everybody didn't already know. And that's putting it kindly. And, course, she made a reference to the provincial deficit, again without mentioning that we have a deficit because the wealthy of this province don't pay taxes - and because we are always shovelling more of our tax money into the pockets of the very rich - who must by now be bloated.

Chris Morris was,  briefly, visiting chair of journalism at a local university. These positions are usually paid for by outside money. I wonder who paid for this one.

The people of this province don't have a clue what's going on in the world - or even on their own doorsteps. This is a newspaper designed, quite deliberately, to keep them in ignorance.

She mentions the possibility of one of the two (or both) smaller parties creating a government to join either the Liberals or the Conservatives. Come off it!

One of those parties, the People's Alliance, had, as a major stance, campaigned on eliminating French as an official language, though it is the language of a very large part of the population.

I have seen this process up close in Quebec. It is highly destructive of communities, of families, of lives. It is emotionally shattering. And, let's call it what it is. It is racist. As well, the party has no other planks that anybody could call intelligent. Any Liberal or Conservative who would court its support is beneath contempt.

So it's quite possible that both of them will court its support.

And the Greens party? I don't see how the Greens could possibly support such an environmentally destructive (and brainless) party as the Conservatives. If they did, I would lump them with the People's Alliance.

The Greens and the Liberals? Maybe. If they got some real guarantees from the Liberals. But even that wouldn't help because the Liberals - with either the Greens or the People's Alliance would still be a  minority government.

This province has a powerful class of the greedy wealthy, and it is served by a wretched press. It needs an NDP and a Greens with a much broader and stronger view than they now have. And it needs to spend far, far more time arousing the people of this province.

It also needs real newspapers.

Sept. 29: Disgusting

Almost all 'think tanks' are propaganda organizations financed by very wealthy people who produce their propaganda as if it were the result of scholarly study. Some of its 'research fellows' are actually professors who would sell their mothers as sex slaves for the right price. The local think tank in my province is Atlantic Institute of Market Studies.

These think tanks then offer their 'studies' to newspapers, often newspapers owned by the same people who own the think tanks. These newspapers then run their 'studies' as if they were legitimate scholarship. Our local Brunswick News, which has a monopoly on all print news in the province, almost daily will run this propaganda.

However, I didn't know until today that these think tanks are also used as vehicles to finance the operations of far right think tanks - not just in their own countries, but in other countries as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/28/us-groups-raise-millions-to-support-rightwing-uk-thinktanks
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What's the fuss over Kavanaugh really all about?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/29/republicans-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-dr-christine-blasey-ford
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/01/insult-to-injury-trump-global-gag-will-hit-women-traumatised-by-war
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/29/brett-kavanaugh-insidious-force-global-politics-toxic-masculinity
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For over fifty years, Israel has been stealing Palestinian land. And for some months now, Palestinians have been demonstrating, on the land that is still theirs, for a return of what  was stolen. And Israeli snipers have been killing them. Not surprisingly, the Irving press of New Brunswick hasn't noticed it.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/great-return-march-months-protests-gaza-strip-180926122828814.html
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Al Jazeera has changed its format. And it's still the most honest newspaper in the world.

https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/50-years-illegal-settlements/index.html
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This next one is long - but probably accurate on what is happening to the world.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/27/heart-dying-empire
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The case our hero Trudeau will NOT the taking to the International Court that deals with war crimes.........

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/29/us-isnt-just-backing-yemen-war-its-helping-trap-those-forced-flee
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http://rabble.ca/columnists/2018/09/bombs-not-homes-defines-trudeaus-feminist-foreign-policy
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An important story that the irving press long ago forgot about.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/29/bloody-friday-as-gaza-marks-six-months-of-protests/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/27th-straight-bloody-friday-in-gaza-israeli-forces-kill-children/5655498
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/scientific-reviews-of-glyphosates-cancer-risk-fail-to-fully-disclose-monsantos-role/5655446

In the recent provincial election, New Brunswickers voted in a large majority for the two parties in this province that are committed to forest spraying that involves exposing the wild life and the people of this province to poisons.  (The People's Alliance Party was silent on the issue, so one has to assume it, too, likes to see us get poisoned.)

The province's chief medical officer warned us against it. So she was disposed of.

Talk about a passive province! Poison us. We don't mind.
________________________________________________________________

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50327.htm
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/climate-change-trump/

Not to worry. In New Brunswick's recent elections, the two leading parties and a rising newcomer had nothing to say about it. Nor have we seen anything about this issue in our newspapers - not surprising since all our newspapers are owned by a man who makes money by encouraging climate change.
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Here's a story we will never see in the irving newspapers of this province. And we certainly won't hear about it from the irving puppets in the Conservative Party.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/09/fracking-industrys-water-nightmare.html
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It is not always a good idea to believe Netanyahu.

https://theantimedia.com/their-news/168891/
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Here's a very different analysis of Trump's provocation of laughter at his UN speech.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-proper-response-to-trumps-un-speech-isnt-laughter-its-terror/
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Sometimes I profoundly regret having committed myself to this blog. Reading the world's news every day become a terrifying, then deadening, reminder of all we have failed to do.

Capitalism has become a wild beast of greed that knows no limits, that has power beyond and over all governments. I suppose it   has been for the last 500 years or so. But it's power now is greater than ever. To follow American politics, in particular, is to be reminded constantly of the destruction of democracy.

Here, in New Brunswick, we have just had an election in which the only parties which had anything that could be called a policy on climate change were the Greens with only 3 seats, and the NDP with no seats at all.

This is crashing down on us very, very rapidly. We need the fastest possible action and, at that, it may be too late. But only a tiny percentage of voters voted for any action at all.  Of course.

They get their news from a newspaper chain whose owner makes his living out of destroying our climate. As that happens, it will destroy him, too. But  his papers routinely ignore the issue of climate change, and the rate at which it is crashing in on us. Greed and self-interest will trump brains every time.

Our fearless federal prime minister is on a crusade now to declare Venezuela a place of  criminal behaviour in its resistance to U.S. interference and aggression. Yes. The evil one is Venezuela which has never invaded anyone; and we're doing this for the U.S. which has done nothing but invade, starve, mass murder millions of people for the last 70 years.

And that U.S. is probably crashing even now as I write this. But it's real rulers still have massive killing power, and all the signs are that they intend to use it - soon.

As the curtain falls on the American empire and as climate change begins to really hurt it, watch for an American insistence that Canada be joined to it.

This is arguably the most brutal, most vicious period in history. And that is saying a lot after the horrible centuries of the British, French and Spanish empires.

For all the posturing we'll see on Nov. 11, we have betrayed everything we told our soldiers, sailors and airmen they were fighting for in World War 2 - and Afghanistan and Libya. They were really dying to make our billionaires richer.

Think of all this when you're sitting in the Irving Chapel for the sermon by a real, top class clergyman - an expensively rented Dr. of Theology no less. And think of the Christianity we all lost a long, long time ago.

Sept. 27:The Shame of Being Canadian

Sorry to be late with this. I have just learned the hard way that the old computer protection is not enough. We also need protection against something called malware which makes it easy to hack into our computers.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-joins-effort-sanction-venezuela-1.4838359

Sounds reasonable? That's because, like all bad reporting, it does not tell the whole story.

Is Venezuela a dictatorship? I don't know. But, certainly, Canadians are scarcely the ones to criticize dictatorships. Canada happily supported the US when it (twice) overthrew Guatemalan governments to install dictators.   Then Canada supported the U.S. when it overthrew the elected government of Haiti, and reinstalled a dictatorship. We even sent what we called peacekeepers to help the new dictatorship.  We had no complaints when the U.S. ruled Cuba with decades of dictatorship. We were silent when an American-backed general destroyed the democratic government of Chile. In the Korean war, we supported the brutal dictatorship (of that time) of South Korea.

But Trump now says the government of Venezuela is truly evil. It's socialist.

Hey, Donald, baby, a country is allowed to have whatever kind of economy it chooses. And remember, it was capitalists, not socialists, who  murdered way over a million people, mostly children and civilians, in  Iraq, who have invaded, murdered and plundered over seventy nations and killed tens of millions of people, mostly civilians since 1945. And whatever evil the government of Venezuela may be doing, it is not the country deliberately starving millions,  mainly children, to death in Yemen. Nor is it Venezuela that has been torturing hundreds of thousands all over the world. So, if Venezuela should face the International Criminal Court, why isn't the U.S. facing it?

Well, that's awkward because the U.S. doesn't recognize the ICC. Why not?

If you had murdered and tortured and napalmed and agent oranged and concentrated on the bombing and starvation of civilians all over the world killing tens of millions,  you might not want to recognize the ICC, either. And that's not even mentioning over 70 illegal U.S. wars in the last 70 years.

No. The U.S. which, in fact, is what created the chaos and poverty and panic in Venezuela through it's illegal sanctions. No way it wants to recognize the ICC. No. It needs a bum boy for that. Enter Justin Trudeau.

And will the virtuous Justin ask the ICC to investigate the American mass starvation of Yemen children? No. Justin is loyal to only one bum.

And just wait for act two. Will Canada commit troops to Venezuela for the U.S? Is there a deal, in that case, for the U.S. to welcome Canada in NAFTA?

Note that none of the recent newspaper reports on Venezuela have mentioned that it is the U.S., not the Venezuela government, which has created the economic crisis in Venezuela by (illegally) forbidding  trade.

Note - I am not particularly arguing this in favour of the government of Venezuela. I am pointing out the absurdity of pointing fingers at Venezuela when the U.S. is the world leader in mass murder and plundering. In that context, Trudeau's offer is cringing and gutless - and an embarrassment to all of us.

A search of the web is even worse.  It's flooded with hate-Venezuela articles. And very, very little mention of years of U.S. efforts to destroy the Venezuela economy.

Oh, and the ICC is no collection of legal angels. It has long been the court of choice for western capitalists who want to attack poor nations.

Amazingly, the irving press seems not to have covered this story at all. I don't think they have anybody who knows how to spell Venezuela.

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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-attack-in-ahvaz-prelude-to-coming-war-with-iran

Count on it. A war with Iran is pretty much a sure thing. And the cause of it is not Iran. It's American oil bosses and Saudi Arabia who are both looking for plunder.
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Capitalism has always been exploitive and destructive. But, since 1970 or so, we've watched it run out of control. No Canadian or American political party has addressed that in some fifty years. Capitalists are people. Like all people, they cannot be allowed to run free. But that's what they're doing. And, our faces hanging out, we are letting it happen. That greed we allow to run wild will, in the short run, make us increasingly poor. And, probably in the short run, will destroy economies all over the world.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/26/fight-climate-threat-and-greed-good-capitalism-corbyn-offers-radical-plan-rebuild

Trump is not a one-shot wonder. He is a product of the natural greed of capitalism.
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https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/26/one-global-finances-biggest-doctors-warns-world-economy-about-get-very-sick
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http://rabble.ca/news/2018/09/doug-ford-rolls-back-climate-policies-while-unprecedented-tornadoes-ravage-his-province

The world has quite a run of irresponsible politicians who serve the greed of the wealthy. Think Ford of Ontario, Trump of the U.S., Blaine Higgs of New Brunswick....
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New Brunswick is heavily forested. New Brunswick has suffered from global warming, exposing us to forest fires. The cities and towns and villages of New Brunswick are wooden.
Connect the dots.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2018/09/climate-change-and-corporate-greed-combine-destroy-forests
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/27/criminals-on-the-international-criminal-court/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/27/illegal-us-nuclear-weapons-handouts/
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A demoralizing but accurate look at Canada's NDP and it's left in general.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/26/a-wake-up-call-to-the-canadian-left/
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This is one reason why we don't have have much time. And why even New Brunswick can't just go on  to be dozy.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/26/an-unforeseen-climate-beast-awakens/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/glyphosate-linked-to-bee-deaths/5655254

Hey. If glyophosates were a problem, Mr. irving would have told us. I mean, he loves  us. Doesn't he?
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 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50319.htm 
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 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50315.htm  
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 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50322.htm
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 https://truthout.org/articles/brace-for-impact-as-the-climate-end-game-has-arrived/ 
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Capitalism, despite the hack columnists of the irving press, has never eased poverty. And it never will.

 https://truthout.org/articles/census-39-7-million-americans-are-poor/
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Just a quick reading of  the news is not alarming.  Lots of countries, lots of people are doing things they shouldn't be doing. But that's always been true.

So it's no big deal. Right?  Wrong.

We are in the greatest danger we have ever known.

The U.S. is a fading power. It's happening quite suddenly. For all its boasting, the U.S. mililtary performance since 1945 has been abysmal.  U.S. power is dying. As it dies, enthusiasm turns to using what power it has before it's too late. And before it's too late now means very, very soon. In fact, it could be any day now.

Will that save it?  No. At the present state of weapons development, no country on this earth would survive a world war. And that means the drift to using that weaponry is insane. (Insane is not an exaggeration. It is a reality we have to deal with in a world controlled by people who actually believe that a world war makes sense and who are actively encouraging it.)

It is an insanity combined with greed. One sign of that is the willingness to combine wars against civilians and children with world climate destruction. Very few powers - none of the major ones - have made any attempt to deal with climate threat. It is not possible that the billionaires of this world are  unaware of climate change and what it means. It is not possible they could be unaware - and if it is not possible, then it can only be that their greed has driven them insane, and beyond giving a damn for this planet and those who live on it.

(The recent election in New Brunswick shows that the insanity spreads down through all social levels. No party made any significant attempt to raise the crucial issues.)

And the young are encouraged to sign up for the military as a mark of their patriotism. What the hell is patriotic about murdering and starving millions of children to death? Indeed, what is this word 'patriotism' that we use so glibly?

If patriotism is, by definition, good, then all those who signed up to fight for Hitler's Germany - and Italy and Japan - were patriots to be highly admired. So shouldn't we have praised them? The Spaniards who murdered and looted their way through Latin America were patriots. So were the British who killed several hundred million to build their empire. Bless them. They killed out of love for their kings and queens.  So did the Canadians who killed aboriginal people in Canada, and Dutch farmers in South Africa. Then there were all those heroes who almost wiped out the native peoples, men, women and children, of the U.S.
I really wonder how the Spanish and British and Canadians and Americans could be patriotic and, at the same time, Christians.

Trump is now loudmouthing his people to show their patriotism by murdering Syrians and Venezuelans and Afghanis and Yemenis and Russians and Chinese to please American billionaires. And Justin Trudeau is showing his patriotism by offering to help Trump and his billionaires.

We are in the darkening stages of the worst crisis in known history. We need to save the planet, to save ourselves, to make life worthwhile for all of us in all countries....and we're preparing for a world war which, like all wars, will be one to benefit the very, very rich - nobody else.

No. I'm not a patriot. I don't think it's noble to kill people to make billionaires richer.

                                                                                        

Sept.25: A bad, bad, bad, bad day.

Not a good blog today. I guess I'm out of sorts because of our Mickey Mouse provincial election here in New Brunswick.
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article202998.html

This is a much bigger story than it might seem. As China's exports move into the developing world, Chinese world influence grows. It far outclasses U.S. investment even in Brazil, on the U.S. doorstep.

What we're watching is a world that has a rapidly decreasing interest in U.S. trade, particularly as it is so often accompanied by American violence. Most of Latin America can tell you about that.

In short, we are watching a rapid decline in U.S. influence and power. And how will Canada play this? And how will the U.S. react to our choice?
_________________________________________________________________

And there's this closely related story. It's more than a little misleading, though. Like all recent CBC reports on Venezuela, it has not mentioned that a) the Venezuelan government was elected in a vote certified by the UN as legitimate. b) Venezuela is suffering chaos because the U.S. (illegitimately) has been imposing severe  trade sanctions on it.

What will the U.S. do next? There is every possibility it will invade Venezuela - and that it will in a show of unanimity call on countries like Canada to join it in the killing and plundering of the Venezuelan people. And I wouldn't be surprised if Trudeau were to call it a 'peacekeeping' mission  - just like the time Canada helped the U.S. to overthrow the elected government of Haiti and impose a U.S. puppet government.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/chinese-navy-medical-vessel-arrives-venezuela-1.4835206

Would Trudeau kiss up?  Very likely. For a start, it might mean getting a NAFTA deal with the U.S.

And there's a much bigger meaning to this Venezuela crisis. China is now routinely intervening in the affairs of the American empire - just as the U.S. has been intervening in nations all over the world since 1945. But it now has a rival in China. Already, Brazil's major trading partner is China, not the U.S.

In short, we are watching the decline of the American empire. The U.S. can destroy the world. But it can't conquer it.

And don't worry about those poor American and Canadian oil billionaires. They don't have to worry about paying for all this killing because they don't pay any taxes in the first place.

So bless us for filling in for them.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-englers-blog/2018/09/does-canada-support-invasion-venezuela
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We are, increasingly, getting more vicious storms. Ontario now has had three tornados in just a few days - and the damage is very severe. It's more than time to think very seriously about our weather patterns.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/25/world-audibly-laughs-after-trump-claims-his-administration-among-most-accomplished
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It was ten years ago that (mostly) American bankers created a world crisis by their illegal crash of the U.S. economy. Nobody went to jail. None of them made up that loss. It was taxpayers who had to cover for them with trillions of dollars. And their board members, instead of jail,  got  multi-million dollar bonuses.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/24/ten-years-after-not-one-high-level-banker-sent-jail-tanking-global-economy-man-gets
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/25/understanding-1-5c-the-ipccs-forthcoming-special-report/

Don't worry about this. The important thing to remember is that the irving press of New Brunswick hasn't mentioned this. Nor have most of the politicians. So it must be perfectly safe.
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/25/this-is-a-global-problem/

Add to that the neat stunt that our billionaires don't have to pay a cent to fight their wars. They don't pay taxes. No. They take the cost of the wars out of  our taxes - and then they get all the profits out of the war.

The outstanding feature of our age is the massive greed of a small group of people. Funny nobody mentioned that in the recent New Brunswick election.
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/24/a-world-on-borrowed-time/

Don't worry. If this were true, our oil billionaires would tell us.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-projections-a-world-on-borrowed-time/5655053
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A product of climate change is destruction to water sources for agriculture. It's happening in the U.S. midwest and in parts of California. Indeed, it's happening all over the world. That means starvation. It means mass migration beyond even the levels we're seeing for the middle east. But who cares? Right?

https://www.atimes.com/article/as-indias-ganga-runs-out-of-water-a-potential-food-shortage-looms
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The news seems slow today. Actually, it may be the most dangerous we have seen since World War 2. The U.S. threatens continued interventions in the middle east - especially Syria and Iran - and in Venezuela. In the cases of Syria and Iran, Russia has committed itself not to back off. And China is showing interest in Venezuela as well as parts of the middle east.

In a more general way, the U.S. acts as though it has the right to interfere in any country - to tell them what they are allowed to buy and sell, to threaten countries when those countries buy weapons to defend themselves; in short, as though the U.S. has the power to rule the world.

We are very, very close to wars that could go nuclear, wars that nobody could win. And while this happens, we are ignoring all the danger signs of climate change. This is not just acting tough on our part. This is insane. Follow the speeches of American figures like Pompeo and Bolton. They are living models of insanity.

And as this happens, the U.S. - whose military record since 1945 is not impressive - is in serious decline, largely because of its monstrous and corrupt defence industries, and its abuse of its own people. Serious disorder in the U.S. is a sure thing. Nor is it likely to take any intelligent stance.

And Canada is next door.
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Meanwhile, my home province of New Brunswick has had a provincial election of absurdities. The Conservative party, led by a former executive for the richest man in the province, had nothing that could be called a platform except a vague statement about permitting fracking. Just what we need. And it just happens that this would exactly meet the wishes of his former boss (who, like most of the super-wealthy of this world, doesn't pay income tax, and who expects the government to had him millions more every year.)

And the won a plurality of seats. I have no idea why.

The Liberal party lost by a hair but, with the support of another party, may be able to form a government. The Liberals didn't have much in the way of a platform.  ( But the Conservatives had even less.)

So balance of power - whether for Conservatives or Liberals - will be in two parties which each scored 3 winning candidates.

The Greens party, which ran on almost nothing, cannot possibly support the Conservatives. Well, maybe. Any party that ran on nothing in the first place could, I guess, support anybody.

Then there's the People's Alliance Party. This is a painful one. I grew up and lived in a Quebec ridden with hatreds based on language  Indeed, the hatreds became a variety of racism which led to an election that put the French racists into power so they could destroy the English community.  (That's why I now live in New Brunswick instead of Quebec. I find even my occasional visits to Quebec very painful. The face of racism is always there.)

The People's Alliance Party of New Brunswick is the English equivalent of  Quebec's racism. New Brunswick had worked out a dual official language policy which is working well. The PAP will destroy that. I loathed French racists in Quebec. English racists in New Brunswick are no more attractive,

My guess is that the PAP will find it easiest to join the Conservatives who, after all, have no principles at all.

Oh, yeah. The PAP also think it's terribly important to be nice to our billionaires, and make sure they don't have to pay any nasty taxes.  (This is the line also followed by the New Brunswick newspapers who insist that making the rich richer will make us all rich. It hasn't worked for over 150 years but, what the hell,....)

No matter how this turns out, this has been a disastrous election for New Brunswick. It has no political party of any substance whatever. It has a population that votes like robots. It has dreadful news sources so it is hopelessly ignorant of what is going on. And its voters line up like sheep.

The good part?  New Brunswick elections can't get worse.

The bad part?  New Brunswick elections can't get better.
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Oh, yes. On this momentous day, our irving press has four commentaries. Three of them are from 'think-tanks', propaganda houses owned by billionaires.

Then it has a commentary on the election by Chris Morris who sees hope in the rise of two parties that elected three each. Come off it! The Greens had, at best, one point to offer. And PAP was our equivalent of Donald Trump.

The people of New Brunswick will never  have a decent government until they learn to think for themselves.