Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Nov. 6: It really doesn't matter.

There is, it seems, something worse than climate change. And we may have only two years to deal with it. (But it can't be all that important. Our local Moncton Times and Transcript hasn't mentioned it.)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-biodiversity-loss-or-we-could-face-our-own-extinction-warns-un
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Prince Charles has a long record of making inappropriate speeches. But this time he's bang on. We need to take a good luck at ourselves and our ancestors before we criticize other nations.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/05/prince-charles-says-britains-part-in-transatlantic-slave-trade-was-atrocity#img-1
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As an example of the above, the western powers have been making life in Congo a hell for 150 years with no sign of slowing down.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/06/doctor-fear-of-armed-attack-ebola-patients-congo-drc
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Today's diet of U.S. election news.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/america-minority-rule-voter-suppression-gerrymandering-supreme-court

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/the-american-civil-war-didnt-end-and-trump-is-a-confederate-president

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/06/midterm-elections-trump-pathologies

Mind you, I'm not at all  convinced that most of the Democrats are any better.And that puts Canada in a terrible position with it's long, long border on the U.S. As climate change continues to severely damage parts of the US while making parts of Canada more reliable, watch for Trump or his successors to demand Canadian unification with the U.S. And watch for American billionaires to pull down their pants so Canadian billionaires can kiss their bums.
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http://rabble.ca/news/2018/11/us-mid-term-election-has-been-story-bigotry-and-fear

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Most Canadians probably have never heard of the United Conservative Party. They're the lucky ones.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2018/11/son-rich-farmer-outrage-fails-trump-embarrassing-questions
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Think Canada needs a Donald Trump party? It has one. It even has 7,000 or so followers in New Brunswick.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2018/11/what-proud-movement-and-how-could-it-influence-upcoming

Well, why not? Eastern Germany had gone Nazi. So we can, too.
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Yes, despite Mr. Trump's boasting there is tremendous poverty in the U.S. (and in Canada), and it's growing.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/05/evidence-pours-poverty-getting-much-worse-america
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Julian Assange told the world the truth about American murder, torture, starvation. (Luckily for us delicate souls in New Brunswick, our newspapers have never told us about this.) So now he has spent years holed up in a room of an embassy in London. But the God Bless America forces are after  him.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/03/live-assange-emergency-meeting/
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Expect nothing, no matter who wins the U.S. election.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/democratic-candidates-praise-trumps-attacks-on-immigrants-as-troops-arrive-at-the-border/5659051
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Our local press has had nothing to say about Brazil's election of a very far right fascist president. Nor has it ever had much to say about the far right in Israel. So here's an item that might be a catchup.

https://theantimedia.com/brazil-president-elect-bolsonaro-sons-idf-mossad-shirts/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50560.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50562.htm
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And some very good news (but our local press didn't carry this, either.)

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ozone-layer-is-recovering/
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God bless America. Real good!

https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-uses-banned-white-phosphorus-bombs-in-syrian-city-for-the-fourth-time-in-two-months/251537/

(Lady la-di-dah, who recently honoured Moncton with a visit, is closing down the site above because it doesn't deliver honest knews - like the Moncton Times and Transcript do. She's the one responsible for closing down these sites on Facebook, and for deciding for us what we're allowed to read.)
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-ivanka/china-grants-more-trademark-approvals-for-ivanka-trump-firm-including-voting-machines-idUSKCN1NB0TL

It must be nice to  have a career and a hobby at the same time.
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https://theantimedia.com/sanctions-iran-global-power-shift/
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Our local press didn't mention this story, either. So we won't even think about it.

https://truthout.org/articles/new-un-report-warns-of-impending-catastrophe-as-world-warms-glaciers-melt/

Hey. If this were a real problem, our oil bosses would tell us.
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article203382.html
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https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/russia-deploys-new-cruise-missiles-to-mediterranean-off-syrian-coast-1.6619453
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https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/second-republican-campaign-depicts-jewish-opponent-clutching-dollar-bills-1.6631238
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And the newspapers in New Brunswick? What's to say? For breakfast I  had four pieces of bacon. I finished the paper before I finished the bacon.

Who do I hope will win the election? I don't think it makes any difference. The U.S. has been an aggressor state since it was founded. It's whole history has been one of aggression, mass murder and theft. It's hard to find a single year in its whole history when the the U.S. has not been killing somebody. And, in modern history, that's been true of both  parties.

The day after the election, the whole world will still be threatened by the U.S. no matter who wins. Both parties have been killers and thieves bought by big money. That's not going to change. Both parties obey what big business tells them. And that's not going to change.

In the near future, I think it likely that the U.S. will be applying pressure on Canada to help fight its many wars. And I think big money in Canada will support that.

But don't worry. Just read the papers of Brunswick News,  and you won't even know it's happening. Then Canadians will die fighting wars to make American billionaires richer just as in the Boer War when Canadians died fighting for billionaire brits in South Africa.
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Saturday, November 3, 2018

Nov. 3: There'll be blue birds over.....

...The white cliffs of Dover.
Tomorrow just you wait and see.
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow when the world is free....


This child can still hear the magnificent voice of Vera Lynn as she sang that to our soldiers in world war 2.

As November 11 approaches, think of those words. I'll come back to them on that day.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-midterms-race-border-1.4888533
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Here's a story that the newspapers of New Brunswick have almost entirely ignored. And hiding a tragedy of this scale is what's called fake news.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-yemen-famine-1.4889673
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-biodiversity-loss-or-we-could-face-our-own-extinction-warns-un

Not to worry. New Brunswick's new premier will handle this. He's going to develop fracking - and call it biodiversity.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/nov/03/caravan-migrants-crosses-river-guatemala-mexico-video-report

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/migrant-caravan-mexico-journey-illness-exhaustion-danger

Aren't they disgusting? Perverts, all of them. But Trump will stop them with thousands of Christian soldiers. Onward Christian soldiers.

For American readers and those in Europe, you will already know about this. But I include it because here in New Brunswick, our monopoly newspapers cover only important foreign news - like Loose Pig Recaptured Down the Road.

For Christ's sake (seriously), I wonder how the hell our churches can ignore the horror these people are suffering from, largely as a result of the behaviour of U.S. corporations in their country? And how can it be that it's the bedrock Christians of the U.S. who cheer for Trump in this brutality?
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Among America's most insane Christians in Trump's national security advisor John Bolton. He hates Cuba because it is not a democracy (neatly forgetting that Cuba was thirty years under the vicious dictatorship of the U.S. and its thugs.)
He also heaps praise on the new Brazil president, neatly forgetting that he is the most vicious nazi since Hitler. But he hates Venezuela because it is a democracy.

Given his position, Bolton is probably the most dangerous man in the world. He wants nuclear war. He wants it very, very much....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/01/trump-admin-bolsonaro-praise-john-bolton-troika-tyranny-latin-america

Tell us, all you Christian churches, do you think nuclear war is a good idea? Or are you just too gutless to criticize it?
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Here's the man Bolton and Trump both admire.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/bolsonaro-and-the-rise-of-the-far-right
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Christian Britain, whose capitalist wars along with those of the U.S., and other western countries, have created tens of millions of refugees, have in the past two years, accepted twenty unaccompanied child refugees. Isn't that sweet?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/03/uk-admits-only-20-unaccompanied-child-refugees-in-two-years

And isn't it just wonderful about Meghan and what's-his-name?
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Our Brunswick New did not, of course, have this story.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/02/landslide-189-2-un-vote-international-community-once-again-rebukes-us-cuba-embargo
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/02/praising-openly-fascist-bolsonaro-minded-john-bolton-hails-brazilian-strongman
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Here's a picture of the migrants that brave and Christian American troops are prepared to shoot at. Why are they migrants?

That's largely because American capitalists teamed with corrupt politicians have plundered their countries and made survival impossible.

(Will a local church, the Irving Chapel, named after a local oil billionaire and owned by the family, have a sermon on this topic? Not bloody likely.)

https://www.thenation.com/article/refugee-caravan-honduras-mexico/

The other churches won't have a sermon on this, either.
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Julian Assange told the truth about American behaviour around the world. That's why he has, for many years, been confined to a room in the Ecuador embassy in London. Now, the U.S. wants him for telling the truth - and the government of Ecuador has been caving in.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/02/new-threats-to-julian-assange-consortium-news-to-broadcast-emergency-meeting-live-on-saturday/
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/11/03/julian-assange-modern-day-political-prisoner/
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Again, a topic that has been of no interest to Brunswick News.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/warehousing-immigrant-children-in-the-texas-desert/5658821
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50553.htm

Onward Christian solders....
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50557.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50550.htm

We're so lucky here in New Brunswick. We have a new premier who is a man of the people, a simple lad who has spent much of his life as a humble senior executive of the richest man in the province.....

....a man of the people, that's what he is.....
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It's not the fault of our oil barons and their control of the Alberta oilfields.

I mean, okay, they didn't do something over 260 billion dollars worth of maintenance they were supposed to do. No. And so now we common folk have to pick up the tab. Hey! They're busy, you know. They have families and friends....


https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/02/analysis/damage-control-albertas-oilpatch-watchdog-nonsensical

Funny thing. The New Brunswick newspapers, all owned by an oil baron, haven't carried this story. Well, in fairness, they needed the space for a really big story. A local burglar was caught when police found his fingerprints on a TV set. Wow!
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https://truthout.org/articles/how-capitalism-stokes-the-far-right-and-climate-catastrophe/
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Facebook is the outfit that is ousting social media (like this) from its site because it says they're fake news. (They leave the big commercial media alone because they have such high standards of telling the truth and only the truth. Yeah.

However, there is one social media site that facebook approves of - one that encourages race hatred. Hey! We can't trust people who don't look like us.

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/02/facebook-ads-white-supremacy-pittsburgh-shooting/
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article203725.html
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https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/melania-trump-cairo-hotel-bill_us_5bdbbb91e4b01ffb1d00bc8e
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Normally, I would use this space for the press of New Brunswick and, perhaps, to comment on the NB election. But what's the point? The press of New Brunswick is trivia. The election? We now have another loyal servant of the irvings as premier.

No. There's nothing here worth talking about except possibly, New Brunswickers are going to suffer the worst government they have ever seen.

So let's go back to the new world we were creating in 1945.

In fact, it was really the old one. Almost all wars in human history have been caused by greed. That's why Athens and Sparta and Egypt and Rome conquered. They plundered, took over land, enslaved nations....

When Columbus landed in America, he did the same thing. He murdered on a wide scale, stole gold, murdered whole societies, enslaved people. And he was followed by the British, the French, the Dutch all of whom killed hundreds of millions, impoverished whole nations and, just like the older empires, all the profits went to a ruling class of the very rich.

When I was fourteen or so, I was given the gift of a multi-volume history of England by Winston Churchill. I was captivated by the romance of it all. Oh, that man really knew how to write.

Alas! I later studied history - and learned what a ruthless bastard and liar he was.

His England was the creation of vicious warriors who murdered and plundered all over the world, killing some 350 million people at least. And the leading ones warred strictly for themselves, also plundering the English people that they ruled.

Eventually, they were replaced by a new ruling class made up of people who made a lot of money. These were called capitalists, and  they were as scavenging  and murderous as the warriors had been - though they usually left the fighting to others. Like the warrior class, though, they commonly were and still are born into their exalted status. Donald Trump and his offspring are samples of the type.

Almost every war has been fought for that ruling class. That's why the British murdered there way to an empire. That's why the native peoples of the Americas were slaughtered That's why the Napoleonic wars were fought. That's why Congo has been a misery of murder and torture and starvation (at the hands of Christians) for a hundred and twenty years.

That's what World War One was about. And that's why Canada, with other nations, sent troops to try to stop a Russian revolution that was a revolution against greed, poverty, hunger and abuse.

That's why World War Two was fought. (Oh, I know Hitler was evil. But the real rulers of Britain and France and the U.S. and Canada actually admired him. They opted for war in 1939 not because Hitler was evil - and certainly not because they gave a damn for his slaughter of Jews. No. They went to war because  they feared German capitalists would Challenge British, American, and Canadian ones.

Churchill, though not titled, was born into Britain's ruling class. And that was all he cared for. He couldn't care less for the needs of the English people - and they knew it. That's why they voted him out in 1945. They knew they'd never get decent salaries or medical care with Churchill in charge.

But, tough luck for Churchill, it was American capitalists who won that war. They deliberately undermined the British economy, particularly in cutting themselves into control of the British oil industry. Then, American capitalists set out to make the whole world an American empire.

That's what the Korean war was about. It was to give the U.S. a springboard for an attack China. That explains the 70 plus wars the US has fought since 1945. In not a single case was a war fought to protect the U.S. (In fact, nobody was in a position to attack it.) Since 1945, the U.S. has killed tens of millions of civilians by bombing, by burning alive, by deliberately starving, by poisoning......

It has destroyed any democracy in Latin American that got in its way. It has impoverished that whole continent to make American capitalists (like Donald Trump) unspeakably rich. It has destroyed essential social needs like health care. It has destroyed public education - the system that was to give opportunity to millions who are not rich. It rouses the nation to anger at the very idea that people should expect more than 12 or 13 dollars an hour - while insisting on annual salaries for the rich of millions and even a billion - with no income tax.

We are, in all seriousness. in a period of the worst greed and insanity this world has ever seen. It's most pronounced in the U.S. - but evident in many countries.

Couple all that with the statement of Frank McKenna in Ottawa that we should change our political system so that government will be by the very, very rich. And they will, of course, have no controls or limitations on them.

Be scared. Be very scared.



Thursday, November 1, 2018

Niv, 1 A bad, bad, bad, bad day.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/31/five-countries-hold-70-of-worlds-last-wildernesses-map-reveals

One of those countries is Brazil. but its Amazon rain forest has been declared as a target for the new, very fascist, ruler of Brazil. As well, the U.S. oil industry is seriously looking at Alaska.

_https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/the-guardian-view-on-brazils-new-president-a-global-danger
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/neo-nazi-eastern-chemnitz-germany-saxony

Nazism is back - in Germany, in Brazil, in the U.S...and quite possibly in Canada. (Watch Ontario and Quebec for this.)
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/01/straight-racist-incitement-trump-campaign-ads-warn-critics-easily-mistaken-neo-nazi
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Despite all the years of big talk, Canada has done virtually nothing to solve the problems it has created for its native peoples.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/indigenous-nationhood/2018/10/political-storm-brewing-saskatchewan-further-risks

Remember the recent and much ballyhooed 'apology' to them? Very nice. But an apology followed by nothing is no help.
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I don't agree with the following article. It wants to keep Steve Bannon, an American, far right fascist, out of Canada. (He has been invited here for a debate. Some debate. His opponent is a Canadian, David Frum, now resident in the U.S., who was raised to have utter contempt for anybody who was not born very, very rich like him.)

No, I don't at all agree with either of these people.But if I banned them, I would be acting just like them.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2018/10/justin-trudeau-should-pick-phone-and-have-steve-bannon-stopped
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Lac Megantic - perhaps the greatest railway tragedy in Canadian history -happened against a background of greed and neglect involving the railway and Irving oil, owner of its cargo.

But the New Brunswick newspapers never reported that part of it. Not long after, the railway company and Irving were involved in another 'accident' of  greed and neglect. But the irving-owned press has largely ignored that one, too..

http://www.rabble.ca/news/2018/11/lac-m%C3%A9gantic-rail-disaster-eve-destruction

Will the irving newspapers carry a review of this book about the Lac Megantic disaster?  Not bloody likely.
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/11/01/saudi-crimes-khashoggi-murder-yemeni-genocide-complicity-in-us-imposed-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/31/in-the-wake-of-deadly-attack-on-synagogue-in-pittsburg-paamerican-muslim-groups-express-solidarity-with-the-jewish-community/
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I found  the next one unpleasant to read - but true.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/01/the-new-global-tinderbox-its-not-your-mothers-cold-war/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50531.htm
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https://thesaker.is/russia-will-decide-the-fate-of-syria-without-america/

For all its spending and for all its size and the size of its armed forces, the U.S. has been remarkably unsuccessful militarily  (and against much weaker opponents) for seventy years. And it is now facing the loss of its middle east empire to to Russia, China, and to the local population.

This is a situation most unlikely to get better.
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https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/netanyahu-asked-trump-to-stick-with-saudi-crown-prince-after-khashoggi-murder-1.6615049
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This story just in. I had though today's news was slow. How wrong I was.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/01/trump-admin-bolsonaro-praise-john-bolton-troika-tyranny-latin-america

Yes. The new hero of  the American government is the closest thing to Hitler the  Americas have ever seen.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-venezuela-cuba-nicaragua-1.4887859

Now, Saudi Arabians are good guys to Mr. Bolton. And, anyway, the U.S. has the right to enter any country and tell it how to run itself.
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And the Moncton Times and Transcript has its own John Bolton in the form of editorial commentator Norbert Cunningham. I don't believe I have ever seen a commentary as contemptible as this one. It is, quite seriously, a demand for the overthrow of democracy. And no, I am not exaggerating.

It was two or three days ago that a former New Brunswick premier, now a shill for the extreme right wing Bilderberg Group, proposed an end to democracy in New Brunswick. No. I am not exaggerating. That is exactly what he said. He stated that democracy does not work, that elected politicians are a failed idea.

Frank McKenna proposed (gushed) that democratic government should be done away with, and that the province should be run by the very wealthy New Brunswickers, whether they now live in New Brunswick or in other provinces. McKenna gushed and Norbert Cunningham slobbered.

I have never seen such a statement in any democracy in the world since the origins of the free press some 140 years ago. This is a statement Hitler could have made. And Norbert Cunningham has made it just days before November 11 when we remember the thousands of Canadians who served and died in defence of democracy.

Yeah. Democracy no damn good. Politicians stupid. People stupid. Now, get a man who runs an international string of fast food stores. That's the kind of person you want to run a province.

Norbert, you twit...for a start....politicians DON'T run this province. They rarely have. From the start this has been a province run by big business. That's why the wealthy of New Brunswick don't pay taxes. Those are left for us suckers.

The Liberals and the Conservatives have both been run  by big money from the start. Surely, Norbert, even you must have noticed that. (Well, maybe not.) And whenever the wealthy hold their hands our for more big money, it's our money they take. The idea that the wealthy create jobs and wealth is a crock.

Well, they do create wealth for themselves, but for the rest of us, the wealthy cost us money. We have to let them escape taxes. (and guess who has to make that up with bigger tax bills.)  We have to pay them to come here. We have to give them handouts. The biggest scroungers in this province are not the people who live on the streets. The biggest scroungers by far are the irvings and all their friends.

Norbert, medicare was not brought to us by the wealthy. Nor was public education. That's why in the U.S., where the super wealthy REALLY rule, the education system is a mess, and millions can't even get medical care of any kind.

As well, Norbert, as you should know but seem not to, there was a time of government by the very, very wealthy. It was called the middle ages - and the very wealthy were called lords and dukes and earls, title they got from being born to lords and dukes and earls - just as so many of our wealthy were born that way.. And they stuffed their own bellies while starving everybody else.

Norbert, intellectually and morally, your column of today is beneath contempt.
Try to detach yourself from whatever rear end you are kissing.

And speaking of kissing, the cartoonist has yet another cartoon attacking  N.B.'s premier. Nothing wrong with attacking a politician. But this has been the only one he has attacked for months. And the cartoons are always vague in meaning. The Conservative leader gets no attacks despite a platform that is both vague and threatening. Guess who mr. irving wants to win the election.

Local news in today's Moncton Times and Transcript is, as always, trivial. And the ONLY item in world news is another speech by Trump. The U.S. is following policies in Europe, the middle east, and Latin America that are almost certain to lead to nuclear war - soon. Among them are very dangerous war games near the Russian border which are, and which are intended to be, threatening. And the U.S. is moving up much of its nuclear arsenal to Europe. The US navy is constantly interfering in Chinese waters.

Can you imagine how the U.S. would react if that were done in Mexico or the Caribbean? We are very close to the final act for our civilization. But don't worry about it. Just read the Moncton Times and Transcript and you won't worry about anything.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50556.htm
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Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Oct. 30: It's not my fault. I just report on the news.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/29/end-game-how-australian-preppers-are-bugging-out-and-hunkering-down
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/national-yukon-glaciers-climate-change-kaskawulsh-1.4873035

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/living-plant-wwf-2018-1.4882819

Stories like the above - and worse ones like the very little time we have to deal with climate change - explain why I think New Brunswickers are suicidally slow in dealing with political issues.

In New Brunswick, it's considered radical to demand improvement to  the ambulance service. Yes, it's true greater efforts should be made. Yes, it's true we need better service to save lives           - but for Pete's sake---

Within 10 years we start dying of climate change. We have already lost the greater part of our wildlife. We face the final disaster.....soon....

And people think the most important thing to do is to improve ambulance services?

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___https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/caravan-mexico-federal-troops-trump-1.4882821

And what will America's heroic fighting men do when migrants try to cross the border? Will they open fire on all those unarmed adults and children? Will they break up families and put the children in wire cages again? That's what Trump is willing to do. Read his twitter page. He's spreading what is almost certainly a lie - that these helpless people come with middle east terrorists among them...yeah... to kill Americans in their beds, yeah.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/merkel-future-cdu-party-1.4882101

Yes. This is important for all of  us. Angela Merkel is an intelligent and honest politician. But the populists and destroyers of democracy are on the march all over the western world. She's quitting because Germany    - like most of Europe and the U.S. - and bits of Canada - and Brazil are going down to the demagogues.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/donald-trumps-rhetoric-has-stoked-antisemitism-and-hatred-experts-warn
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/jair-bolsonaro-denies-he-is-a-fascist-brazilian-churchill

Trump has just endorsed the new president of Brazil as a wonderful man. We are descending into a very, very dangerous world.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/28/rising-antisemitism-worldwide-boils-over-at-pittsburgh-synagogue

Let us be clear about this. I will freely admit to a dislike of the government of Israel. This has nothing do with anti-semitism. ALL governments must be open to criticism of their behaviour. And, indeed, I think the behaviour of Israel as a nation-state is  not only contemptible but a betrayal of Judaic teaching.

However the attack on the Pittsburg synagogue has nothing to do with the Judaic faith. It's an attack based on racial hatred.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/election-of-jair-bolsonaro-in-brazil-threatens-the-planet

But Donald Trump says he's a great guy.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/29/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-trump-rightwing-axis
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And here's an opinion you will never find in Brunswick News.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/30/climate-change-action-effective-ipcc-report-fossil-fuels
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/29/we-wish-respond-evil-good-muslims-raise-over-120000-48-hours-victims-anti-semitic
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And unpleasant reality.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2018/10/foreign-policy-failure-dogs-justin-trudeau-canada-continues-submitting-us
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The man who revealed the crimes committed by the U.S. as torture, mass murder, has paid the price of living in solitary for it. Now, it looks as though he will be handed over to the U.S. government.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/30/julian-assange-warns-that-ecuador-is-moving-to-end-his-political-asylum/
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/30/on-marches-military-murderous-and-mighty/
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/class-war-conservatism-and-resistance-to-the-doug-ford-tories-in-ontario/5658435
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/ottawa-doubles-down-on-double-standards-canadas-15-billion-armaments-deal-with-the-saudis/5658325
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-holds-thousands-of-syrian-refugees-hostage-establishes-military-bases-in-northern-syria/5658316

Another story that hasn't made our local news. At  what point does war become evil? Or is it just evil when the other side does it?
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50516.htm

Gee. The U.S. would never use chemical weapons. Those are evil. Well,  not always. They  must have been good in Vietnam or the U.S. would never have used them. No.
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Another report you will never see in the New Brunswick press.\\

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50517.htm

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Just recently the U.S. has made dangerous moves to create a world, nuclear war. We are now very, very close. Our news media have largely ignored the story. So here's Putin on it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50523.htm
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There are some Canadian politicians I find it hard to report on because they're so ---Donald Trumpish.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/10/29/news/scott-moe-and-doug-ford-take-turns-complaining-about-federal-climate-action
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In all the wars of world history, it is quite possible that the most evil and vicious have been those fought by the U.S. throughout its history, from the massacres of native peoples to the unreported horrors of Yemen.

https://off-guardian.org/2018/10/29/the-us-led-genocide-and-destruction-of-yemen/

Trump calls them brave lads, national heroes.... damn right. If it weren't for U.S. bombing and blockading, all those starving Yemen children would now be flooding the U.S. to murder God-fearing Americans in their beds.
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The Anti-media site appears to have been effectively destroyed by Miss Lah-di-dah, formerly of New Brunswick.
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https://truthout.org/articles/how-capitalism-stokes-the-far-right-and-climate-catastrophe/
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article203672.html
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I include this next item only so you will remember to pay no attention to it.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/10/30/canadian-universities-us-news-best-global-universities-list_a_23576061/?utm_hp_ref=ca-homepage

Universities get top listings based mainly on things  that are meaningless to most students. A university has a professor who has a big name for publishing? Big deal. I'm known a few of  these. They are arrogant, posturing braggarts who understand nothing about teaching. So what use is that to students?

Universities that are big and have buckets of money (and arrogance) get great reuputations.  But often their 'great works' prove to be of little value. I think of one  I know who swaggers, and can make it sound brilliant when he orders a cup of coffee. He actually encourages students to pat him on the back and tell him how brilliant he is. Really!

I knew several who spent their lectures bragging to their students, and one who (seriously) told all the girls they would fall in love with him. When I first took a job at the university, he, without telling me, ordered his book for the bookstore as required reading for my course.

Universities are full of posturing, arrogance....Pay no attention to it.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/midterms-marred-violence-experts-point-finger-trump-181030150744871.html
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The front page of the Moncton Times and Transcript for Oct. 30 has a most astonishing - and dismaying - story. Frank McKenna, a former premier of New Brunswick, called a meeting of New Brunswick born big business leaders now living in Ontario. Also there in their usual role as kissups were New Brunswick's university presidents. The theme of their meeting was that democracy does not work. It's time for big business to step in and take over running the province.

Yep. Time to scrap democracy. Voters and their politicians have to be scrapped, and let big business take over. (I'm not exaggerating any of this.)

Big business will solve our problems? But it's big business that has been running this province from the start. It has owned the politicians from the start. Big business is what has been bleeding this province dry for well over a century. Big business leaders are the ones who don't pay taxes. They are the ones who receive massive payouts from governments. They are the ones who have resisted dealing with climate change and low salaries.

And Frank McKenna has been big business'  bumboy. He is a member of the Bilderburg group,  a propaganda house for the very, very wealthy who believe that all democracy is wrong. The rich should be our lords and masters. It's a formula that has made McKenna a very rich man over the years.

And why were the university presidents there? That's because the wealthy took control of the universities a long time ago. The university presidents are just errand runners for the wealthy.

This is the most disgusting newspaper item I have ever seen. But Brunswick News presents it as triumph and glory. And editorial comment on it? There isn't any. And we're not likely to see any unless it's an editorial in praise of the wealthy who live off our labour, our low salaries, and their theft of our money.

We are watching the destruction of democracy - and the irving press will be a cheerleader for its destruction.
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Sunday, October 28, 2018

Oct. 28: After the disaster - to several more disasters

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/franklin-d-roosevelt-speaks-of-four-freedoms

As November 11 approaches, it's important to remember what we told Canadians they were fighting and dying for in World War Two. And Freedom of Speech was top of the list. Yes, we were fighting for the freedom to read and to think and to say what we thought was true.

In that context, the Oct. 27 issue of the Moncton Times and Transcript featured the most disgusting news story I have ever seen. It's on page A8.  It's about Tessa Lyons who lived, for a time, in New Brunswick. But her mother is a Canadian diplomat, so Tessa has lived around the world. She attended the very, very ritzy Ashbury College in Ottawa, the one that caters to rich kids that aren't smart. She graduated from Harvard with a BA in that delightfully vague area called Social Studies. And she went to work for Facebook where, at now the age of 29, she is something called a Project Manager.

Ah, yes. This is a golden child. And what does she do at Facebook? She decides what she thinks people should be allowed to read.  In particular, she slashes out social media which she says are not honest.

Yes. She decides what is honest in  news media and what she will allow us to read.

She doesn't censor our commercial media (like the ghastly Brunswick News, and virtually all the commercial news media.) No. The assumption is that they are good and honest. Yes.

But in her view social media people like me - and especially the really big ones like The Canadian Observer or Rabble.ca or Information Clearing House - are liars, Yes, they are. She brands it all as fake news. And she should know. I mean, her mummy is a diplomat and travels all over. And Tessa went to Harvard. So she knows things. And now she decides what us common people are allowed to read. And she feels that we are dishonest or too stupid to understand these things. I mean, she's 29. So she knows things. And the social media, the ones who transmit their writings through Facebook, are liars. Yes, they are. But being sophisticated like she is, she calls it Fake News. So her job is to  kick them out of Facebook.

Among those being kicked out are world scholars like Noam Chomsky, David Suzuki, and award winning journalists like Seymour Hersh,

Now, commercial news media don't need this kind of checking. No. They always tell the truth..... Tessa Lyons studied at Harvard, but it wasn't History or Journalism because anybody who has ever studied either of those knows  that our modern commercial news media, from the start,  were liars and propagandists. They invented fake news.

The modern commercial news media, which date to 1870 or so, were and are owned by very wealthy people who use them to generate propaganda for their business interests. The Montreal Gazette was typical of the sort. When Britain invaded South Africa to murder the Dutch settlers and steal their gold mines, the Montreal Gazette was a cheerleader that urged Canadians to go kill for the Queen. Of course. Wealthy Montrealers were then heavily dependent on British business leaders so we sent Canadians to die there just as more recent Gazettes encouraged Canadians to kill and die in Afghanistan and Libya to please our American masters.

Almost all of the commercial news media in the world distribute fake news in that way.  The Brunswick News is pretty openly a propaganda house for its owner.

But a 29 year old woman knows better than all the scholars who have studied this subject. And, though she offers no  evidence of training or experience in the field, she can tell that Brunswick News is honest. Indeed, she offers no evidence of training or experience as a journalist. Lady, I had a full time job as a university teacher for forty years. And in my spare time for those years, I was on radio several times a day, frequently on TV, and wrote hundreds of newspaper columns. I have a  Ph.D. in history.  Tell us your experience and education, lady.

 (She offers a section of 10 tips on how to spot fake news. Most of them are quite useless. It's obvious she knows nothing about journalism.)

I read some commercial news. The best that I know of in the English language is Israeli's Haaretz. The Guardian, though not what it was a generation ago, is still pretty good. CBC is pretty good - but it sometimes has to lie. And that's about it.

Why did the Brunswick News run this absurd story? That's because it runs fake news all the time - so it really wants all the social media out of the way.

Tessa Lyons - lah di dah world traveller and graduate of Harvard with a BA, no less, in social studies,  is here to tell us what we're allowed to read. This arrogance is precisely the kind of thought control that George Orwell warned us about in "1984". And, as journalism, this story is low even for the Brunswick News gutter.

What is she really about? On this day when we should be thinking about why Canadians died in World War Two, and freedom of speech means, she is here to impose a thought control that Hitler would have envied.  Yes, this woman with a well-connected mother (which may be what got her this job), this woman who knows nothing of journalism, this woman who has obvious contempt for us peasants, is here with her la-di dah ways,  here to tell us what we're allowed to read.

Get stuffed, lady.

And American readers, look out. She now lives in the U.S., and is doing the same  destructive work there because the U.S., too, has commercial news media as destructive and lying as our own Brunswick News.

This is a lying news story. It's a smug and destructive story. And it's one hell of a warning of what kind of a world we are being set up for.
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Another victim for Tessa Lyons.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/24/facebook-censorship-of-alternative-media-just-the-beginning-warns-top-neocon-insider/

We were told we were fighting for The Four Freedoms. But, obviously, we were lied to.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-canada-1.4878263

Here's the sort of thing the "honest" Brunswick News doesn't want us to read.
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Under the law, migrants have a right to flee terrible conditions and to enter another country with a request for citizenship. But Trump is sending troops. There is no limit to how tragic this could be.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/the-guardian-view-on-the-migrant-convoy-a-heroic-journey
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https://www.thenation.com/article/pittsburgh-shooting-result-trump-nationalism/
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Canada and the U.S. have been on a steady drift to increasing poverty for most people combined with increasing wealth for a tiny number. Editorials in the irving press commonly support this.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/27/premier-ford-driving-race-bottom-ontarios-lowest-paid-workers
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/26/while-rest-world-burned-billionaires-made-more-money-2017-any-other-year-history

I expect a Tessa Lyons would see this as 'fake news'.
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https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/27/khashoggi-versus-50000-slaughtered-yemeni-children/
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At last. Russian capitalists have something in common with Canadian and American capitalists - unlimited greed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50501.htm
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...and greed and stupidity go hand in hand.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50502.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/10/23/news/trudeau-vows-give-money-back-ontario-residents-through-climate-plan

One of the provinces to benefit from this is New Brunswick where people will get tax rebates. But the Moncton Times and Transcript editorial attacking this effort to deal with climate change (Oct. 27) doesn't mention this aspect. Indeed, it reports as if Ottawa were stealing from us. I guess that means that our oil barons don't like the plan.
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/10/22/news/trudeau-impose-climate-change-policies-provinces-have-not-shown-leadership

Hey. Not to worry We might have a dozen years before climate change becomes irreversible. Relax. Enjoy. Go for a drive.
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https://off-guardian.org/2018/10/27/desperate-west-bashing-russia-china-left-and-right-literally/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXv6igtW3c
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/business/facebook-blocks-nyt-yemen.html

Three cheers for Tessa Lyons who protects us from yucky-poo pictures.

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https://www.rt.com/news/442407-russia-war-preparation-inf/

Of course Russia is preparing for war. The U.S. is conducting war games near Russian borders though Russia, to the best of my knowledge is not conducting war games on American borders. And the U.S. is the one that just broke the nuclear weapons treaty.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/412928-middle-class-is-disappearing-in-california-as-wealth-gap-grows

This can hardly be a surprise. It's happening all over North America as our new aristocracy shovel all the money into their pockets.
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https://truthout.org/video/israeli-human-rights-group-slams-countrys-new-zero-tolerance-policy-at-un/

Do not assume that the government of Israel in any way represents the Judaic faith.
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Yes.We have allowed billionaires to take over the western world. They own our commercial news media. They have busy little servants like Tessa Lyons to make sure that we don't learn too much about the power and greed - and starvation and murder - they represent..

https://truthout.org/articles/billionaires-made-more-money-in-2017-than-any-other-year-in-history/

We all pay a heavy price for that. And it's going to get a hell of a lot heavier.
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There's nothing amusing about Trump. He is cast from exactly the same mold as Hitler. And what we are learning - or should be learning - is that a great many Americans - and Canadians - want a Hitler.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/here-is-a-list-of-far-right-attackers-trump-inspired-cesar-sayoc-wasnt-the-first-and-wont-be-the-last/

And Hitler, incidentally, also got massive financial support from the very wealthy, the ones that Tessa Lyons tells us we should obey.
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This next story is a long one. But it's revealing about things we were never told.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/trump-inf-treaty-cuban-missile-crisis-nuclear-war/
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Democracy in America.

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/27/voter-suppression-georgia-election/
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The end of the nuclear arms deal - from the other side.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article203651.html
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https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/trump-migrant-caravan-climate-change_us_5bd3374ee4b0d38b5882f000
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https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/trump-world-series-tweet_us_5bd58f45e4b0d38b58845e5b

There has always been a pronounced streak of anti-semitism in Canada and the U.S. I do not mean that we criticize Israel out of anti-semitism. As a nation, Israel has to take responsibility - and blame - for its own behaviour.

But the attack on a synagogue and the mass murder of those in attendance has nothing to do with Israel. This is an expression purely of hatred and  hatred for all Jews simply because they are Jews. This was not an  attack on Jews for any reason - except for them being Jews. The danger of  this is always present - but many times more so in a U.S. which has become obsessed with hatreds. The resemblance to Nazi Germany is not a coincidence.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/bolsonaro-set-win-bitterly-divided-brazil-polls-open-181028054940476.html

Our Brunswick News hasn't said much about the elections in Brazil. But Brazil is a very large country  with perhaps the world's largest rain forest. And yes, the survival of that forest is a major factor in dealing with climate control.

The leading candidate in the election is an admitted believer in murder, torture, all sorts of violence, with an open contempt for democracy - all of which is why Trump does not ever criticize him. He also is ambitious to invite capitalists to enter Brazil to develop (destroy) the rain forest and its people. It will be interesting to see how many American and Canadian billionaires show interest in this. Of course, though, we aren't likely to hear much about it from our commercial news media.
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Saturday, October 27, 2018

Oct. 27: A new, gutter low.


I have just spent almost four hours writing my blog. And it disappeared! I have no idea why. This has happened a couple of times before but this time was worse because I had the whole damn thing typed.

I shall start again his evening. the disappearances seem to happen when my left hand brushes against something at the lower, left-hand corner of the keyboard.

Or maybe I'll just shoot myself instead.

graeme decarie

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Oct. 25: very, very dangerous times.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/25/trump-insults-bombs-targets-democrats

The world has had great dangers over thousands of  years. But - and I'm quite serious - nothing so dangerous as the rule of Trump.

He has built his presidency on hatred - hatred of Latin Americans, hatred of Democrats, hatred of Muslims. And this empowered millions of Americans, especially Christian ones, to howl for the blood of all those people Trump castigates. He calls them to return to the days of America's glory. Yes.  And what were those days?

Were they days of mass murder of indigenous people? Of the mass slaughter of civilians and children in Hiroshima and Nagasake? Were they the days of invasions and plundering of just about every country in Latin America. The mass murder and torture of The Phillipines followed by decades of American dictators and puppets. Should Canadians cheer for the American gallant invasions of Canada?

We are watching a U.S. run out of control with no limit to how destructive it might become.
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Our irving press in New Brunswick hasn't noticed what's going on in Brazil - or most of the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/25/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-democracy-rights
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/justin-trudeau-saudi-arabia-canada-armored-vehicles-deal

Hey! A deal is a deal. Right?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/25/saudi-regime-mohammed-bin-salman-global-network-enablers

The irving press is very big on these  phony "think tanks". It frequently runs their 'research' on its commentary page. No honest editor would run that crap.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/25/anti-war-voices-applaud-must-read-sanders-op-ed-demanding-end-us-complicity-yemen
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/roundup-for-breakfast-monsantos-weed-killer-found-in-all-kids-cereals-sampled/5658032

Isn't it nice how Mr. irving looks after us by spraying New Brunswick? This province once had a medical officer who warned us about this because it is poisoning us. So she was dumped. And neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have done a thing about it. (Let me know how your children liked their breakfast.)
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The following story is 3 years old, But it counts as news because it has never made our leading, commercial news media.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

And even 20 million is an underestimate because the U.S. has fought a lot more than 37 wars  since 1945.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50491.htm

Oh, isn't that nice. They gave him a burial.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2018/10/are-governments-giving-global-warming

But what does Suzuki know? He's only a scientist with, probably, 8 or so years of university study and a lifetime of research. But Mr. irving did two years of a BA at Acadia. So there!
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http://rabble.ca/news/2018/10/beyond-climate-interview-david-suzuki-filmmaker-ian-mauro
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/24/wow-wow-wow-huge-news-new-york-sues-exxonmobil-defrauding-investors-hiding-climate

Figure a New Brunswick gov't would do something like that to irving ltd.? nah.
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https://theantimedia.com/facebook-purge-alternative-media/
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article203626.html

With only one page for world news, the irving press had no  room for this story. But it's kind of important. It hugely increases the risk of a nuclear war in Europe that would almost certainly be a world war.
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The great feature of our local Moncton Times and Transcript is that it can be read in two or three minutes.

News of the whole world is one page with two of the bomb stories from the U.S. The nuclear militarization of Europe? No. Who cares? The mass murder by starvation in Yemen? No. The continued and criminal abuse of Palestine by Israel? Yawn.  American threats to China and Russia? The reason that migrants are trying to flee Latin America? The U.S. continuing to occupy and attack in Syria? The NATO war exercises near Russia? The Canadian troops who are stationed near Russia? The tens of millions of refugees we have helped to create?

Nope.Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope and Nope.

The big, local news - front page - is that the People's Alliance Party feels the biggest political issue in new Brunswick is the need for more paramedics. So it will bring down the Liberals by supporting the Conservatives - who also want fracking which, apparently, is more important than  dealing with climate change or poisoning by spraying our forests. And of course it's more important than dealing with the power of the irvings who own this province and most of its politicians - and it's only newspapers. And, of course, the People's Alliance feel that more paramedics are the answer to all our problems. So they'll support the Conservatives who are very good friends and that nice mr. irving.

Moncton and climate change? There's not a word about it in the paper. Well, perhaps in a sort of backward way. The editorial writer feels the great issue of today's world is the carbon tax. Yep. Gotta get rid of that. mr. irving doesn't like it.

That, of course, will help the conservatives to get elected. Then there's a commentary by the president of Canadians for affordable energy - a propaganda front if I ever saw one. That, too, will help the conservatives and the oil industry. Yep. They feel the big issue here isn't climate change. No. The big issue is keeping up gas sales. The paper has consistently followed that theme. And I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that the man who owns our oil industry also owns the newspaper - and the Conservatives.

Then there's another commentary by another propaganda house - the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Yes, it's view is that the government shouldn't do much of anything. No. It should let private business do everything. Damn right. Privatize the schools. Privatize medicare. Privatize the hospitals. Then, like the U.S. we'll have a dysfunctional school system, and a population that lives five years less than it does now.

I have yet to see an article in this paper that supports governments of this country doing anything but handing out billions as gifts to billionaires - and forgiving them any need to pay income tax or property tax. And, in this election year, the newspapers owned by our billionaires have been journalistic pimps for them.

Wake up, New Brunswick. The middle ages are over in most of the world.

And, yes. I feel scared by today's news about what's happening in our world, and who's doing it.