April 09:Insanity

http://rabble.ca/babble/news-rest-us/info-clearing-house-suspended

The above message MIGHT  have come from info clearing house. If so, it should return within a few days.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=373697047018228084#editor/target=post;postID=7486446237939863774;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

I'm not convinced. But we'll see.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/orphan-wells-alberta-aldp-aer-1.5089254

So the oil industry will walk out, leaving us with a giant clean-up tab?  Of course.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-fires-secret-service-chief-randolph-tex-alles-1.5089578

No government in American history has suffered the rate of drop-outs that the Trump government has. And that is very, very dangerous. It opens the door to all the crackpots in Washington, and to some dangerous decisions.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/08/wall-street-socialism-jpmorgan-jamie-dimon-bailout

You want to study welfare associations? Check out capitalists across Canada and most of the western world. They avoid many, many billions in taxes; they make us pay billions to fight the wars that benefit only them. The rob us blind. And they buy our governments.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/07/boeing-737-max-regulation-corporate-america
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editorical interruption

Many years ago when the world was young, I was going to be a Christian clergyman in one of the standard Christian churches. I'm glad it never happened. Even in those days, the Christians were  the most bloody-minded people in history. There was the British Empire - the French and Dutch and Spanish and Portuguese empires - and now the American empire - of which Canada is a colony.

When European Jews tried to flee Europe in the 1930s and 40s, it was the Christians who blocked them. Over the years, Christians have murdered in the hundreds of millions. That's a strange record for people who are supposed to believe in "Thou shalt not kill." It also throws into confusion our enthusiasm for torture. George Bush sr. not only tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians  and clergy, he  (like his murderous son) belonged to a Christian church.

Have you heard much on this from your church? No. I didn't think so

So, in that sense it may be good news  that the older family of Christian churches is  dwindling. Alas, the bad news is that rising Christian churches are  the fundamentalist ones. And these are the ones who offer the biggest support to Donald Trump.

Why are they the spreading ones?

One reason, I think, is their obsession with getting into heaven. For many, eternity in heaven is the only goal they have. And once you believe in Jesus, snap your fingers because that's all that matters. Praise the Lord. That done and you assured of a seat in the clouds, you can murder, plunder, torture, enslave all you like. Just believe that Jesus is the son of God. Then there ain't nuthin' else that you can't do. And it's those self-seeking ranks that provide much of the Trump support. (Mind you, the older ones were big on killing foreigners too.)

That's why both the U.S. and Britain have lines in their imperial songs of joy that God wants us to kill.... "God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet."
Yep. Murdering is all part of God's wonderful plan.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-lawsuit-scheer-defamation-1.5090240

At his best, Trudeau was not an impressive prime minister. Now, he is at his worst. And the only party large enough to replace him is the Conservative party which is worse, much worse, than even Trudeau has been.

Canada is in for some very bad years.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/09/two-thirds-glaciers-alps-alpine-doomed-climate-change-ice

Not to worry. The premier of Ontario says there is no climate change. And Mr. Ford has a  high -school education. So he knows things.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/07/netanyahu-vows-to-annexe-jewish-settlements-in-occupied-west-bank

It has become impossible to see what is Jewish about Israel.
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How politics really works for many of us.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/04/jason-kenney-following-well-known-authoritarian-playbook
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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/04/trudeau-has-proven-himself-feckless-scheer-scary

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It's true, of course. If the Iran elite units are terrorists, the U.S. military is terrorist - and far, far worse in its terrorism. In Yemen, for example, it has killed tens of thousands of children by starvation. It is now starving children and adults in Venezuela. It has deliberately and heavily bombed civilians all over the world, making them its major targets - as in Korea where it murdered at least 30% of the population - Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq and many, many others. Devout Christian George Bush Sr. murdered at least  200,000 Maya plus many of the priests and nuns who supported them.

Indeed, all war IS terrorism. And no country practises it more vigorously than the U.S.

Funny how the Christians of the U.S. Bible belt have never figured that out.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/08/iran-designates-us-central-command-terrorist-group-operating-middle-east
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/08/another-horrific-attack-us-backed-saudi-coalition-bombs-yemen-school-killing-mostly

The greatest ally of the U.S. in the Middle East (along with Israel.)
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/09/ratcheting-up-tension-us-designation-of-revolutionary-guards-risks-escalation/
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The rise of Hitler has always been presented to us as the rise of an evil individual. Evil he was. But individual?

Hitler and his policies were made possible by the enthusiastic support of western capitalists and the politicians they owned. Henry Ford was the most notorious and public one. To them, a Germany governed by a Hitler would keep Marxism at bay, and protect capitalism. That's why capitalists in Britain and Germany and France and the U.S. were very kind to Hitler.

The knew what they were doing. They knew, from the start, about Hitler's persecution, beating and murder of Jews. (In fact, many shared his racist hatred of Jews. That's why, at the end of the war, the victorious powers were very, very slow to help the Jews. That's why, even today, Israel does not trust it's 'friends'.)

Who were Hitler's friends and supporters? Almost all of us were.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/09/india-under-narendra-modi-a-throwback-to-the-germany-of-the-1930s-or-are-we-imagining-things/

As a footnote to the above, we have happily supported the most recent Hitlers as they have arisen in Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Brazil....
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/04/04/Big-Pharma-Billionaires/
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/04/09/Why-Has-Trudeau-Risked-So-Much-SNC-Lavalin/
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I include the next entry because I  have never had a full understanding of the issue of Brexit.

But it's clear that Britain is in a crisis worse than any in centuries. Funny thing, though. The Canadian media don't seem to give much of a damn. Nor do Canadians in general.
In the Boer War and two world wars, Canadians rallied to aid Britain. Yes. It was patriotic to do so. Those who signed up to serve the king were people of honour. Imperial patriotism was sacred.
But no more. Funny how patriotism can change - just like that (snap).
Ever since Korea, we have served the United States. England is starving? England is dying? Who cares?
Canada is now a colony of the U.S. Our patriotism now is at the disposal of Donald Trump, and only of Donald Trump. That's why we have, since 1950, served and died  in Korea, Afghanistan, and many, many small affairs such as the bombing of Libya.
Let's face reality. Patriotism should be wonderful - but it's almost always a sucker's game. Wait for the very likely announcement that we shall be serving our American masters in Venezuela.
And our love for Britain? That's history.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/09/the-crippling-of-britain-in-the-age-of-brexit/
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A-a-a-a-h.

The mystery has been cleared.  The powers in American life don't want people to read honest news media so they've been making life impossible for Information Clearing House - kicking it out to Iceland.

Update

We are very happy to be able to advise that we are making progress in reestablishing the website on servers located in Iceland. In 2010, the parliament unanimously passed the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, which mandates the establishment of robust free speech and press freedom laws, particularly for the protection of investigative journalists and outlets.

We are excited and feel more secure in knowing that these changes will go a long way to ensuring that we are able to resist future attacks and threats against our freedom of speech and distribution of information..

The concern of so may readers and members of our community regarding our service is heart warming and really appreciated.

Thanks also to Sarath in Canada who has been working behind the scenes to restore our service.

We are feeling confident that we should be back to normal in the next 24 / 48 hours. Thank you all for your good wishes and offer of assistance.

Peace and Joy - Tom Feeley

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51378.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51385.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51381.htm

Very often, there is no ideology. There is only greed.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51379.ht

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51382.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51383.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/09/features/heres-what-happens-when-energy-pipeline-company-comes-calling
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/08/news/these-daughters-vote-delegates-felt-bullied-their-peers-after-they-protested-trudeau
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Guess who's good friends with the oil companies.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/08/news/how-alberta-kept-fort-mckay-first-nation-dark-about-toxic-cloud-oilsands
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/oprah-2-million-puerto-rico-donation-lin-manuel/

Donald Trump has been very slow in offering help to Puerto Rico which was terribly ravaged by a storm. Of course, for the Trump, it's people, though technically American, are the wrong colour and the wrong language and the wrong origins. And Trump can win a lot of racist votes by refusing to help them.
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https://www.juancole.com/2019/04/electric-vehicles-gasoline.html
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://truthout.org/articles/the-militarization-of-johns-hopkins-exposes-a-nationwide-trend/
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https://truthout.org/articles/us-takes-illegal-dangerous-actions-toward-regime-change-in-venezuela/

Trump is starving millions of innocent people. He's also risking a world war 3 - whose only virtue is that there will never be a world war 4.

And this is all to satisfy the greed of a few American oil billionaires (who don't pay taxes to anybody.)
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https://truthout.org/articles/conservatives-dont-hate-socialism-they-hate-equality/

This may answer a lot of questions. It has been rare, very very rare, for any society to be made up of equals. Egypt, Rome, Greece. all European countries have been built around their leadership class. And the leadership class has always ruled purely for itself.

For hundreds of years that British have heaped wealth on a Royal Family that has shown few flashes of brains or abilities in all those centuries. And the British are bogged down in titles like sir, lord, duke, earl, none of which require any brains. But the upper levels all get to sit in the House of Lords just  as if they had normal intelligence.

The U.S. was NOT founded on equality. George Washington was probably the richest man in the country. The governments of Canada have always been open to the wishes of Canada's UNequal. They have the right to hold on to wealthy for generations,  to become corporate bosses because their fathers were. The richest man in New Brunswick has power - not because he has any great education or insights. He is up with the leadership class because he was born into it.

That's why a few are very, very rich, and millions of the rest live in poverty. That's why a few students go to very expensive private schools with small classes, and the rest of us are herded into overstuffed classrooms.

Once one has the wealth, it is carried over for generations - just like royal families. We're running short of royal families. But we're still up to our ears in brainless corporate bosses..
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205873.html
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205987.html
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Oh my!  This was a long one.

April 6: Worse

I have have had several days of computer chaos due to google interference. (Hint - in such a case, do not depend on google to be any help whatever.) Now, I'm very late in starting this blog. So it may be short.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/teacher-unions-education-protest-queens-park-1.5087734

Get used to it. We are living in  a chaotic political world. Most of it - the Liberals and Conservatives - are our enemies. The NDP is on our side - but flabby. Popular protests, like the Ontario teachers' one, protest with real anger, with a  real desire to make change is something we desperately need.

Alas, we have a voting public which is - to be kind - in profound ignorance of what is happening in the world. Most of the them will vote for our shabby Liberals and Conservatives while the world crumbles around us. I don't know why. I suspect that most of those who vote Liberal and Conservative do so because they like the sound of those words - without really having any meaning for them.

And so we are walking straight into disaster - and handing real power in our countries over to billionaires who have no social values at all, who have long since destroyed democracy, and who hide their billions from taxation.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-venezuela-sanctions-oil-companies-vessels-1.5086991

Who the hell ever gave the U.S. the right to tell other nations who they can trade with? To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. is the only country that does this - and it is always done to please American billionaires who use it to force countries to trade only with them. And what a collection of wimps we are to allow the U.S. to do this.

The west also allows the U.S. to illegally interfere in Venezuela politics - and our wimp prime minister is there kissing his master's hand.
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Oh. And all those Christian Americans who thought it a good idea to separate migrant children from there parents are prepared to keep families separated for two years. Yes. children can enjoy two years of living in wire cages.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/identifying-separated-migrant-families-may-take-two-years-us-government-says
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/06/us-mexico-immigration-climate-change-migration

The world has hundreds of millions of refugees. Most of them have been created by the greed and brutality of western powers. But the western powers have no intention of helping them. At first, the west stuffed them into wretched camps. Now they just send them back into the hell we have created.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/04/migrant-ship-storm-64-people-denied-safe-port-harbour-italy-malta

We happily kill people by the millions. But we do nothing to help them.
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/04/04/monsters-inc-they-treated-us-we-were-animals

Hey!. I'm sure Trump is just doing what Jesus would have done in the same situation. That's why the U.S. Bible belt voted for the Christ-like Trump.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/06/education-privatizers-have-gone-global-so-must-we-if-we-want-to-stop-them/
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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/04/jason-kenneys-discriminatory-and-unfair-refugee-rules-lie-ruins
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/05/analysis/shell-shows-how-big-oil-cracks-over-climate-change
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/05/news/internal-memo-reveals-public-services-assessment-harpers-end-mandate-climate
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/04/opinion/when-it-comes-environmental-laws-oil-companies-shouldnt-make-rules

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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/venezuela-crisis-children-unicef-millions-aid/

God bless America - I don't think.
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/04/06/operation-gladio-the-unholy-alliance/
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https://theantimedia.com/us-declare-iran-revolutionary-guards-terrorist-group/

So they are. All military groups are terrorists. That's true of the CIA, of the American army......
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https://truthout.org/articles/wendys-owner-gives-big-to-trump-while-refusing-farmworkers-demands/
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https://truthout.org/articles/the-irs-tried-to-take-on-the-ultrawealthy-it-didnt-go-well/
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The major purpose of American military spending is not to defend America. It's purpose is to create massive spending for the profit of the weapons industry. That's one of the reasons the U.S. can't afford a decent public school system - or heath care or adequate housing.

https://truthout.org/video/trumps-call-for-more-nato-military-spending-benefits-us-weapons-manufacturers/
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My mood is not improving.

I think of the days in 1939 when the boys in my father's scout troop came by  to say goodbye. They were off to fight against Nazism and evil - so they had been told.

In fact, the wealthy of Europe and the US had nothing against Hitler. Indeed, they supported him right up to 1939 and even later. They liked Hitler because he was their kind of guy. He was going to stop any spread of communism from Russia. He was their kinda  guy. Nor did they give a damn about Jews. In fact, they often forcibly returned Jews to the fate they knew awaited them, and they did it all through the war.

No. They liked Hitler, and chanted their minds about him only after it was apparent that Hitler's Germany would soon be an industrial and financial competitor of their own business leaders. That's why war was declared in 1939.    Indeed, at the end of the war and for three years later, our leaders refused to give any help to Jews, and would not accept them.

Hitler was evil. But that had nothing to do with why we went to war.

The end of the war was a golden opportunity to make a better world for all. But we didn't do a damn thing - not a thing of all that had been promised. Instead, U.S. big business launched itself into endless wars to steal the oil of the middle east, to attempt to steal China , to massacre 200,000 Maya people - over seventy of those wars. It launched into massive torture programmes all over the world. It still does.

The western world, certainly, was taken over by large numbers of our side of the greediest and most savage people  in history. They have made this whole world into an endless festival of mass murder, torture, impoverishment.

I thought of all those boys who had come to our house to say goodbye. Some would never come back. None of them had risked their lives so that unspeakably greedy and savage capitalists could murder, starve, enslave millions of people for all these years after the war.

Most of us have had very little of the post-war prosperity. By far the greatest winner have been the super-wealthy who will go on killing so long as we allow them to. They also put the brakes on domestic prosperity for the rest of  us.  The billions in hidden taxes, the growing national profit, all go to them. That's a big reason why our children will get worsening education - so that billionaires can take the lead. That's why the U.S. unemployment is not  the tiny number that liar Trump says it is. It's way, way higher. And Trump, like our own Doug Ford, kiss up to the rich with budget reallocations that benefit the rich and starve the poor.

Wake up. For Christ's sake, wake up. We have destroyed everything we claimed we fought for 1939. Trudeau  happily sells us out to big money. And the Liberals have been doing that for years. The Conservatives have not had a compassionate programme in their whole history. Most of our politicians have sold us out to some of this world's greediest and most socially immoral people. And we have been sent out to murder people in Korea, Afghanistan, Libya - so our billionaire thieves can steal from them, too.

In short, we are a world in which the greedy plunder and murder as they choose.  And for that, they are welcome in most political parties. The rot goes right through our governments  - and us.

And if we can't raise any social conscience, consider that allowing this to go on will destroy all of us. (It will destroy the wealthy, too. But greed beats brains every time.) 

And time is running very, very short.             

April 3: Damn. Damn everybody.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/455406-jallianwala-bagh-massacre-apologise-britain/

The Amritsar killings were pretty small by British standards. Far more, millions more, were killed by starvation. That's what empires do. That's what the American empire does.

This is in step with the old, British empire.

Land of hope and glory.
Mother of the free.
How can we extol them
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bonds be set.
God who made thee mighty
Make thee mightier yet....

This theme has been adopted byAmericans who,  like the children of  all nations, are raised on this nonsense. This anthem is profoundly racist, and blames God for the killing of lesser peoples. . (Thus the Trump support from the Bible Belt.) And the terrible thing is that a great many of the churches support this killing - if only by their silence.
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As the troops return and parade with glittering medals  from the war, there are millions left behind on the battlefields to pay the price of the war. They don't get to parade. They don't get medals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/syria-al-hol-camp-overcrowding-red-cross-humanitarian-crisis-1.5082150
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-student-walkout-protest-education-1.5084024

Class sizes should be smaller, not bigger. You cannot properly teach a class of 28. And private schools for rich kids certainly will not be following this. Note that Doug (Trump) Ford makes an accusation against the teachers and their union for which he offers not the slightest evidence.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/03/un-calls-on-white-house-to-aid-north-korea-despite-standoff
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/israel-treatment-palestinians-apartheid-south-africa
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https://www.thenation.com/article/rajan-menon-meritocracy-myth-college-admissions-scandal/

Canada is not a whole lot different. I don't think one can buy one's way into university in Canada. But the rich grown up in a much different world from the poor. It's a difference that says with almost all of the poor for life. And premier Doug Ford of Ontario has just made it worse.
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The  horror that is coming - and the horror is not migrants. The horror is us.

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-rising-unemployment-fueling-anti-migrant-sentiment-in-rich-countries

Of course, we could make room for more people by reducing Canadian working hours so we could hire more people. But our billionaires wouldn't like that. So our alternative to migration is???  Kill the migrants.

You know, it's been some seventy years since Canada generally reduced work hours. In those years, it's been great for the rich as automation has reduced their need for humans.That - and allowing the very rich to hide their money from taxes -  has been a wonderful gain - for the very, very rich. But not so hot for the rest of us.

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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2019/04/ontarios-kids-need-more-education-today-not-more-cages

Too true.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/04/historic-yemen-vote-puts-power-end-us-complicity-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis

But Trump won't end it. And the Christians of the Bible Belt will cheer this man who has the courage to starve children to death. I'm sure it's in their Bibles - somewhere.
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/04/03/j-jenius-what-about-windmills-and-oringes

The trouble is  that disposing of Trump won't solve anything. Almost all presidents of the U.S. have governed to make the rich richer at the expense of the poor.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/03/flood-comments-shows-public-utterly-repulsed-trump-plan-take-food-stamps-750000

Many, many years ago when I was a delightful child of 15 or so, my father bought our first car. And, oh,  for Montrealers a car was the magic device that made it possible to go to the U.S. on weekends - to shop in the delights of Plattsburgh and Burlington.
The U.S. was an ideal we all looked up to.
But I haven't seen the U.S. for years. And, oh, I don't ever want to see it again.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/04/arctic-permafrost-no-longer-freezes-even-in-winter/
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I don't know whether the following account is true. I do know that it's possible.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/04/the-cia-takeover-of-america-in-the-1960s-is-the-story-of-our-times/

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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/04/04/Big-Pharma-Billionaires/

Must people think pharmacare is to restore their health. But capitalists think it's to make them richer.
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John Bolton is a severely unbalanced person. He has a long history to prove it. And this is the man Trump has chosen as his foreign affairs expert.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/03/irritating-facts-about-korea-that-many-in-the-west-would-rather-not-know/
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi

I don't know the story about this. Even stranger, I  cannot find a site that has any comment on this. Nor does it say who suspended it.
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http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/898-the-destruction-of-freedom-chelsea-manning-julian-assange-and-the-corporate-media.html
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/04/opinion/canada-cant-rely-luck-protect-northern-waters
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Climate change? It would be hard to find a person more discredited on This issue than Andrew Scheer and his Conservatives.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/03/news/andrew-scheers-tories-now-say-their-climate-plan-will-come-well-election
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https://theantimedia.com/vips-urge-trump-avoid-war-venezuela/
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https://truthout.org/articles/wendys-owner-gives-big-to-trump-while-refusing-farmworkers-demands/

Hey! Trump will make them rich(er). So who gives a damn about workers?
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https://truthout.org/articles/every-war-is-a-war-against-children/
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https://theintercept.com/2019/04/03/chicago-election-results-socialism-city-council/
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205873.html
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This has been a difficult day for blogging. Information Clearing House seems to have been shot down - but there is no information anywhere on why this has happened or who is behind it.

The U.S., we are now informed, has played a major role in killing 68,000  Yemeni children in a year of starving them to death. Americans! Stand and say God bless our brave soldiers.

Who have the big killers been over the last several centuries. Hitler's Germany? That's nowhere close. The biggest killer has probably been Britain at some 350 million. I cannot find a figure for the U.S. But it has been to war in almost every year since it was created. Not many countries can match that.  It slaughtered its native peoples, then the people of The Philippines, then all of Latin America. Since 1968, it has killed some one and a half million of its own people with guns.

But the end of World War 2 sent the U.S. on binge of killing all over the world. It's record of killing is way beyond that of Hitler.

Note, too, that the big killers of the last several centuries have been Christians - the same kind that vote for Trump.

This becomes very difficult to write a blog on, especially when I know that relatively few Americans or Canadians have a clue of what's going on. They see us as defenders rather than the mass murderers we are. (Our prime minister recently had to support the U.S. absurd charge that it has the right to invade Venezuela, and steal its oil. We've been patsies for the U.S. before - Korea,  Afghanistan, Syria, Haiti,....and I very much fear we are going to be patsies again -  murdering Venezuelans to make American (and at least one Canadian) oil baron happy.

This role in the world is NOT what Canadians fought and died for in World War 2. When the hell is The Canadian Legion (our veterans association) going to wake up to that? And when is going to realize there is something contemptible about being an errand boy for the most vicious nation this world has seen since the collapse of the British Empire?

But no. Canadians will happily remain ignorant of the world,  and will go on voting for the Liberal and Conservative parties that  have been errand boys for big money since the beginning.

We fought World War 2  on the basis of the promise we were going to make this a better world. We didn't do it. We didn't even try. And we followed the U.S. on its trail to world domination, something it  has been killing millions for since 1950.

This is a bad day. And we are a lifeless, spineless people, perhaps even more so than our empire-worshipping ancestors.

April 2: very deep trouble.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/31/quebec-religious-symbol-ban-caq
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/slumping-tall-ice-cliffs-greenland-antarctic-1.5077138

Not to worry. Donald Trump and Doug Ford are in charge.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-warming-at-twice-the-global-rate-leaked-report-finds-1.5079765

This can't be true. If it were, premier Doug Ford of Ontario with his high school education would have known about it. Anyway, he won't change his mind. (He doesn't have a mind to change.)
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This next is not the same as the story above. It's worse.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/climate-change-report-1.5079886
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-disturbing-climate-change-1.5081027

Climate change is  real. It's happening. We are going to die. That part is already happening as extreme weather has been killing people all over the world. Yes. It's time to panic. Yes, it's time to listen to our leading scientists. This is an emergency. We have to act quickly - if it's not already too late.

Instead, far too many of us are listening to the stunning ignorance of an American president and the juvenile behaviour of premier Doug Ford of Ontario.
Oh, yes, and the brainless greed of our oil barons.

We have known about this for at least thirty years - and we have done almost nothing.

Yes. It is time to panic. We can't go on piddling around with this. Dealing with it is going to mean severe disruption to our lives. Not dealing it with means we won't have any lives to worry about.

I'm sorry our billionaires will lose money on this. But the billions they already have will sustain them and their privileged offspring for many generations to come.

Let this sink in. The time for talk is long, long past. We have to change the way we've been living. I'm sorry about that, of course. But the alternative for all of us is dying.

Right now, the pace - if one can call it that -  is being set by billionaires whose heads are too greedy to have room for brains or moral values. And our politicians, for the most part, are serving them and only them.

We are being destroyed. Get used to it. Or, better, don't get used to it.

Canada's Liberals and Conservative won't do a thing about it. They've proven that for thirty years. The NDP, while far more honest than those two parties, is too timid.

And the Republicans and Democrats  in the U.S.? Get real.

We have to radically change the whole way this earth operates. I don't know of any party ready to do that. It's going to require tremendous energy and determination for us to save this planet - and us.

The politicians haven't shown any significant willingness to do anything.  And our business leaders? Tell me about anything they've ever done except to make themselves richer.  And we, alas, are doing nothing significant.

How much time do we have? Nobody knows. So it's now or never.

And can anything be done in the context of capitalism? I doubt that very much. It's the leading capitalists who have blocked any action so far. No. It's going to take radical change in our thinking and behaviour to deal with this.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/31/quebec-religious-symbol-ban-caq

Quebec, both English and French, has always been profoundly racist and discriminatory. (And that makes it rather like the rest of us Canadians.)
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/white-house-security-clearance-issues-criminal-1.5080122

The American political system, even more than the Canadian one, is rotten to the core.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/andes-to-the-amazon/2019/apr/02/colombia-siona-tribe-oil-exploration-territory-putumayo

Canada's great contribution to this sort of problem was to pay for a new oil pipeline that would not begin producing for many years. So much for dealing with climate change.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/apr/02/donald-trump-golf-28-club-championships
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https://www.thenation.com/article/socialism-milwaukee-democrats-2020/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/the-best-economy-ever-isnt-working-for-working-people/

Read the Trump twitter site. He is forever congratulating himself for and economic and wage boom that hasn't happened. And his followers applaud.
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In the Canadian province of New Brunswick, voters recently clapped hands to open up the province to fracking. Not very intelligent.

https://www.thenation.com/article/amity-prosperity-eliza-griswold-book-review/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/greg-grandin-end-of-the-myth-frontier-border-wall-book-review/

When I was studying history at university, my landlord told me that history is 'lie-stories'. There's a lot of truth in that. Glorified history was used by Britain to justify the brutality of its empire. The same is true of the U.S.
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And here's the story about the greatest U.S myth.
https://www.thenation.com/article/rajan-menon-meritocracy-myth-college-admissions-scandal/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/02/sanders-brings-18-million-first-quarter-nearly-900000-donations-averaging-20
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/01/mother-earths-dubious-future/
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/04/02/Low-Zero-Carbon-Future-Survival/
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For 2000 years, Christians (and their churches) have been leaders in murder and plunder.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/02/god-and-u-s-foreign-policy-an-analysis/
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/01/americas-dirty-war-on-immigrant-children/

These children are Trump's German Jews. And the U.S. Bible belt cheers itself hoarse for the American Hitler.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51361.htm

Interesting. Canada supports the illegal actions of the U.S. The 'evil' Putin supports the rule of law.
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https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/shoot-maim-how-israel-created-generation-crutches-gaza
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51356.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51354.htm
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I've followed Robert Fisk for some years. He's an ace.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51357.htm
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How your Canadian government protects YOU.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/02/news/canadas-environment-department-didnt-think-trans-mountain-purchase-was-fossil-fuel
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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-02/china-sends-over-100-troops-venezuela-defiance-us-warnings

Most Americans will be furious at this behaviour. The U.S. is allowed to illegally invade countries and murder people by the hundreds of thousands (Guatemala). It's allowed to illegally invade and murder them by the millions (Iraq). But a China sending 100 troops to Venezuela with the the agreement of the Venezuela government? Well. That's unAmerican.
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205873.html
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This has been a demoralizing day. The truth is handed to us on a platter. We have abandoned every principle we told Americans and Canadians they were fighting for in World War Two. And, since 1950, the U.S. has almost constantly been a war with countries that have never attacked it - and most of which never could attack it.

If all of this, the U.S. has been supported by Canadian wimps. (Trudeau springs to mind.) We have sent Canadians to die in wars, illegal wars forced on nations by the U.S. (We have also given assent to the U.S. bullying of Venezuela - an assent that may well lead us to send Canadians to die there.)

Canadian big money has kissed up every step of the way.

And there's another problem we don't discuss.

The Canadian people live in a stupor of what is going on. Part of that is stupor imposed by lying news media. That lying has been a major part of the news since the invention of the modern newspaper in the late 19th century. It's made worse because most of the news media are owned by the same liars who profit from our kissing up for U.S. wars.

(Can you think of a single Canadian news outlet that raised the question of why Canadians were sent to die in Afghanistan? It didn't occur even to the Canadian Legion to ask that. No. It quite happily sent Canadians to die for American billionaires.)

But the stupor goes even further than that. In Canada as, I guess, in most countries, people are badly served by the news industry. They are largely ignorant of what is happening even in their own towns, let alone the world.

I live in Ottawa, a large city that is Canada's capital. And the newspapers are appallingly bad. It's. not just their propaganda; it's their lack of much news.Worse. One of them carries an insert from a Toronto paper, The National Post, which is quite possibly the most intellectually corrupt newspaper in Canada. When I lived in New Brunswick, it got its news from newspapers all owned  AND CONTROLLED by the billionaire Irving oil family. And, oh, those papers are stinkers.

But it's worse than that.

Americans and Canadians - and people in other countries, I guess - know nothing whatever about the politics they vote for. It is so severe, I don't see how it's possible ever to have an intelligent voting population.

The reality is that we get our news from people who invent enemies so that we can kill those enemies for them - and thus help them to loot those countries.

Our politicians are both lightweight and dishonest. Certainly, those in our Conservative and Liberal parties serve the rich who pay their election costs. And the very rich, with few exceptions, are the last people who have any interest in human needs.

And in all of this, as our world crashes, we are spending money on wars and contracts that benefit only the very, very rich.

Damn!

A fond reminder that Christians might think about. Canada once did have a political party that based itself on Christian principles. It didn't force itself on non-Christians, and it didn't discriminate on them. (When you come right down to it, Christian principles are very similar to Jewish and Muslim, etc. principles. You don't have to be a Christian to believe that the hungry should be fed and the hurt cared for.)

That was the C.C.F. party (Canadian Cooperative Federation). It's the party that gave us medicare, and forced it on the reluctant Liberals and Conservatives. Alas! It could survive because very rich people don't give money to any party that want's to waste it on people - unless they're very rich people.

So, to get union support, the CCF became the NDP - a better party than the Liberals or Conservatives - but not as Christian, Jewish or Muslim as the CCF.

Oh, and Christians - while you're at it, find those passages in The Bible which advise Capitalism.

March 30: a bad, bad, day.

News about Venezuela remains pretty fragile. Consider - U.S. billionaires (with Canadian billionaire hangers-on) see Latin Americans as their very own cheap labour. That's  what all empires do. Like all empires, it also keeps Latin America as a very cheap source of resources - as in oil and mining and agriculture. And, like all empires, it has been murdering and torturing Latin Americans from the start - well over a hundred years ago and in numbers I have never seen - but which must go far, far beyond a few hundred thousand.    (If you include the theft of California and Texas from Mexico, that makes it more like 180 years ago.)

So why and how aren't we hearing about what's  happening? Putin has thrown down one hell of a challenge to the U.S. And Putin, unlike Trump, is not a man who acts rashly. And Trump,  who almost always acts rashly, is amazingly quiet about Venezuela. (We get far, far more from him about the Mexican border.)

What is it Putin hopes to achieve? (He doesn't need Venezuela oil.)  Why is China showing interest? Is this the first step of a wider plan to weaken the American hold on it's empire? (That seems a much more dangerous goal than a Putin would plan. The U.S. does that sort of thing all the time - as in Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and 80 or so other countries around the world. But that has never been Putin's style.) So what's the game plan? And why aren't our news media asking the obvious questions?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/30/who-is-paying-for-monsantos-crimes-we-are

I lived in a province in which the local oil and forest baron sprayed his forest with Roundup. And when the provincial medical officer warned about this, she was simply disposed of. And so far as I know, the spraying is still going on and, since the  the province's oil baron and forest owner has never shown any interest in dealing with this, it will go on a lot more.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/30/brazil-bolsonaro-regime-military-dictatorship

Bolsonaro is president of Mexico, a thorough fascist, and a man much admired by Donald Trump. And many, perhaps most, American presidents have loved the Boner's of this world. So much for the American love of democracy.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study

When I was fifteen or so, I read Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples. I was captivated by his beautiful sense of the English language.
Later, I would learn he was a vicious and murderous racist. And much of his 'History' was a   glorification of racism.
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Trump is not the only one who thinks that migrants are evil. Europe, in general, seems to support the idea of those fleeing murder, rape, torture being sent back to their homelands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/27/rescued-migrants-hijack-merchant-ship-off-libya
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https://www.thetelegram.com/opinion/columnists/gwynne-dyer-conquest-is-always-an-option-296184/
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-ukraine-presidential-election-no-laughing-matter
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https://www.thenation.com/article/retirement-crisis-insecurity-inequality/

I suspect that a study of Canada would show similar results. But it's not possible to do much about it. Let's get real.

The very wealthy refuse to pay income tax. And when you're very wealthy, that means a loss to the country of huge sums to billionaires. It's the same story we meet when we deal with public education. That has been run on the very cheap from the start.

We face tremendous social demands.  But the world of greed isn't going to pay a cent. And that is going to lead to one hell of a crisis. In the U.S., it's made worse by absurd overspending  on 'defence' - which really means for offence that benefits the rich - who won't pay for it.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/30/huge-victory-our-oceans-trump-effort-open-arctic-oil-and-gas-drilling-ruled-illegal
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/30/israeli-forces-kill-17-year-old-live-fire-40000-palestinians-mark-great-march-return

Some people are critical of Jews because they are racists.  That was the case in Germany - and over much of the world in the 1940s. But today you don't need to be a racist to criticize Israel. Israel is now the racist state. And, for a great many Jews, Israel is not the society they cheered for in 1948.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/30/imperialisms-threats-overwhelm-situation-venezuela-roundup-10/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/30/trump-threatens-war-if-russia-protects-venezuela/

Our news media have seen fit not to deal with this. But it's possible. And it has implications I'd rather not think about.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/30/our-precious-land/
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https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/03/29/JWR-Cassandra-of-Government/

At first, I thought the Liberals could survive this. Now, I'm not sure It's handling of the matter has not been intelligent.
(The Tyee is almost all about Canada - and within that framework, it is excellent.)
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/29/russiagate-a-trump-boosting-triumph-of-diversion-and-inauthentic-opposition/
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Here's more news on Venezuela than our news media have been giving us.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51343.htm

Unlike Trump, Putin is not one to push an impossible goal. So how come the Russians are taking a hard line?
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51347.htm
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I really don't know what to think of this article - though I would certainly agree with parts of it - especially the collapse of Britain, and the role of Canada as a colony of the American empire. I would also disagree with some parts. In particular, I thought the idea of British desire for it was what caused the American civil war is just silly.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40585.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/28/news/doug-ford-government-appoints-tory-climate-denier-board-overseeing-ontarios

What can I say, Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, is a lout who just loves looking into mirrors.

Here is a man who refuses to listen to most of the world's top scientists who say we're into a climate change crisis. Doug Ford's reaction has been to dismiss everything they say. He has,  in fact, increased the threat of climate change, and put a man in charge of ignoring it - a man as ignorant as  he is.

Doug Ford, who airily dismisses all the the world's scientists, is a man   with barely more than a high school education (high school plus job training. That's it.)  And he has no training whatever in science.  Think hard....what does this tell us about Conservative voters in Ontario?
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And here is just one sample of how our news media twist the news.

https://theantimedia.com/massive-protests-across-yemen/
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https://geopoliticsalert.com/us-weapons-syria-militants

This should not surprise us. We've known almost from the start  (though our news media never told us) that the U.S. was supplying weapons and money to the people it commonly called 'terrorists'.
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https://truthout.org/articles/lawyers-worldwide-urge-international-court-investigate-israeli-crimes/

These lawyers don't seem to be anti-semites. (If they are, then a lot of my friends who are devout Jews are also anti-semites.)
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https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-2020-budget-rewards-the-wealthiest-individuals/
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https://truthout.org/articles/every-war-is-a-war-against-children/

So much for Trump's constant bragging about American soldiers as 'heroes'.
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The American empire will not last forever, of course. They've all died. They've been doing it for thousands of years. Commonly, like the British Empire, it can become a satellite of the new empire - whatever that might be. And it can happen quickly. Britain went from world power to American puppet  in less than ten years. And Canada, in light of a collapsed Britain, gave up on the British Empire to become an American puppet too. Serving the King was all the rage in 1939. but that become a dead letter very shortly after the war.  (That's why Trudeau very quickly supported the  illegal behaviour of the U.S. in Venezuela. That's why Canada contributed troops to fight American wars in Korea and  Afghanistan. That's why it has had scattered units protecting American interests - as it did with Haiti.)

Canada fought a war in South Africa for Britain - a war that had nothing to do with Canada, and which had no possible justification. That was the old story of being suckered in to fight wars for one's master. The call it 'patriotism'.

I would even argue that Canada had no reason to join World War One. That was Britain's war. It had nothing to do with us. Nor is true that Britain would have done the same for us. In fact, the U.S. threatened Canada with war in 1904 - and Britain absolutely refused to help Canada - even diplomatically. But then 1914 came - and it was all God Save the King.

But now the British Empire is gone. And what Trudeau and his like say is God Save the American president. Canadians died fighting wars for Britain, and now for the U.S. And Canadian business leaders now push Canadian governments to fight wars for the same reason as Canada fought in the boer war - the desire of business leaders (not to fight themselves  - oh no) but to kiss up to American business so they can get a piece of the profits.

We have honoured none of the promises we made to the Canadian people in 1945. The Canadian Legion should have realized this a long time ago. But it didn't and it won't. That's because it is managed by governments and by its leaders to play up a false  patriotism and ignore realities.

So it is in 2019 that the west is still plundering regions like Africa for business profit - all of which goes to billionaires who don't pay taxes. We are killing others and damaging ourselves to create profits for billionaires. And we are doing this in a world in which both sides  have thousands of nuclear missiles.

This is not what Canadians fought and sacrificed and died for in 1939.

And -

Our business leaders seem to have no sense of human survival as they pursue profits with no interest in the consequences. Almost every war in history has been fought to make big money for the already rich. And the rich have never given the slightest sense that this is in any way a problem.

We now live in a world  that can be destroyed within minutes by massive stocks of nuclear weapons. (Yes. We would use them. That's why we have them.) Add to that the fact that our very wealthy are ignoring  climate change because dealing with it might hurt their profits. Thus a Donald Trump and a Doug Ford and a wimpy Trudeau are seriously prepared to end the life of this planet.

We have a ruling class interested only in its own greed, and with no sense of the future.
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March 28: A lesson in capitalism

https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/10-of-the-Most-Lethal-CIA-Interventions-in-Latin-America-20160608-0031.html

To understand all this, it might help to look at the British Empire in India and China. Why did the British go to all the trouble of conquering those countries? Was it to modernize them? To bring democracy?

Well, no.

The first reason was to steal whatever resources those countries had.   India, for example, had a thriving cotton industry. It also had enormous agricultural resources. British capitalists wanted ownership of all that so they could profit from the sales.

The British also wanted control over the salaries of the Indians and the Chinese so that British capitalists could make all the profits. And that meant the Indians and the Chinese had to be made poor, desperately poor so  that they would work for very, very low salaries.

And, in a move that blended poverty for the Chinese and huge profits for the British, it forced China to accept the opium industry. (Well, British capitalists also impoverished the British people. After all, industries in Britain wanted cheap, cheap labour, so even as wealth poured into Britain, most of the British people had to live in some of the worst slums of Europe, and the survive without education or health care.

A necessary device of capitalism is enforced poverty. The wealthy depend on that poverty to sustain low costs of production. And so the British Empire was all about spreading poverty and stealing resources.

The British Empire was also about racism. After all, the wealthy had to justify their behaviour to themselves. And that meant that British imperialists had utter contempt for the people they enslaved, abused and plundered. Winston Churchill made no secret of his racism - to the extent of allowing over a million of his colonials to died of starvation when most could have been saved.

(Indeed, that racism is still alive and healthy after all these years. the next topic in today's blog deals with racism in today's Europe. And Donald Trump's treatment of Latins and his exploitation of American hatred of them is another sample.)

Latin America is the U.S.  equivalent of the British Empire. It's people must be impoverished so that American capitalists can pay them on the very, very cheap. And there must be no money wasted on frills like education and health care. And U.S. capitalists (and Canadian ones)  must have full and cheap access to the oil of Venezuela. In this case, one of the capitalists might be a Canadian, Mr. Irving of Irving oil, headquartered in New Brunswick, and pretty much the owner of the people of New Brunswick.

This holds true throughout Latin America. This explains the hatred  of American politicians for Cuba. It explains why the CIA murdered 200,000 Maya men, women and children whose crime was that they wanted to control their own country, Guatemala. The CIA also murdered priests,  missionaries and nuns who supported the Maya. It explains why the U.S. supported a murderous dictator for some fifteen years in Chile.

Indeed, the CIA is constantly at work throughout Latin America for assassinations, and the very widespread use of torture. Gotta keep the world safe for billionaires.

Much of the above was never reported in our news media - particularly the murder of 200,000 Maya. Of course not (though Canada's National Film Board had the courage to make a film about a Canadian missionary who was murdered. He was buried  in his home province of New Brunswick - but even the New Brunswick news media didn't give enough of a damn to report it.  Of course not. The New Brunswick News Media are owned by Mr. Irving of Irving Oil.)

Here's a list of U.S. "interventions" in Latin America. Isn't it awful the way those Latin Americas pick on the U.S.?

Or maybe Trump should build a fence to keep Americans out of Latin America.

The current U.S. anger at Venezuela is because Venezuela has the nerve to want to control its own oil fields. It also wants to spoil its people by improving education and (gasp!) incomes.

It's true that Maduro is not a great leader. (I could say the same of a great many U.S. presidents). But that is no business of the U.S. Does Venezuela want to bring in some socialist measures? That is the business of Venezuela. Indeed, Canadians should start looking behind them. Canada has medicare. That's socialist. American politicians are already showing alarm at this spoiling of the Canadian people. Take this seriously.  U.S. billionaires will not tolerate Canadian defiance of its

Prime Minister Trudeau has already supported the American attacks on Venezuela. Of course. When Trump pulls his pants down and bends over, our Liberals and Conservatives rush to give a big, fat kiss.

We are living in dangerous times as those who control the U.S. are determined to accept only their rule of low pay. And Canada, like any other country, is here for the plundering.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/27/rescued-migrants-hijack-merchant-ship-off-libya

The western world, which has created the misery of millions of those forced to become migrants, is also profoundly racist.
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80 years ago, Britain ruled the waves. It now seems likely that there won't be a Britain at all.

http://gwynnedyer.com/2019/the-brexit-border-backstop/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/28/verdict-monsanto-found-liable-mans-cancer-ordered-pay-80-million-damages

Oh, that's not fair. In New Brunswick, Mr. Irving who also owns Irving oil, has been spraying the province for ages. The provincial medical officer warned against it. But just to prove how honest he is, Mr. Irving got rid of her.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/28/imperialist-intervention-heightens-tension-venezuela-roundup-8/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/27/yemen-an-anniversary-lost-in-the-sands-of-war/

God bless America.
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https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/03/23/Trudeau-Must-Go-Says-Martyn-Brown/

And where are these good politicians going to come from?
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51342.htm

Would Canada play a role in an invasion of Venezuela?

Yes. We have fallen that far.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51339.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51338.htm

The U.S. will break the law by killing Assange or by imprisoning him. It  has to. He told the truth.
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http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2019/03/what-drives-conservative-urge-wreck-public-health-care
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http://www.catholicteachers.ca/News-Events/News/Releases/Increasing-Class-Sizes-A-Blow-To-Student-Learning

I was six years a teacher in elementary and high school. Then lots more years as a university teacher. Dare I say I know more about  education than premier Ford of Ontario was?

He's the most destructive premier this province has ever seen.
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http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/radio-book-lounge/2019/03/end-ice-elegy-planet

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Ontario premier Ford is a type we're seeing to much of lightly. He serves the rich, abuses the poor - and makes it clear he finds all this amusing.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/cathy-crowes-blog/2019/03/twitter-truth-torontos-homeless-emergency
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/27/news/ford-government-increasing-energy-bills-and-pollution-says-watchdog-final-report

I have just moved to Ontario - and it's distressing to live in a province that has such a foolish premier.  This man is really a lout with a quite unjustified love of himself. But the Conservative party chose him as its leader...there's a warning in that.
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The U.S. stage-managed overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine in order to put in an anti-Russia government has thrown up a large number of Nazis - the real thing - complete with Nazi symbols, Sieg Heil salutes.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/25/three-neo-nazis-lead-ukraines-presidential-contest/
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https://theantimedia.com/un-security-council-golan-heights-decision/

And the security council is right. No country has the the right to give away some other country's territory.
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https://theantimedia.com/massive-protests-across-yemen/

Hey, come on! Somebody has to kill all those babies. Our major news media have reported little of this because what they report is heavy on propaganda. There's no propaganda value in a report of the U.S. killing babies. Similarly, when the U.S. has an enemy it is described as vicious, murderous - arabs are 'terrorists'. The government of Venezuela is described as evil. So it is. But the U.S. is a hell of a lot more evil than the leaders of Venezuela.
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What we are watching in the U.S. - and in much of Canada such as Ontario and New Brunswick - is a massive shift of wealth to the already very, very wealthy. And they aren't even hiding it.

https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-2020-budget-rewards-the-wealthiest-individuals/
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https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-budget-would-deny-food-to-400000-children-and-pregnant-people/

The carnival of greed - whose greatest supporters are in what Americans call 'The Bible Belt'.
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If true - good news for people who are not good news for the rest of us.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article205782.html

I'm not sure at all that there is a  winning strategy for either side. And I see  no sign of a winning strategy that would be a winner for most of us.
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March 26:not a good day

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lisa-thompson-metro-morning-class-sizes-1.5069114

I have taught at the elementary and high school levels. I have taught oversized (more than  30 students) classes. To suggest these are more effective in any way is idiocy. But it is a good way  to fire teachers and cut school budgets.

I grew up and went to school in a very poor district. It was a district in which nobody finished high school. (I was kicked out in grade eleven. And that made me the big success story of my district.) One of the great problems, perhaps the greatest, facing schools is the failure rate of kids who live in poverty. They aren't stupid. But they grow up in an atmosphere that encourages ignorance. That is the challenge facing our schools. And we won't meet it with larger classes. Indeed, we need a serious rethinking of education and how to deal with this problem that blights the lives of millions of children - and which deprives Canada of intellectually skilled people.

Instead of educated children, we get spoiled louts like premier Ford of Ontario who wants to cut education budgets so he can lower taxes on those poor rich people.

I often spoke at private schools for rich kids. I noted that their class sizes were small. I guess rich kids don't need to be resilient.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-ottawa-gun-control-pressure-1.5070589

We are living in a far more violent world - even here at home. And it's going to get a lot worse as much of the world destabilizes - providing a breeding ground for hate-killings. The only possible use for semi-automatic rifles is for killing gatherings of people in, say, mosques - or churches - or theatres....

There is not the slightest possibility that the U.S. will ban personal weapons.  What will Canada do? I am not optimistic.
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I am surprised by the meager news coming out of Venezuela. When I heard of the Russian landing of troops,  I took me hours to track down stories about it. I wondered how this could be. Russian troops had landed - with a supply of missiles - in the heart of the American empire. Our news media didn't think this was important?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/26/venezuela-call-for-calm-amid-blackouts-and-anti-maduro-protests

This opens the possibility of a Russian clash with the U.S. - though I suspect the U.S. will not be eager for that.

Another possibility is that it means a permanent Russian presence in Venezuela with full control of one of the world's biggest oil fields - and with American oil barons sitting outside and looking on. Indeed, a permanent Russian presence in Venezuela could mean a widening Russian influence in a Latin America which has every reason to hate the U.S. for mass murder, starvation wages, and more than century of American abuse.

So how come we aren't getting more news coverage?
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Oh, some years ago when I was teaching in The Netherlands, I saw this statue.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/26/manneken-pis-statue-no-longer-peeing-water-down-drain

I was shocked, shocked I tell you...
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/24/mueller-report-trump-collusion-corruption-congress-democrats
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What is populism? It's the political exploitation or our fears. It's a technique that has no answers to problems,  but which pulls in the voters by playing on their hatreds. Thus the Mexico border wall.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503423&objectid=12168595
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Populism.

https://www.thenation.com/article/dilley-texas-immigration-detention/
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Who woulda thunk it from The Washington Post!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/it-is-long-past-time-for-a-national-reckoning-with-the-catastrophic-costs-of-endless-war/2019/03/25/0dd548d2-4f22-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e7644a530caf
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/25/simple-laws-economics-doom-remaining-us-coal-plants-solar-and-wind-are-now-cheaper
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/25/akin-tripwire-russian-troops-venezuela-complicate-us-regime-change-plans

This is one of the few articles I have found that deals with the possible meanings of the Russian intervention in Venezuela.
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/26/venezuela-resisting-roundup-7/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/26/la-rinconada-the-devils-paradise/
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https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/26/hope-for-ukrainians-at-last/
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Sometimes, normal speech becomes impossible.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51328.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51313.htm

As in the British Empire before it, the American Imperalists believe that God intends them to rule the world. Thus the strong support for Trump in the U.S. Bible Belt.

The British woke up to reality soon after 1939. But the U.S., bolstered by its religiously fundamentalist murderers,  still has tremendous destructive power. And  it  has recently been increasing that power at enormous cost. But that comes with an enormous deficit of some 27 trillion dollars. So the big bang can't be delayed much longer.
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http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/898-the-destruction-of-freedom-chelsea-manning-julian-assange-and-the-corporate-media.html
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/26/news/lobbied-22-times-trudeau-government-proposes-let-alton-gas-dump-saltwater
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/25/news/conservatives-embrace-populism-rage-trudeau-talk-separation-annual-gathering

Canada's Donald Trump. Wanna swap?
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/24/news/exxons-climate-denial-set-face-first-public-scrutiny-legal-woes-mount
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/21/news/oil-and-gas-majors-have-spent-1-billion-undermining-climate-action-2015-report-says

Who woulda thought it?
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/doomsday-vault-seeds-climate-change/
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https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/24/three-days-of-infamy/
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https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-budget-would-deny-food-to-400000-children-and-pregnant-people/
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As soon as I have time, I'm going to see if it's possible to create a graph of Christian support for Trump. My guess is that it's made up largely of fundamentalist  evangelicals whose only religious interest is getting themselves into heaven. I have often noticed that such people don't give much of a damn of Christian principles of behaviour.  You just get  yourself into heaven, and the hell with the rest.