a double-header for the tandt at its intellectual and ethical worst

Thursday, Oct. 14. Remember it as the day The Moncton Times and Transcript hit new lows as a propaganda sheet. Bless you, Norrbert Cunningham. Your owners will love you.

But let's start with the editorial. It foams at the mouth blaming, in particular, the District Education Council for the confusion and inaction concerning Moncton High. Well, just for openers, governments organize groups like DEC and Home and School and Parents/School committees to make sure they have no muscle. Since governments know not many voters bother to vote in such elections, and even fewer know anything about the issues (they get all their local news from the TandT), it's easy to plant a few insiders to make sure none of these groups does anything. But why is the T and T coming down so hard on the DEC in this case? I thought they'd play their usual game, put the blame on teachers' aides. Or perhaps the union.


Haven't  you heard about serious problems at MHS for at least two  years now? Do you figure maybe our ministers of education read the T and T? (Given the quality of ministers of education, it is possible they just look at the pictures.) But somebody, you know, sharing a bus ride, must have mentioned MHS and its structure. It's hard to believe a minister of education, the only one with the power and responsibility to make money available for repairs, would be ignorant of the problem.

But that would mean blaming the politicians who are lap dogs for AIMS and for corporate New Brunswick. Normally, the T and T wouldn't dream of blaming the DEC. So who's really to blame for this mess? 

Well, the real blame goes to previous governments both Liberal and Conservative. And there's no way the editor is going to blame the people that the T and T is devoted to kissing up to. So, we have to dump on the DEC.

Of course, we should also take a look at all those people who didn't care enough to vote or even to keep informed on what is going on in education.

Then came the masterstroke. Same page. Norbert Cunninghan should stick to writing about words, and stop rolling over to have his belly scratched by neo-conservatives. His ignorance of economics, government, and private business is crashing.

He writes about the fiscal hard times we're facing -and blames it all on us greedy poor people and on inefficient governments - in contrast to the self-discipline, efficiency and and general goodness of private business.

Hasnn't he noticed the inefficiency, greed, and fraud all over the world that has caused these deficits and this recession?  Does he know what the banks did and what happened? Has he noticed the role that free trade (demanded by private business) has played in this?

Is he, perhaps, aware that the Liberals and Conservatives both get the greater part of their funding from large and wealthy corporations? Has it never occured to him that perhaps corporations and wealthy people get favaours for this?  You know, things like Easter eggs from the great bunny? Maybe tax breaks? Possibly cheaper electricity? Maybe something like what Moncton needs most of all in the whole, wide, world - the most expensive per capita ice rink in history? High prices paid to AIMS to administer, mark and report on what a wonderful success standardized tests are?

As for efficiency, has he looked lately at the US costs for private health care? And has he looked at the US life expectancy and infant mortality rates? And has he compared them to countries which have to suffer from ineffecient government plans?

And that's not even counting the trillions the US has spent on wars to help out honest business people in oil, mining and fruit growing. Ever wonder how come so many Latin American countries had dictators wearinig the American Medal of Freedom? Much of the cause of this recession - which is certainnly goint to get worse - has been the corruption and greed of American business and of its mirror reflection corruption and greed in this province.

Please, Norbert. Stay with words. Don't make yourself look like a kiss-up.