On it's faith page, the irving press has the big story that it and other North American news media have never carried. It's the story of the indiscriminate murder of 300,000 men, women, and children carried out by the Guatemalan army with U.S. support - the latter coming from from the killers of special ops - from 1960 to 1996. Guatemala was (and still is) a U.S. sponsored dictatorship.
Actually, the story (on the Faith Page) doesn't say most of the above. It doesn't mention the U.S., for example. It's just a short statement that an American priest killed in that war has been named a martyr.
There is no mention of New Brunswicker Raoul Leger who was also murdered in that war, and lies buried in Bouctouche. That's probably because nobody at irving press ever heard of Paul Leger or of the war. Anyway, the irving press doesn't publish stories that might make people think.
__________________________________________________________________________________
The news media talk of dictatorships and democracies as though these are quite different from each other. That explains almost all the reaction to the death of Fidel Castro. Democracy, we are told, is the voice of the people. Dictatorship is rule by a cruel person. In fact, it doesn't always work that way.
Scholars have shown long ago that so-called democracries are frequently dictatorships controlled by a small elite. In the U.S., for example, national leaders have long been chosen from a small group of the wealthy. The become presidents, cabinet ministers, secretaries of state. They commonly come from related families, went to the same same schools, sit on the same business boards - and they go on generation after generation.
Oh, and they look after each other.
It happens in the U.S. which, as a write this, is appointing the richest and most closely connected families in history to all the jobs in goverment.
In Quebec, almost all premiers have come from a small group of private schools for the elite.
In Canada, the prime minister is the son of a prime minister (and also a product of a most desirable public school). His closest partner is an m.p. whose father was a close political friends of Trudeau's father.
This isn't democracy. We've had seventy years of intense, academic study of this phenomenon that proves it's not democracy.
http://www.unz.com/article/political-sciences-theory-of-everything/
"Think tanks'', by the way (like The Fraser Institute beloved by the irving press and the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies) and the privately-owned news media are all a part of this 'deep' government which has long ago destroyed democracy.
These 'agents of democracy" are the same ones who establish and maintain most dictatorships. And if their children aren't very bright? No problem. A gift of a million or so dollars will get any retarded son of the rich into a Harvard graduate school. (Even George Bush could do it though his grades were way below acceptable levels.)
__________________________________________________________________________
And here's a story from The Guardian that must be a lie. It's about Canadian opposition to Trudeau's approval of the kinder morgan pipeline. But it if were true, it would have made our very own irving press. Obviously, The Guardian has this one wrong. Fer shoor. Fer shoor. Or, well, maybe our irving press is lying.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/03/canada-kinder-morgan-pipeline-expansion-protest
__________________________________________________________________________________
There's lots of news on Standing Rock everywhere except in the irving press.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/trump-declares-support-for-dakota-access-pipeline-ahead-of-evacuation-order-against-protesters/
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/veterans-arrive-at-standing-rock-to-act-as-human-shields-for-water-protectors/
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/standing-rock-stand-from-a-distance/
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/my-whole-heart-is-with-you-tonight-a-letter-to-the-dakota-access-front-line/
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/03/water-history-and-finance-converge-as-sioux-nation-mounts-storied-battle-over-oil-pipeline/
It was unwise for Trump to begin on this issue with a declaration of war. And unwise of Trudeau to associate himself with Trumpism in Canada's similar confrontation. This has the potential to return us to the equivalent of the turbulent labour wars of the 1920s - and to do so on an unwise, deeply divisive issue in both Canada and the U.S.
But let's not blame just the politicians. It's damned unwise of the oil industry to have created this confrontation.
________________________________________________________________________________
There's a fresh story that I don't yet have enought information on - It's quite true. I just don't have enough details. Canada has been using its international development fund, intended to develop needy countries, to give large grants to Canadian mining companies - notably in South America. Other 'charitable' programmes are also involved.
Given the record of the Canadian mining industry for impoverishing and exploiting others, and enriching only itself, this move puts Trudeau into some pretty bad company. (But don't his suits look nice?)
Trudeau has also refused to take part in an international movement to negotiate an end to nuclear weapons. And guess who that's kissing up to? We're seeing a clear pattern in Trudeau's moves.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Trump's secretary of defence is to be General Mattis. He was in charge for much of the Iraq war, a war that set records for the massacre of civilians. I remember the day that Iraq civilians captured four 'contractors' in the village of Fallujah. In the U.S. military, contractors are hired killers, mercenaries. They are particularly noted for rape, theft, murder of civilians, all forms of terror. So someobdy killed them.
General Mattis responded with what was clearly meant as a revenge assault on the whole village that killed some 700. Most of the dead were civilians. The very land the village stood on was poisoned forever by a bombardment with depleted uranium shells.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38607-trump-s-secretary-of-defense-presided-over-slaughter-of-civilians-in-fallujah
__________________________________________________________________________________
Advice for the area I live in - New Brunswick. With the exception of the CBC, the news media in this province are dreadful. it's not that they're skilful in manipulating opinion. In fact, they have no skill of any sort. Their style is pure trivia. And their choice of what is newsworthy is purely random. These are media that don't manipulate people. They simply keep them in an eternal stupor.
And this policy does not happen by accident. It is obviously imposed by the ownership. What's important is not what appears in these media. What's important is what is not allowed to appear. Are the wealthy paying their share? How much of our tax money do we hand over to people who don't seem to pay any taxes on their own? Is there a policy of attacking government services to create a demand for privatizing them? (You bet there is.)
We vote either Liberal or Conservative - both of which are the same party. Both of which are heavy with lawyers on the make. And the NDP?
I was active in it when it was the CCF, and went through the long fight against those who wanted to make it into the NDP. The move seemed to be necessary to raise money to fight elections. The expectation was that this money would then come from the unions. But, in return, the unions wanted a wimpier party. And that wimpier party is what happened.
It is now a party so flabby in its purpose that it is little different from the Liberals and Conservatives. The Green party remains truer to its purpose but it, too, seems not to realize that it has to get tough to save the environment. It's not going to be done with smiles and kisses. Any party that hopes to make a change has to be ready for one hell of a tough fight to get the wealthy of this province under control. We have to get ready to play hardball.
Instead, we got a column from Norbert Cunningham suggesting the NDP should join forces with the Conservatives. And I think that, under its current leadership, it would happily do that.
There is no future in a New Brunswick as it is. Changing it means getting clear on who your enemies are. It means preparing for a very difficult fight in beating them. It means New Brunswickers have to develop a bit of courage.
Lacking that, the only thing that makes sense is to move.
Oh, for those who think it's important to maintain capitalism, forget it. Capitalism died a long time ago. The towering greed and corruption and manipulation and tax evasion that we now see has nothing to do with capitalism.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment