I am writing this on April 29 because on April 30 in the morning, I shall be busy exercising my right of free speech to express my views on shale gas; and in the afternoon, I shall be busy looking at a doctor examining various parts of me, and shaking her head with something between disapproval and utter contempt.
It's just as well. One can get fed up dealing every day with the triviality, half-truths, downright lies, ignorance and bias that characterize the Moncton Times and Transcript. So let's take a look at two general areas for today.
One is the whole, western world. Since 1950, at least, western capitalism has busied itself with shaking off the rule of law, making itself independent of any regulation. Buying political parties, setting up token overseas head offices to escape taxes and whatever regulations remain, forcing tough "free" trade deals that exploit small and poor nations, setting up "non-partisan" think tanks which, working along with big business ownership of radio, TV and newspapers, enable it not only to influence but to manipulate thought, to create a useful hysteria that leads people to accept the gradual disappearance of democracy and human rights.
For an example, look at the hysteria in the US over the Boston bombings - when this is the nation that carries out such terror bombings on other countries every day of the year. The Boston bombers used pressure cookers. The US has been using similar bombs in uncounted millions for at least forty years. But, hey, they only killed foreigners.
Traditional morality has largely disappeared in an explosion of consumerism, outright and criminal theft by the world's largest banks (with more to come) and a worship of greed as the new morality. Well, the world survived for a very long time without democracy or genuine capitalism. But there is a serious problem this time.
Our economic leaders are so greedy and amoral and arrogant that they don't have the faintest idea of how to run a society - not even when it's as corrupt as ours. The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan - and now Syria - were all planned and fought to benefit big business. All have resulted in human and economic disaster for both sides. And it's been much worse than what we've been getting in the news. Africa is in chaos, with far worse to come. Expect artificial civil wars in Latin America, stirred up with American money and weapons. It's been happening for years, of course. We just don't hear about. But expect a new round to start with an attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuela. Expect the Moncton Times and Transcript to publish lies about it.
Indeed, big business' greed and corruption and theft and incomptence has created a mess of North America itself. The US debt is so great that the dollar could cease to have any value at all in the very near future. The US (and its servants like Britain, France, and Canada,) now can win only with global conquest - with all the risk that implies. These people are not only greedy and murderous. They are utterly incompetent.
_______________________________________________________________________________
And that takes us to New Brunswick. And let's be blunt.
Families like the Irvings do not just influence the government. They ARE the government. Mr. Irving made that clear himself two years ago when he said he was in coalition with the government, when he set up a provincial group to plan the economy. (What the hell business did he have in planning our economy?) Then he appointed his flunkies as official economic advisors to the government.
That was anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, arrogant...but Alward wimped it. Nor did we hear a word from Norbert or the editor or anybody else in the Irving Press. I don't think New Brunswickers have begun to realize what has happened. Big business no longer just buys the Liberals and Conservatives. It now IS the Liberals and Conservatives.
The recent budget was a big business budget - no doubt a sensible approach to budgeting for a private business, but hopelessly incompetent and dangerous for a government budget. The attack on the hospitals is not Mr. Alward's policy. (So far as I can tell, Mr. Alward doesn't know what a policy is). The attack on the hospitals is a demonstration of the typical incompetence and destructiveness of business executives who think that running a society is just like running a string of gas stations.
Big business is fond of saying that civil servants and overpaid, and don't know what they're doing. The reality is that it is the hacks in the fancy offices of major corporations who are wildly overpaid (up by a thousand or more percentage points in the last decade or so), and hopelessly ignorant in their interference with government and the civil service.
What does this mean for New Brunswick? It means that if this province continues to vote Liberal or Conservative, it's dead meat. A vote for either of those parties is a vote for Mr. Irving. It's a vote against yourself, against yout community and against your children. Generations of voting that way have produced a sleaze that permeates most of the society, from the provincial government down to the most local forms of government.
Not all Liberal and Conservative MLAs are sleazes. But isolated people of good will have no great influence in those parties.
Even worse, neither party has ever produced anything that could be called a political philosophy; neither has anything resembling a platform.
What does New Brunswick need? It badly needs needs people in government who are not motivated by greed. It needs to get the land developers off our backs, and out of our pockets. It needs information and discussion that it is not getting from any of the private media. It needs to put controls on big business that is interfering, destructive, and incompetent.
And it needs to develop the backbone to speak openly and freely and to inquire openly and freely as people in a democracy should. You have real power in the vote. Shake off your old fears and prejudices, and have have courage to understand what is going on. Then use your vote.
Frankly, you don't have much time.
It's just as well. One can get fed up dealing every day with the triviality, half-truths, downright lies, ignorance and bias that characterize the Moncton Times and Transcript. So let's take a look at two general areas for today.
One is the whole, western world. Since 1950, at least, western capitalism has busied itself with shaking off the rule of law, making itself independent of any regulation. Buying political parties, setting up token overseas head offices to escape taxes and whatever regulations remain, forcing tough "free" trade deals that exploit small and poor nations, setting up "non-partisan" think tanks which, working along with big business ownership of radio, TV and newspapers, enable it not only to influence but to manipulate thought, to create a useful hysteria that leads people to accept the gradual disappearance of democracy and human rights.
For an example, look at the hysteria in the US over the Boston bombings - when this is the nation that carries out such terror bombings on other countries every day of the year. The Boston bombers used pressure cookers. The US has been using similar bombs in uncounted millions for at least forty years. But, hey, they only killed foreigners.
Traditional morality has largely disappeared in an explosion of consumerism, outright and criminal theft by the world's largest banks (with more to come) and a worship of greed as the new morality. Well, the world survived for a very long time without democracy or genuine capitalism. But there is a serious problem this time.
Our economic leaders are so greedy and amoral and arrogant that they don't have the faintest idea of how to run a society - not even when it's as corrupt as ours. The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan - and now Syria - were all planned and fought to benefit big business. All have resulted in human and economic disaster for both sides. And it's been much worse than what we've been getting in the news. Africa is in chaos, with far worse to come. Expect artificial civil wars in Latin America, stirred up with American money and weapons. It's been happening for years, of course. We just don't hear about. But expect a new round to start with an attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuela. Expect the Moncton Times and Transcript to publish lies about it.
Indeed, big business' greed and corruption and theft and incomptence has created a mess of North America itself. The US debt is so great that the dollar could cease to have any value at all in the very near future. The US (and its servants like Britain, France, and Canada,) now can win only with global conquest - with all the risk that implies. These people are not only greedy and murderous. They are utterly incompetent.
_______________________________________________________________________________
And that takes us to New Brunswick. And let's be blunt.
Families like the Irvings do not just influence the government. They ARE the government. Mr. Irving made that clear himself two years ago when he said he was in coalition with the government, when he set up a provincial group to plan the economy. (What the hell business did he have in planning our economy?) Then he appointed his flunkies as official economic advisors to the government.
That was anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, arrogant...but Alward wimped it. Nor did we hear a word from Norbert or the editor or anybody else in the Irving Press. I don't think New Brunswickers have begun to realize what has happened. Big business no longer just buys the Liberals and Conservatives. It now IS the Liberals and Conservatives.
The recent budget was a big business budget - no doubt a sensible approach to budgeting for a private business, but hopelessly incompetent and dangerous for a government budget. The attack on the hospitals is not Mr. Alward's policy. (So far as I can tell, Mr. Alward doesn't know what a policy is). The attack on the hospitals is a demonstration of the typical incompetence and destructiveness of business executives who think that running a society is just like running a string of gas stations.
Big business is fond of saying that civil servants and overpaid, and don't know what they're doing. The reality is that it is the hacks in the fancy offices of major corporations who are wildly overpaid (up by a thousand or more percentage points in the last decade or so), and hopelessly ignorant in their interference with government and the civil service.
What does this mean for New Brunswick? It means that if this province continues to vote Liberal or Conservative, it's dead meat. A vote for either of those parties is a vote for Mr. Irving. It's a vote against yourself, against yout community and against your children. Generations of voting that way have produced a sleaze that permeates most of the society, from the provincial government down to the most local forms of government.
Not all Liberal and Conservative MLAs are sleazes. But isolated people of good will have no great influence in those parties.
Even worse, neither party has ever produced anything that could be called a political philosophy; neither has anything resembling a platform.
What does New Brunswick need? It badly needs needs people in government who are not motivated by greed. It needs to get the land developers off our backs, and out of our pockets. It needs information and discussion that it is not getting from any of the private media. It needs to put controls on big business that is interfering, destructive, and incompetent.
And it needs to develop the backbone to speak openly and freely and to inquire openly and freely as people in a democracy should. You have real power in the vote. Shake off your old fears and prejudices, and have have courage to understand what is going on. Then use your vote.
Frankly, you don't have much time.
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