August 23:apologies...

In the chaotic soap opera that is my life, |have suddently been called to Montreal and Ottawa. So, rather than talk about the Times and Transcript each day (which gets pretty repetitious because the Times has the same failings and idiocies every day), I think it better to talk about more general issues. One example is the eternal debate over which "ism" - capitalism, socialism, or communism - is best. In fact, none of them is. Theoretically, they all could be. But economic systems are not run by theories. They are run by people, and usually, as in our case, by a small number of people perverting whatever system it is in their own interests. Of course, capitalism can work. But it needs regulation. Without that, pure greed and self interest take over - with the result that the system destroys itself and us with it. Yes, capitalism can work. But only if it has an informed public taking part in open discussion and exercising real control over the government. In turn, it requires that government to exercise regulation of business, especially big business, so that it serves the interests of the whole society. We don't have those essential components of a successful capitalism. And without those components we don't have capitalism at all. This preversion of capitalism has led us into economic decline, international financial instability, and unsustainable wars. Socialism can work. Indeed, socialism has been a component of just about every government that ever existed. And, in conjunction with a real capitalism has been very successful. Canada's economy of World War Two was extraordinarily succcessful - because it combined socialism, government regulation, and sometbing resembling a real capitalism. Communism, despte the rhetoric, has never existed. Marx's concept of it was so highly idealistic that | doubt it could ever be achieved. The Soviet system was really just an old fashioned dictatorship. Don't be afraid of government regulation. Every society needs some regulation to survive. This venom for regulation and big government which one reads in the TandT is just brainless propaganda. So long as there is an organized society there will have to be a form of government which will have to exercise some regulation. The question is who will control that government and that regulation. It can be a Stalin, or a small group of billionaires, or it can be us. The Stalin system destroyed itself. \our billionaire system is destroying itself. The only way out is for us to return to a real democracy in which the real power is exercised not by a dictator or a consortium of billionaires, but by us. Without that, we face the same sort of looting by billionaires that has plagued Africa, South America and the Middle East. (Indeed most of the world.It's also what caused the War of 1812 - though I saw no mention of that in the "celebrations") We now face endless war and, eventually, the high probability of nuclear war. The presnt system has already run into some very serious failures. For example: 1. The US military, for all its size, sophistication and destructiveness, has been ineffective, even against small and poor countries ever since 1945. (The Korean War was NOT a victory. The Western countries were fought to a draw by a China that was then a third-world country. EVen the so-called victories like Iraq and Libya haven't won anything but very temporary victories for western oil companies. And all the military power of NATO, made up of nations that once ruled the world,cannnot defeat tiny, backward, and primitively armed Afghanistan that has no air force, no navy, and no regular army. In the last seventy years the world has turned upside down as the nations which once built empires with tiny armies now have only one source of supremacy. 2. That source is the nuclear missile, coupled with powerful anti-missile defences. Would they use them? According to a respected foreign policy journal, serious plans for such a strike on China are already being advanced. (Most of the sources for this are at home. I'll send that info along with I get back. Oh - and also the info on how big business manipulation of aluminum prices has cost us all billions of dollars in just recent years. So much for jabber that "capitalism" produces the best goods at the cheapest prices. Think about this the next time you buy some food in its aluminum can.) 3. Then there's the question of what New Brunswick has to do to save itslf. I don't see any provincial party coming up with a definition of the problem, much less of the answer. Certainly, the Liberals and the Conservative never will because they are a major part of the problem. The fundamental issue is that New Brunswick has to kick big business out of the government. It has no business being there. Democracy has to be restored. Failing that as a starting point, New Brunswick can only go further downhill. 4. And, without getting religious on you, there may be a few lines on the utter collapse of morality in the western world. That has been closely tied to the rise of our perverse version of capitalism which which depends on immorality and matherialism to sustain it. Morality is an essential basis for the survival of any society. It doesn't have have to be the morality of any one religion. It may be a moraltiy not based on any religion at all. But there must be shared concepts of right and wrong. But the form of capitalism we have developed is based on amorality. Tha's why I find the Faith page of the TandT so annoying. in a world in which he murder, torture and impoverish people by the hundreds of millions, we get sermonettes on trivia like how we shouldn't gossip. That's why I find it so objectionable that any clergy or any Christian (or any person of any morality) should participate in the Irving Chapel. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++