----at best, and for all its reporters, editors, commentators, it's a five minute read. And most of that five minutes is just annoying for its evidence of laziness, incompetence, and propaganda. Luckily, my copy of The Brief arrived today from NBmediacoop.org. It's just one page with just three stories. And it has more in it than he whole TandT for today.
The lead story is about Annie Clair, a Mi'kmaq woman who faces six charges as a result of the confrontation with RCMP at Rexton. There are some surprises in her statement. According to her claims, her people had filed an injunction against shale drilling on their land, and the police were supposed to enforce that injunction, and prevent SWN from activity - with the case to be heard on Oct. 18. But the police moved against the native protesters on Oct. 17. What a coincidence!
Next to that is an article (with a witness who has some experience of the melting of metals) that the burning of the police cars seems to have been staged. 1.They had been left untended. 2. all were missing standard equipment like computers, spare tires,...3. the condition of the engines suggested they had not been burned by gasoline bombs but by an "accelerant" not available on the open market. 4. The police did not, as standard practice requires, cordon off the cars to preserve the evidence - not then or for weeks after.
I don't suggest all this proves anything because I don't know enough about it. But I have often wondered why police cars were left in such a vulnerable position. It's a question that does not seem to have occurred to the reporters for Irving press.
Is it possible the police would do such a thing? Yes. The world has changed a great deal. Big money has displaced democracy. We have become something close to a fascist state (not using fascist as a dirty word, but as descriptive of a system in which certain groups, especially rich ones, have rights that, in a democracy, would be held only by individuals chosen by the whole society.
For a clear example, go back to Alward's first December in power when JDIrving wrote a commentary that he was now in coalition with (meaning a member of) the government. That is a textbook example of fascism.
In such a state, the police no longer exist to enforce the law. They exist to keep us all in line. And we are going to get one hell of a lesson in that when Harper puts his "anti-terrorism" bill to the House of Commons. This is the one that pushes democracy off the cliff. I am astonished that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would support such a bill. This is final proof that Justin is utterly unfit to represent people who believe in democracy. (and probably unfit to represent those who don't, as well.) It would be hard to find, in all of Canadian history, a major federal party led by such a weak team.
______________________________________________________________________________
That one-page paper had more useful news in it than did the whole Times and Transcript.The editorial looks decent, but says nothing.
Norbert has moved from being juvenile to being puerile. His suggestions for improving democracy would have no effect whatever. And his idea of "direct democracy" (a system in which any, perhaps all, bills could be voted on by all of us)....well....
For openers Norbert, the voters would have to be extremely knowledgeable to be able to vote on even one, such bill. How can you even suggest this when you have spent your life making sure they don't know what's going on? Where are they going to get the information they would need? And how would it work with a society so many functionally illiterate in it? Direct democracy was a sort of left-wing idea several generations ago. Are you a lefty, Norbert? Anyway, it has never worked.
And it would lessen the undue influence of lobbyists? What lobbyists, Norbert? Are you suggesting that Mr. Irving would lobby a government to get what he wants? Who are these evil people, Norbert? Are you referring to the rich who lobby for lower taxes for themselves, for cheap purchases of our forests, for government favours to make them richer? What are you, Norbert? Some kind of a communist?
Both Norbert and Alec Bruce deal with our economic situation. But neither of them mentions the cause of it. The name Irving does not ever appear in anything they write.
Look, we think about nothing but dealing with this recession as we dealt with the great depression of the 1930s - by making the poor pay for a problem caused by the rich. The result was that most people suffered terribly while the rich got much richer. It didn't work then. It won't work now.
Is it a spelling problem you have? The word is I-R-V-I-N-G.
Hump Cormier's idea of a commentary is a pointlessly dog story. Read it only if you're the kind of person who loves to say, "Oh, isn't that sweet?"
The other commentary isn't a commentary. It's a news story designed as a commentary. As well, it comes from Troy Media, an outfit I've learned to be suspicious of.
Awful,awful awful first section.
__________________________________________________________________________
The only important news story in the humorously titled Canada&World section is the NDP victory in Alberta. And it's not just partisanship that makes me say that. This is the most stunning political change in Canada I can think of. For all of my life and more, Alberta has been the bedrock of right-wing parties, including a long spell with the very crackpot Social Credit party (which is a direct ancestor of the present Harper government in Ottawa - and the origin of the federal Conservatives dropping the "progressive" from their title).
It's much too early to say what the election of the NDP in Alberta means. It might prove to be a step to the recovery of democracy. It might prove that our political and economic system is so far gone as to be beyond repair.
And that's it. There is almost no World news in this wretched paper. I can only assume that the section editor doesn't know enough to see any importance in world news.
The quality of the Irving press, never even close to acceptable, has declined markedly in recent weeks. And the price of it has actually gone up. That may have something to do a new emphasis on running it by "business methods", i.e. make it as cheaply as possible and sell it at the highest possible price. Then demand extra tax-write-offs for your sacrifices to serve the people.
_____________________________________________________________________________
We still get the regular photo of refugees in sinking boats off the coast of Sicily. But we get nothing on what that really means. The cost of the voyage, for an impoverished people, is high. But the horror we have created and are still creating in Africa and the Middle East is driving desperate people to risk the voyage even though they well know their chances of dying are high.
Forget this babble about how 'extreme' Muslems are born terrorists. There were no terrorists when the western world began pushing in during the late nineteenth century. From the start, it was us who brought terrorism, just as we had brought it to The Phillipines over a century ago and to the Americas 500 years ago. The major players were Britain, France, Belgium - and now the US. We tortured, starved and slaughtered millions. We destroyed whole societies. (For the middle east and Africa, All those borderlines of 'nations' that you see on the map were drawn by us.)
We created the unending Israel crisis by drawing lines to put Israel on land belonging to other people. And we did NOT do that to help the Jews. We, the whole western world, had no thought of helping Jews. We, including Canada, wanted to get rid of them. That's why Israel was created. It had nothing to do with the holocaust. Even after we knew all about the holocaust, we still wouldn't accept Jews in Canada or the US or Britain.
We created one of the cruelest dictatorships in the world (and the most extreme Islamic one) by drawing long lines in the sand, calling the space between them Saudi Arabia, and appointing a desert bandit as the king. This is the country that is now dropping cluster bombs on one of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen. Cluster bombs have been made illegal by most countries because they're such indiscriminate killers, and go on killing for generations. But it's okay. Saudi Arabia and the US (which supplies the Saudis with cluster bombs) refused to sign the treaty making them illegal.
We have terrorized Muslims and Africans for a hundred and fifty years. But the word terrorism never appeared in our news media until the 1960s - when the people we had terrorized began shooting back.
In addition to killing uncountable millions of people in that region, we have dumped millions of tons of toxic waste along their shorelines, poisoning the land, the sea, and the people. That's why there are pirates off the coast of Somalia. There's no other way to live.
People are now fleeing Africa and the Middle East - not because they are terrorists but because they are terrorized, and terrorized on a scale we cannot begin to recognize. Yes, part of what terrorizes them is extreme Islamic thought. And we are the ones who drove the extremists to become extreme.
What is going on in that part of the world is does not arise from Islam. It arises from a hundred and fifty years of largely Christian terrorism. And now, as the US pursues a policy of destroying the region so that no society can function, the victims of our terrorism are fleeing.
But it's the 1930s all over again. The same countries that refused to accept Jews in the 1930s (and 40s and 50s) - Britain, the US, and Canada - are now turning down Muslims. And Europe doesn't want them. We are building to a crisis due to fears and hatreds we have created.
And why did we create those fears and hatreds? Take a long look at the history of wars. It is rare, very rare to find a war that was not fought for money or resources. Yes, that is also true of every war Canada has fought in.
We were invaded by the US in 1812 because it wanted land - no other reason. We fought the Boer War so wealthy British could make money from the gold mines of South Africa. We went to war against Germany because the unification of Germany have given it the numbers and industrial power to challenge the British Empire (which existed solely to make money for wealthy Brits.)
World War Two had nothing to do with fighting Nazism. In fact, Hitler was seen as a friend by leading capitalists in the west - including the US and Canada, partly because they saw him as a barrier to communism. - a very important factor as western society floundered in the poverty of depression.
The war was fought because Germany was recovering very quickly - too quickly - to become a threat to British billionaires. The US entered the war to extend its empire to include China, and to pick up the fallout from a crumbling British Empire.
But you would never know that from the news.
Resources and money were the reasons for the invasions of Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, the assistance given to Syrian rebels. It's what lies behind the so-called nuclear talks with Iran. Market control (over the Russian economy) is what the Ukrainian fuss is about. And the last thing western billionaires can tolerate is a flourishing Chinese economy over which they have no control.
And you would never guess that from our news media.
I have no doubt that some Muslims are evil. So are some Christians. In both cases, it has nothing to do with religion. Fear and hate are bad ways to face the crisis we have to deal with. Nor will winning all of those wars to us any good. We will still, all of us, be victims of some of the greediest people in history.
_______________________________________________________________________________
And, as I close, federal mps are preparing for the debate and vote on the execution of democracy in Canada, Harper's anti-terrorism bill. It isn't a threat to democracy. It's the cancellation of democracy. I'm sure it will pass. Then, the only hope for the survival of a Canada will be to defeat Harper (and, obviously, Trudeau) in the next election.
The lead story is about Annie Clair, a Mi'kmaq woman who faces six charges as a result of the confrontation with RCMP at Rexton. There are some surprises in her statement. According to her claims, her people had filed an injunction against shale drilling on their land, and the police were supposed to enforce that injunction, and prevent SWN from activity - with the case to be heard on Oct. 18. But the police moved against the native protesters on Oct. 17. What a coincidence!
Next to that is an article (with a witness who has some experience of the melting of metals) that the burning of the police cars seems to have been staged. 1.They had been left untended. 2. all were missing standard equipment like computers, spare tires,...3. the condition of the engines suggested they had not been burned by gasoline bombs but by an "accelerant" not available on the open market. 4. The police did not, as standard practice requires, cordon off the cars to preserve the evidence - not then or for weeks after.
I don't suggest all this proves anything because I don't know enough about it. But I have often wondered why police cars were left in such a vulnerable position. It's a question that does not seem to have occurred to the reporters for Irving press.
Is it possible the police would do such a thing? Yes. The world has changed a great deal. Big money has displaced democracy. We have become something close to a fascist state (not using fascist as a dirty word, but as descriptive of a system in which certain groups, especially rich ones, have rights that, in a democracy, would be held only by individuals chosen by the whole society.
For a clear example, go back to Alward's first December in power when JDIrving wrote a commentary that he was now in coalition with (meaning a member of) the government. That is a textbook example of fascism.
In such a state, the police no longer exist to enforce the law. They exist to keep us all in line. And we are going to get one hell of a lesson in that when Harper puts his "anti-terrorism" bill to the House of Commons. This is the one that pushes democracy off the cliff. I am astonished that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would support such a bill. This is final proof that Justin is utterly unfit to represent people who believe in democracy. (and probably unfit to represent those who don't, as well.) It would be hard to find, in all of Canadian history, a major federal party led by such a weak team.
______________________________________________________________________________
That one-page paper had more useful news in it than did the whole Times and Transcript.The editorial looks decent, but says nothing.
Norbert has moved from being juvenile to being puerile. His suggestions for improving democracy would have no effect whatever. And his idea of "direct democracy" (a system in which any, perhaps all, bills could be voted on by all of us)....well....
For openers Norbert, the voters would have to be extremely knowledgeable to be able to vote on even one, such bill. How can you even suggest this when you have spent your life making sure they don't know what's going on? Where are they going to get the information they would need? And how would it work with a society so many functionally illiterate in it? Direct democracy was a sort of left-wing idea several generations ago. Are you a lefty, Norbert? Anyway, it has never worked.
And it would lessen the undue influence of lobbyists? What lobbyists, Norbert? Are you suggesting that Mr. Irving would lobby a government to get what he wants? Who are these evil people, Norbert? Are you referring to the rich who lobby for lower taxes for themselves, for cheap purchases of our forests, for government favours to make them richer? What are you, Norbert? Some kind of a communist?
Both Norbert and Alec Bruce deal with our economic situation. But neither of them mentions the cause of it. The name Irving does not ever appear in anything they write.
Look, we think about nothing but dealing with this recession as we dealt with the great depression of the 1930s - by making the poor pay for a problem caused by the rich. The result was that most people suffered terribly while the rich got much richer. It didn't work then. It won't work now.
Is it a spelling problem you have? The word is I-R-V-I-N-G.
Hump Cormier's idea of a commentary is a pointlessly dog story. Read it only if you're the kind of person who loves to say, "Oh, isn't that sweet?"
The other commentary isn't a commentary. It's a news story designed as a commentary. As well, it comes from Troy Media, an outfit I've learned to be suspicious of.
Awful,awful awful first section.
__________________________________________________________________________
The only important news story in the humorously titled Canada&World section is the NDP victory in Alberta. And it's not just partisanship that makes me say that. This is the most stunning political change in Canada I can think of. For all of my life and more, Alberta has been the bedrock of right-wing parties, including a long spell with the very crackpot Social Credit party (which is a direct ancestor of the present Harper government in Ottawa - and the origin of the federal Conservatives dropping the "progressive" from their title).
It's much too early to say what the election of the NDP in Alberta means. It might prove to be a step to the recovery of democracy. It might prove that our political and economic system is so far gone as to be beyond repair.
And that's it. There is almost no World news in this wretched paper. I can only assume that the section editor doesn't know enough to see any importance in world news.
The quality of the Irving press, never even close to acceptable, has declined markedly in recent weeks. And the price of it has actually gone up. That may have something to do a new emphasis on running it by "business methods", i.e. make it as cheaply as possible and sell it at the highest possible price. Then demand extra tax-write-offs for your sacrifices to serve the people.
_____________________________________________________________________________
We still get the regular photo of refugees in sinking boats off the coast of Sicily. But we get nothing on what that really means. The cost of the voyage, for an impoverished people, is high. But the horror we have created and are still creating in Africa and the Middle East is driving desperate people to risk the voyage even though they well know their chances of dying are high.
Forget this babble about how 'extreme' Muslems are born terrorists. There were no terrorists when the western world began pushing in during the late nineteenth century. From the start, it was us who brought terrorism, just as we had brought it to The Phillipines over a century ago and to the Americas 500 years ago. The major players were Britain, France, Belgium - and now the US. We tortured, starved and slaughtered millions. We destroyed whole societies. (For the middle east and Africa, All those borderlines of 'nations' that you see on the map were drawn by us.)
We created the unending Israel crisis by drawing lines to put Israel on land belonging to other people. And we did NOT do that to help the Jews. We, the whole western world, had no thought of helping Jews. We, including Canada, wanted to get rid of them. That's why Israel was created. It had nothing to do with the holocaust. Even after we knew all about the holocaust, we still wouldn't accept Jews in Canada or the US or Britain.
We created one of the cruelest dictatorships in the world (and the most extreme Islamic one) by drawing long lines in the sand, calling the space between them Saudi Arabia, and appointing a desert bandit as the king. This is the country that is now dropping cluster bombs on one of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen. Cluster bombs have been made illegal by most countries because they're such indiscriminate killers, and go on killing for generations. But it's okay. Saudi Arabia and the US (which supplies the Saudis with cluster bombs) refused to sign the treaty making them illegal.
We have terrorized Muslims and Africans for a hundred and fifty years. But the word terrorism never appeared in our news media until the 1960s - when the people we had terrorized began shooting back.
In addition to killing uncountable millions of people in that region, we have dumped millions of tons of toxic waste along their shorelines, poisoning the land, the sea, and the people. That's why there are pirates off the coast of Somalia. There's no other way to live.
People are now fleeing Africa and the Middle East - not because they are terrorists but because they are terrorized, and terrorized on a scale we cannot begin to recognize. Yes, part of what terrorizes them is extreme Islamic thought. And we are the ones who drove the extremists to become extreme.
What is going on in that part of the world is does not arise from Islam. It arises from a hundred and fifty years of largely Christian terrorism. And now, as the US pursues a policy of destroying the region so that no society can function, the victims of our terrorism are fleeing.
But it's the 1930s all over again. The same countries that refused to accept Jews in the 1930s (and 40s and 50s) - Britain, the US, and Canada - are now turning down Muslims. And Europe doesn't want them. We are building to a crisis due to fears and hatreds we have created.
And why did we create those fears and hatreds? Take a long look at the history of wars. It is rare, very rare to find a war that was not fought for money or resources. Yes, that is also true of every war Canada has fought in.
We were invaded by the US in 1812 because it wanted land - no other reason. We fought the Boer War so wealthy British could make money from the gold mines of South Africa. We went to war against Germany because the unification of Germany have given it the numbers and industrial power to challenge the British Empire (which existed solely to make money for wealthy Brits.)
World War Two had nothing to do with fighting Nazism. In fact, Hitler was seen as a friend by leading capitalists in the west - including the US and Canada, partly because they saw him as a barrier to communism. - a very important factor as western society floundered in the poverty of depression.
The war was fought because Germany was recovering very quickly - too quickly - to become a threat to British billionaires. The US entered the war to extend its empire to include China, and to pick up the fallout from a crumbling British Empire.
But you would never know that from the news.
Resources and money were the reasons for the invasions of Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, the assistance given to Syrian rebels. It's what lies behind the so-called nuclear talks with Iran. Market control (over the Russian economy) is what the Ukrainian fuss is about. And the last thing western billionaires can tolerate is a flourishing Chinese economy over which they have no control.
And you would never guess that from our news media.
I have no doubt that some Muslims are evil. So are some Christians. In both cases, it has nothing to do with religion. Fear and hate are bad ways to face the crisis we have to deal with. Nor will winning all of those wars to us any good. We will still, all of us, be victims of some of the greediest people in history.
_______________________________________________________________________________
And, as I close, federal mps are preparing for the debate and vote on the execution of democracy in Canada, Harper's anti-terrorism bill. It isn't a threat to democracy. It's the cancellation of democracy. I'm sure it will pass. Then, the only hope for the survival of a Canada will be to defeat Harper (and, obviously, Trudeau) in the next election.
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