NONSENSE ABOUT THE FORGOTTEN PROGRESSIVE ELEMENT IN AMERICA IN THE WAKE OF THE TRAYVON MARTIN SHOOTING IN FLORIDA

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY DOUG SAUNDERS IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

"Fear and guns."

Yes, indeed.

Few Canadians recognize how intense and widespread fear is there.

Fear causes Americans to own more than 200,000,000 guns.

Fear causes idiotic things liked gated communities.

Fear causes segregation as great as ever: its just done in a legal fashion now with sprawling suburbs and abandoned regions.

There are places in the United States I could take readers to that simply would not believe, places which resemble the third-world, right down to people living in shanties.

Fear even helped sell things like SUVs. It isn't for nothing that those vehicles look heavy and sinister. Suburbanites needing to travel even on the edges of certain regions want to feel protected.

After all, it used to be a saying in much of the United States that if you are bumped into by a black driver, or if you bump into one, you should just keep going.

Americans love to blubber about their guns protecting them from a tyrant government, but that is absurd. No one could withstand America's military, or its often militarized police, for five minutes.

The guns are about fear of blacks and the unknown in the vague forms of communists or Muslims.

Paranoia can easily be identified by talking to people on the streets.

Other fears too get conflated here. Average Americans real incomes have declined for decades, with only moves to cheaper suburbs and both sposes working preventing a serious decline in standard of living.

There is an intense fear too of government, especially the federal government (a fear not always without basis). The average American sees Washington almost as an occupying power having nothing to do with their interests.

We used to have tales of surviving POWS and black helicopters, and those fears have only changed form, not substance.

We have too all the fears generated in a society run along Social Darwinist principles.

Fear of getting sick with no health insurance in a country where the single greatest cause of personal bankruptcy remains medical bills.

Fear of losing your job (and with that, remember, for middle class people, losing your health insurance).

Fear of the growing power and influence of China, and to a lesser extent, Russia and India. Obama's recent actions speak directly to this.

Fear of losing "old ways," especially in religion in a scientific age: this fear causes much of the political activity of the Christian Right.

The fears really get dark and formless too, as the fears around Israel and the Second Coming and Armageddon - things which sound silly to many of us, but which are very real for tens of millions of Americans.

I've always believed the excessive fears and paranoia you feel in the United States stem at least in part from a bad gene pool, the legacy of the Puritans and Pilgrims, truly nasty, hateful folks for the most part.

_________________________________________________

"But the loud and intolerant are becoming an endangered species"

Where does the author see that?

The United States simply is a seething cauldron of fears, hates, and mindless belief in exceptionalism.

I spent close to half my life in the United States in two widely separated periods, and I do not recognize what this writer is taking about.

No one even raises a voice against scores of extra-judicial murders no different than the hateful works of South American military juntas of the past.

Law after law has been passed without serious opposition, effectively stripping Americans of their Constitutional rights.

Drones will begin domestic overflights. The TSA runs agents up and down the nation's highways with the right to stop anyone.

The FBI can legally check out your reading at the library.

Every progressive organization in the United States is compromised by agents.

The President now claims the right to kill an American without trial or judge if in his opinion the person works against the interests of the United States.

This possibly qualifies as the most ignorant column ever published in The Globe.

__________________________________________________

People forget: the United States was literally founded on hatreds and prejudices.

Everything from hatred of the Pope and hatred for paying taxes to the wide embrace of slavery.

There has been a good deal of moving the furniture around, but the floor plan has changed remarkably little.

And greed remains a national value, as does a bizarre sense of exceptionalism.

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/lessons-from-the-american-revolution/

GEORGE GALLLOWAY WINS A SURPRISING VICTORY IN BRITISH BY-ELECTION: ONE OF THE GREAT VOICES OF THE AGE RETURNS TO PARLIAMENT

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Although he's made some mistakes along the way - and who hasn't? - George remains one of the age's most heroic characters, and I'm glad his voice will continue to resonate in Parliament.

And what a voice.

When it's in full force, it withers the ineffectual propagandists and the cringingly dishonest politicians.

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/a-breath-of-fresh-air-sweeps-into-hell-but-theres-still-no-way-out/

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"A very sad reflection on the electors of Bradford for electing this hypocritical and divisive individual."

The last thing in the world a thinking person would call Galloway is hypocritical.

He is the absolute enemy of the world's hypocrites.

Clearly the writer either does not understand the words he uses or is indeed one of the pack.

A MORE EFFICIENT BORDER MEANS A MORE EFFICIENT ECONOMY: PROPAGANDA FOR HARPER'S SELL-OUT DEAL WITH AMERICA

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MATT BLUNT AND MARK NANTAIS IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Notice the careful use of the word "efficient" here applied to a border.

It is plainly dishonest.

Borders are, by definition, barriers.

They may be well run or poorly run, but they cannot be efficient.

An efficient barrier?

The ugly truth is that Harper's efforts are about getting rid of the border, and if that means nothing to you in terms of future consequences, you are hopeless.

Harper is in almost all things an American wannabe, the most servile to American interests of any prime minister surely.

All done while making big phony noises about arctic sovereignty and new trade routes.

Implementing such a scheme is the ultimate expression of that fact.

Imagine, armed American law enforcement agents being able to enter at will?

I think , not without exaggeration, it will mark the beginning of the end of our National Dream.

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/nightmare-vision-of-north-america/

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And readers should ask themselves: would Americans ever even think of permitting such a relationship, one in which they would make the same concessions as Canada is being asked to make here?

The answer is obvious.

A last thought: this nasty project comes at a time in which the United States has become a quasi-police state.

Its TSA agents now run up and down American highways with the authority to stop and scrutinize anyone.

Its President claims the Constitutional right to murder Americans abroad who may be regarded as threats, without any legal process.

Its drones murder innocent people in half a dozen countries regularly.

Unarmed drones now fly the border.

Soon, unarmed drones will fly over the United States.

Police Departments are in line to buy the technology for their own purposes.

The United States' local police and prison guards have a world reputation for brutality: they have been cited by Amnesty International a number of times.

The United States imprisons more of its own people than any other Western country.

Its Super-max prisons have been cited as barbaric throwbacks to medieval dungeons.

Guantanamo and the other far-flung parts of the CIA's torture gulag still flourish under Obama.

A COLUMNIST WRITES OF HARPER'S TRADE POLICY AND HOW HE IS SUPPOSEDLY AVOIDING CANADA'S BEING A SPOKE IN THE AMERICAN HUB WITH MAJOR NEW EFFORTS ABROAD

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JOHN IBBITSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

If this is true, why is creepy Harper pursuing the nightmare of perimeter security with the U.S.?

The column is little more than reverse-psychology Harper boosterism.

_______________________________

A reader writes:

"Free trade isn't so great when one partner is WAY bigger than the other."

In economics we know that the smaller partner in a free-trade deal gains disproportionately compared to the larger one.

That is why all free-trade deals with the U.S. are complex: the U.S. tries to gain maximum advantage out of that known starting point.

In fact, many U.S. free trade deals are little more than enticements to small countries to sign on to voluntary American involvement and interference.

Such deals mean the U.S. only has to threaten to abrogate the treaty to hold a genuine hammer over the head of a small country.

All of the deals with places in South America and Central America are of precisely that nature.

And what has Harper done in these matters?

Dutifully run down to Central America to sign parallel agreements in keeping with American policy - these deals have all been virtually economically worthless to Canada and represent zero Canadian initiative.

I haven't seen a sign of what Ibbitson is blubbering about.

In fact, Harper's is the most cringing and servile government in our history with regard to America and its interests.

__________________________________________

"Free-trade is a myth."

That statement is certainly true.

True free trade exists only in theory, just as the form of economic organization we call perfect competition exists only in theory.

All free-trade agreements are forms of managed trade, managed according to some negotiated set of rules.

The free trade of classical economics is beneficial to all partners, however the smaller and less sophisticated economy - the one making the greatest economic gains - has to make the largest adjustments.

That means that while the economy as a whole gains, individual regions and industries can suffer badly in the transition. Canada certainly experienced this under North American free trade.

Keenly aware of the vast size of its markets and their attraction to smaller countries, the United States never, never signs a free-trade agreement without squeezing maximum geo-political advantage out of it.

The geo-political price may in fact outweigh the economic gains to the smaller partner in the view of many citizens of the smaller country.

You do not get anything for free, and certainly not in free trade agreements.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF WRITES ABOUT SYRIA AND ASSAD - DISPLAYING CLOSE TO A TOTAL LACK OF UNDERSTANDING - HOW DID ANYONE EVER SEE ANYTHING SPECIAL IN IGNATIEFF?

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL IGNATIEFF IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Mr. Ignatieff proves as dull a writer on this topic as he was a speaker in politics.

Cliches, unoriginal imagery, and uninspired establishment analysis - just about sums it up.

Speaking of parallel universes (a truly dull cliche of Ignatieff's choosing), isn't Ignatieff living in one himself if he thinks this contributes to anyone's understanding?

Some of the truths in this matter include:

1) The United States and Israel wouldn't know what to do without Assad. He's almost a silent partner in keeping extremists quiet, just as the House of Saud is and just as Mubarak was.

2) The United States - in its typically blundering way in contemporary foreign affairs, not even understanding its own genuine long-term interests - secretly helped instigate this uprising, and Israel is supplying weapons.

3) A militant and more Islamic-focused Syria represents the same kind of idiot situation created in Libya - a long-term source of militants raging with resentment against American interference.

4) Does anyone remember the American race riots of 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1992? Police and National Guard (bayonets fixed on rifles) killed rioters by the scores in the streets of major American cities.  

One can only imagine how brutally the American establishment would react to the kind of political provocation seen in Syria. America has the greatest mass of troops and weapons on the planet ready to suppress any civil disturbance.

5) And need I remind anyone of Israel's response to the least provocation? Assad, in putting down a genuine civil disturbance, hasn't managed to kill the number of people Israel has killed in recent years, and these were people just trying to seek relief from occupation and constant oppression.

This piece seriously raises the question what did anyone ever see as special in Ignatieff?

__________________________________________-

‘I will start by saying the violence and the number of dead in Iraq is a lot higher for the same period as is in Syria. Having said this I have to say the mantra of : "Assad killing his own people" is tiresome.’

Good point.

America left somewhere between a half and one million corpses in Iraq.

The inept politician writing this piece helped praise the effort.

Even today - once the Arab world's most advanced country, well on its way to eventually graduating to more democratic government –it  is an awful place to live.

There is no dependable water and electricity for many.

There are no decent jobs for an entire generation.

Depleted uranium dust is slowly poisoning thousands of kids.

And America's brutal stupidity created at least two million refugees. Imagine two million out of a population of maybe twenty-five - a huge disruption.

And who took in those refugees?

You'd be wrong if you guessed the United States who created their plight.

You win the prize if you said Assad's Syria.

JEFFREY SIMPSON SAYS CONSERVATIVES PREACH THE GOSPEL BUT FORGET THE CHAPTERS

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Exactly.

But that is because they are not accurately called Conservatives.

Harper's party is a Northern affiliate of the Republican Right, which also is not in any way a genuine conservative party.

It is the party of the imperial establishment, full stop.

Whatever Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" wants, it gets.

Whatever measures represent traditional, responsible conservatism are irrelevant.

________________________________________

"conservatives are actually on point -- starve the beast.

they won't admit to it, but that is their true calling."

Wrong.

That is what they like to pretend they are doing.

In effect, they are spending irresponsible amounts of money on new matters.

How is the F-35, a gulag of new prisons, a pointless war in Afghanistan, and a host of other measures starving anything?

____________________________________________

“They? They great unwashed majority that does not agree with you? They?”

How do you know the majority?

And how do you know it is unwashed?

Are you Canada's preeminent secret pollster?

Of course you are not.

Expressions like yours are simply a display of the same kind of ignorant arrogance we see from Harper regularly.

Or from the shabby likes of Newt Gingrich.

_____________________________________________

Harper is just a far less garrulous and amusing version of Newt Gingrich, albeit wearing a red-and-white tuque instead of being wrapped in Old Glory.

________________________________________

"How about ADSCAM, where did that money go...?"

Simply pathetic.

Harper's thugs stand in contempt of Parliament, in violation of all principles of an open society, and now in violation of our election laws.

In sum, Harper has pissed on our democratic values.

The Adscam business involved a genuine effort to preserve the country's integrity, an effort abused by a small number.

There's no comparison - none.

A SILLY COLUMNIST CALLED NEIL REYNOLDS WRITES ABOUT CANADA'S NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S SUPPOSED OLD PURPOSE OF ERADICATING CAPITALISM

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY NEIL REYNOLDS IN TORONTO'S G:LOBE AND MAIL

Never has it been the mission of the NDP to "eradicate capitalism," whatever that portentous phrase is supposed to mean.

Neil Reynolds here displays his ignorance or prejudice, and perhaps both. Certainly he presents a straw-man argument, feeble as virtually all his mental meanderings are.

The NDP is typical of the kind of social democratic parties that we've seen in Europe for many decades: parties committed to easing the huge disparities which just naturally arise under the powerful operations of unregulated capitalism.

Capitalism - in the likely case that Neil Reynolds doesn't understand the meaning of the word - involves the accumulation and concentration of capital in private hands.

It is from this concentration that we get the great investments which make our society richer in material goods over the long term.

Communist societies long ago proved that you dismantle this mechanism at your peril.

But the mechanism is so ruthlessly efficient in pure economic terms that large numbers of less able competitors are left with little, including what humane people regard as basic services.

All genuine social democratic parties represent is sufficient re-distribution through taxes to pay for social programs to prevent the natural outcome of raw, unregulated capitalism which is unarguably a tendency towards Dickensian England or the two-fisted ugliness of the Mafia.

Franklin Roosevelt's government in the United States proved, for any who care to study it, that social democratic measures can actually work to preserve the basic dynamic mechanism capitalism in times of immense stress and impending revolution.

AN ACADEMIC SAYS OBAMA HAS LEFT ISRAEL NO CHOICE ABOUT BOMBING IRAN - POOR LOGIC AND PREJUDICE PASSING FOR ANALYSIS - INDEPENDENT ISRAEL?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIFFORD ORWIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

The dishonesty and prejudiced nature of Clifford Orwin's thinking are highlighted with a simple thought-experiment: by his line of thought, it becomes acceptable, and indeed necessary, for a third party to attack Israel.

After all, Israel actually has illicit nuclear weapons and uninspected bomb-making facilities, is not part of anti-nuclear weapons treaties, and it has proven itself capable of the world's worst case of nuclear weapons proliferation (the case of apartheid South Africa).

And, of course, unlike Iran, Israel has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once, and its leader has as his credo, not religious orthodoxy, but constant and ferocious lying.

The only reason any casual reader could give a moment's plausibility to Orwin's muddy and prejudiced argument is that Iran has been so demonized in our press that people respond the way they do towards a product that has been heavily and falsely advertised.

And who is responsible for the never-ending demonization? Why, apologists for Israel's bloody excesses, people like Clifford Orwin.

___________________________________

"The Jewish State still exists because of the influence of the diaspora Jews on a powerful country-- the USA. So the idea that Israel is on its own is a total farce."

Israel is in fact the most subsidized entity on earth when one considers the totality of special privileges granted it: everything from a generous free-trade treaty with America to an American guarantee of Israel's oil supply to the sharing of secret technology and the freedom for citizens to move back and forth as dual nationals and to a $3 billion handout every year plus many more special privileges courtesy of America's corrupt campaign-finance system and the lobby for Israel’s skill in manipulating it.

Yes indeed, Israel's claims to independence are a farce.

What other leader of 7 million people - not even the size of many of the world's cities - gets to shove his way into the Oval Office with regularity? And gets to discuss such sensitive topics as the use of America's military?

And we all know what will happen in general terms should that lunatic Netanyahu attack Iran.

Iran, quite within its rights of self-defence, will hit back with missiles - and it has large numbers of accurate missiles - aimed at Israel's cities or perhaps at Israel's totally illegal nuclear weapons plant at Dimona.

Israel will then cry to the U.S. for help and to prevent it from having to respond with nuclear missiles.

Willy-nilly, the U.S. will be dragged into yet one more war for this nasty country that cannot get along with one of its neighbors and which indeed has attacked all of them at one time or another.

If the U.S. does attack, Iran will respond in many ways, including possibly sinking an aircraft carrier with its Sunburn supersonic missiles.

Will Russia enter the fighting? Will China?

Only dangerous idiots advise this course.

Israel tried previously to entangle the U.S. in war with its deliberate two-hour attack on the USS Liberty, a well-marked intelligence ship of which the Israelis had been advised, during the Six Day War.

When it comes to rogue states, Israel makes North Korea look positively bucolic and peaceful.

A COLUMNIST ASKS WHETHER ISRAEL AND AMERICA SHOULD BOMB IRAN?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DAVID BLAIR IN THE TELEGRAPH

An idiotic question.

Should Israel and the U.S. bomb a country which has attacked no one in its modern history?

A country, moreover, that every expert agency has declared is not working on an atomic weapon?

A country that is a member of international treaties and allows inspection of its sites?

Bombed by what surely rank as the most criminal and aggressive governments in the current world?

An America which has literally killed millions to no point since Vietnam?

An America which to this day is the only nation to have actually used nuclear weapons, twice, on civilians?

And bombed by Israel, a country whose leader has been characterized by two major Western presidents as a perpetual liar?

And Israel a country which week-in, week-out steals the property of others and conducts with regularity extrajudicial murders of people it does not like?

And a country which broke every rule and law there is to secretly obtain nuclear weapons?

A country which shared nuclear weapons technology with apartheid South Africa?

I believe when the question is phrased correctly, the answer is screamingly obvious.

That this kind of nonsense even appears in our papers - as it does with regularity - shows what a distorted world we live in.

The United States is God, and Israel serves as His blessed angel of vengeance.

PUTIN'S ELECTION AND RUSSIA'S HARD FUTURE - MORE PROPAGANDA ABOUT THE CLEAR CHOICE OF RUSSIAN VOTERS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY AREL BRAUN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

It seems clear that Putin commands more support than anyone else in Russia.

It is equally clear that the small number of demonstrators against Putin, undoubtedly covertly encouraged by the CIA, represents a small minority.

So why do we keep getting junk-think articles like this one from Arel Braun?

Because Putin is intelligent and capable and takes a stand on a number of international issues opposed to the official line from Washington.

As far as Russia's painful future, Mr. Braun seems unaware that Russia has already been through the worst - a great depression and huge convulsions following the collapse of communism.

We did not hear from people like Braun then.

I believe Russia has a great future - with their resources and gifted people - and they need someone like Putin, not a drunken clown like Boris Yetsin.

The world needs multi-polar power and not a single super one like the United States. That is something in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the world's people.

We've already seen the U.S. behave as a high-handed bully many times in recent years.

Apologists for Israel's bloody excesses and irrational demands - Mr. Braun having been one of these in the past - do not agree. They want an America uber alles to keep Israel in an unchallenged position as Mideast junior partner in determining world affairs .    

I cannot attribute any other understandable motive for an article like this.

Russia will become a more perfect democracy in future, but it needs to grow and become strong and build a strong middle class, and Putin is a pretty good bet for the kind of leadership needed for now.

NOISE OVER ASSUMED CORRUPTION IN PUTIN'S ELECTION IN RUSSIA - BUT AMERICA'S CORRUPT ELECTIONS ARE HISTORICAL FACT

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

"... a managed democracy is not a true democracy..."

May we set that down in the Globe Book of Golden Editorial Bromides?

Even if true, it only puts Putin in the same category as many American politicians.

There is widespread election fraud in every national election in the U.S.

Several American presidents were indeed elected through vote fraud: these include John Kennedy, George Bush, and Lyndon Johnson's rise to the Senate.

I grew up in the Chicago of the 1950s and 1960s, and vote fraud - everything from political supporters helping old folks work the new voting machines and the registration of the names of the dead off cemetery registrations to ward-heelers burning the midnight oil hitting the switches on the then-new voting machines or voiding opposition ballots by making marks with pencil lead stuck under their fingernails - was common, accepted fact - indeed, there were many jokes about it.

Indeed, in our last election in Canada, Harper's goons began importing shabby American practices with its robo-calls - vote fraud in every sense of the term.

To expect Russia - with its absolutist history - to instantly meet high democratic standards is just nonsense or propaganda.

Please, Globe editors, when you write stuff like this, ignoring any sense of perspective in history and national affairs, you only scream to your informed readers, and you do have some informed readers, that your attitudes towards propaganda are just a little gentler than those of the old Politburo.

Russia has made remarkable progress, and rough democracy or not, most Russians wanted Putin.

That's more than you can say for former-President Bush.

NOISE ABOUT CHINA'S PLAN TO INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING BY 11% IN 2012

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

For those who do not know, China's military expenditures have run officially at about 10% those of the United States for years.

Even if you allow for some disguise in expenditures, it has not been more than 15% those of the United States.

In recent years the United States' expenditures have increased at explosive rates, as the Pentagon quite literally aims to have the entire planet subject to its drones and spy satellites and new hypersonic killing machines.

The United States spends as much as the total of all the other world's countries on the military.

The United States is the world's greatest arms dealer, by a huge measure.

Only in recent weeks Obama - yes, Obama, that former sandal-wearing academic - announced new measures to keep America's hold of the Eastern Pacific - a direct threat to China, courtesy of the Pentagon which now pretty much controls what an American president may or may not do.

And China sees America doing things like using its high-tech drones to assassinate people in half a dozen countries.

That is the context around China's new expenditure, and I believe we should all be grateful that the world has a few states that will not allow America's usurpation of authority around the globe to go unchallenged.  

ONTARIO'S EFFORT TO CLAMP DOWN ON TEACHER LABOR COST - COMPARISON WITH OTHERS HAVING SIMILAR EDUCATION - ONTARIO'S SYSTEM NOT COMPETITIVE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Absolutely.

It is a terrible waste of precious resources to give teachers the total package they now receive.

Their wages, considering many of them have little more than a general BA and 9 months at an academically worthless teachers' college, are extremely high.

The next best job most of them would qualify for is as a salesperson or clerk, and that is not a sarcasm.

And we only ask them to work for less than 9 months a year, and those are comprised of short days.

We give them the most ridiculously generous days-off benefits on the planet. Paid substitutes every time they are off plus, of course, their own salaries - so each day off costs taxpayers roughly double.

They are also permitted an inordinate number of days off - 24 per short year - and many treat this allowance as almost an additional vacation time they would be foolish to miss.

"Banking" of sick days, something almost unheard of in private business, is pure abuse.

Then they get all those "professional development' days off. They are supposed to be doing worthwhile things on those days, but in reality they amount to still more vacation.

They, unlike most comparably paid people in industry, are never expected to work one minute of overtime, at least not without being paid more.

They are responsible to virtually no one for their skill and performance levels. After being hired, they are never, never checked out by anyone. There is no such thing as a meaningful assessment of performance.

And what do we get in return? An undistinguished level of achievement for our young people which is absolutely not competitive in the world.

And our children spend roughly half a year in school each year.

The pay for performance is actually rather disgraceful.

_________________________________________________

"That's why teachers vote liberal."

It has little to do with Liberals, although McGuinty has been especially grovelling towards teachers.

Conservatives have no record - none at all - of doing anything serious about the gross excesses of teachers.

Every politician is afraid of a teachers' strike.

We really need someone ready to take one to pare the excesses down.

Once we have one, it won't last long, and we can get back to a real world set of conditions applying to teacher employment.

Teachers would fold in short order when they found they would not be able to manage this year's holiday in France or the payments on the BMW.

We desperately need not only budget savings but a new sense of purpose and urgency to become competitive in our public schools.

ON THE MATTER OF BULLYING AND SCHOOLS - HOW SIMPLISTIC POLLS CAN YIELD MEANINGLESS RESPONSES - NONSENSE THAT HALF OF CANADIANS HAVE BEEN BULLIED

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Well, as with all simplistic poll questions, you get a meaningless response, but why does the Globe editorial proceed to treat the meaningless with the irrelevant?

Normal teasing and even the odd insult are not bullying, not by any sensible measure, and I'm sure that overwhelmingly that is the kind of activity showing up in the poll's responses.

Physical abuse, mugging, and relentless abuse of a victim, however, are genuine bullying.

These have no more place in our society than assault and robbery and stalking on our streets.

We hire at great cost police and a vast justice system to help protect us from such treatment on the streets.

No one, except perhaps Rob Ford, thinks you dial 9-1-1 because someone teases or briefly insults you.

But in a school community, children and parents expect that it will be safe from the same acts we do not tolerate on our streets.

Sadly, this is often not the case.

Schools are communities, and the authorities of the communities are the adults. Children look to them for safety, but in so many cases today they look in vain.

The anti-bully programs with slogans and videos and t-shirts we have today are little more than a way for administrators to cover their behinds. Window dressing.

What is required are teachers and administrators who look out for and respond to such unacceptable behavior, but too often they are not paying any attention and even actively avoiding intervening to avoid the troubles of difficult children and difficult parents. In a word, their behavior often is just cowardly.

That is unacceptable, because they are the eyes and authorities of the school community.

Of course, there are more than a few teachers who themselves are bullies, but you just try getting anything done about them. Impossible.

We had zero-tolerance on violence - a good thing for the safety of the entire school community - but as soon as one ethnic group found its students in trouble more than others, the policy was dropped like a hot potato.

Yelling prejudice about stats is a pretty sad way to destroy a good policy.

CALLING PUTIN'S RUSSIA A GANGSTER STATE IS NOT WARRANTED - BUT WE DO HAVE A GENUINE GANGSTER STATE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TELEGRAPH

You've no basis for saying this.

I've seen nothing that would warrant Putin being characterized this way.

He is not the kind of democratic spirit we tend to have in the West, but he is intelligent and capable, and he is the kind of leader a huge nation struggling to get its footing needs.

No democratic nation in the West is without an early history of strongmen, aristocrats, or kings. Indeed, today, those of great wealth still exercise inordinate power in our so-called democratic states.

Just look at the example of Rupert Murdoch, a man whose enterprises appear to have broken every British tradition of civility, privacy, and equality before the law.

But then the True Blue Right Wingers of Telegraph's editorial staff don't need proof to spout about those they don't like, do they?

The truth is we have one absolutely proven gangster state in the world, and that is Israel.

It steals from others whatever it wants.

It kills anyone it feels like killing.

It holds more than 4 million people in seemingly endless bondage.

It threatens the security of every state within a thousand miles of its border, whatever that happens to be on a particular day.

Its leader is so flagrant a liar that two heads of major states were overheard saying.

ROB FORD WRITES DEFENDING HIS OBTUSE ACTIONS - THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANTS AND DEMANDS - POLITICIANS' MEANINGLESS QUESTIONS TO THE PUBLIC

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ROB FORD IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

A reader writes:

"Rob, I've read that you quote the "man on the street" and people "in Tim Hortons" telling you that they want subways. In fact, I believe you just recently said that "everyone" tells you that they want subways."

In economics we distinguish between what people want and what they demand.

If "wants" ruled the world, beggars would be kings. Wants are only wishes, and generally uninformed wishes.

Demands are wants backed up by the willingness to pay for them, and demands are a large part of what all of economics deals with.

People may want subways - I'm not even sure of that - but are they willing to pay for them?

Do they even have any notion of what they cost? Of how totally insignificant a distance you can build for even a hundred million dollars?

No, they mostly do not.

Add to that the troubled economic times we are in, and people's genuine demands - what they are willing to pay for through taxes at all levels - will be markedly different to simplistic responses to a politician's simplistic questions in a subway car.

Rob Ford's questions only sharply define one of the fundamental problems of our politics: politicians offer glamorous schemes without taking any trouble or responsibility to cost them and explain their costs. It is a practice which is irresponsible.

MAYOR ROB FORD'S HIGH-HANDED FIRING OF TORONTO TRANSIT MANAGER GARY WEBSTER: TRANSPORTATION POLICY THROUGH IGNORANCE

POSTED RESPONSE TO COLUMN BY MARCUS GEE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

An cheeseburger-eating dullard from Etobicoke who likes driving his car every day into the city, often while illegally using his cellphone, fires an experienced expert in transit.

And this is transportation policy?

_____________________________

"Rob Ford clearly campaigned and won on a platform of subways. The bureaucrats are there to serve the government of the day. "

A mayoral candidate may campaign on any issue he or she likes, but being elected does not mean, in our system, that your campaign issue becomes law.

The Council - the genuine political authority for the city, just as Parliament is the genuine national political authority - has voted, and Ford lost.

We've had that happen, many times.

Just because Miller was elected, we did not close down the Island Airport, and that is a good thing.

Ford simply does not know what he is talking about. What kind of city do you build on the basis of ignorance?

Toronto is a city of narrow streets for the most part, and it has almost no grand avenues going its length or width to permit the flow of cars.

It absolutely must think in terms other than the car for the future.

And subways are terribly expensive.

The world's great subway systems - like London or Paris or New York - were mostly built when labor was extremely cheap: you could not reproduce one of them today unless you had a hundred billion dollars available.

When you ask the general public a question in which either they are not competent or that is loaded with emotional baggage, you can often get just the answer you want: polls and marketers do that all the time.

So asking people in general about subways - without their having any hint of knowledge about technical or financial realities - borders on meaningless fantasy.

Claiming campaign slogans as representing the voice of the people is simply unthinking nonsense, much like giving weight to a candidate’s asking people if they'd all like free passes to an expensive restaurant.  

CBC HITS BOTTOM: CANADA READS REDUCED TO A FARCE BY THE GHOMESHI CROWD INCLUDING ANNE-FRANCE GOLDWATER'S TASTELESS VIEWS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Just one more proof of the trash CBC management is making of our once-proud radio network.

When Bill Richardson handled Canada reads, listeners heard sly humor and the observations of an interesting, graceful mind.

Jian Ghomeshi and the people organizing his show have long ago demonstrated they have the Midas touch in reverse by turning gold into garbage.

Bringing on the guest who made these tasteless, and perhaps libelous, comments (Anne-France Goldwater, who called one author a terrorist and another a liar) shows the same lack of judgment shown when a certain unpleasant America hillbilly singer seriously embarrassed Ghomeshi on air.

And why was the unpleasant hillbilly or this "Judge Judy" type brought on air? To juice things up as only mediocrities like Ghomeshi and his producers would understand juicing things up. Once again, they were caught in a display of poor judgment and genuine incompetence.  

The genuine humor is gone from Canada Reads because Ghomeshi, as proved through several past efforts of CBC executives pushing him on the radio-listening public, has no sense of humor worth listening to.

I recall, a few years back before he had his current show, when this boring man served as summer host on a show, dishing up day after day, as his idea of humor, a pathetic line about trying to read James Joyce's Ulysses plus a few other inane attempts at humor.

I never wanted to hear his voice again, but he was given a big new show, all kinds of publicity, some big-name interviews, Canada Reads, and apparently a very large salary which CBC will not reveal.

As for the intellectual part of Canada Reads with Bill Richardson, well, Ghomeshi is nothing but a pop record promoter - not unlike a latter-day, Canadian version of Dick Clark. He has a totally uninteresting mind, and I never listened to Canada Reads again.

Well, they do say, ”time wounds all heels,” don’t they?

TEN YEARS LATER AND AFGHANISTAN IS PROVING TO BE AN UTTER WASTE OF LIFE AND TREASURE - CANADA'S SAD ROLE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY PAUL KORING IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

We went into Afghanistan for one reason only.

The exact quote is: we owe one to the Pentagon.

Those words were said considering Canada's previous principled refusal to enter the insane slaughter in Iraq and to participate in one of America's projects for the militarization of space.

The Liberals, in agreeing, thought Canadians would not be in front-line duty and serve only as the kind of behind-the-front (fairly token) support true so many other NATO nations hoping to placate America.

Also since America had managed to get a UN resolution - as it mostly does in such matters through quiet browbeating, threats to aid, cajoling, and even pay-back threats - Canada took it as a sign of international recognition of legitimacy.

But Afghanistan never had real legitimacy.

Just look at all the NATO contributions. In view of the size of the country and of the exaggerated American claims of its vital nature and world-importance, all the contributions are token, ranging in size from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Does anyone not believe that had NATO countries believed the American nonsense about the vital nature of the mission that the contributions would have been in the tens of thousands?

The entire matter has been a vast charade, a charade basically covering America's naked desire for extreme revenge in Afghanistan.

The Taleban never attacked anyone, and to this day we haven't one ounce of proof bin Laden had anything to do with it, other than to enjoy the spectacle of an enemy being hurt.

Nasty as the Taleban were, they were no worse than the ugly members of the Northern Alliance, the people America used - behind a front of carpet-bombing - to actually fight the Taleban and the people some of whose members rule until this day.

All the stuff about rights was the lowest form of propaganda.

After all, the Russians during their invasion and occupation did many things in keeping with improving Afghanistan's modernity, and what was the American response? To send billions in armaments to the people fighting the Russians.

We have no better modern example of a pointless war presented as something which it was not.
Even Vietnam, that modern holocaust in which the United States killed perhaps 3 million people and left behind a hideous mess of mine and Agent Orange and craters from carpet-bombing, never had such phony propaganda about its purpose.

A fool's mission all around I am sorry to say, but the ugly truth may better prepare Canadians against such lunatic American projects in future.

FURTHER TO IRAN AND JOHN BAIRD'S PATHETIC WORDS ON GERALD CAPLAN'S ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION: ON THE USE OF THE INSULT 'ANTI-SEMITIC' FOR CRITICS OF ISRAEL

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

“Almost all the top comments here have unnecessary and ANTI-SEMITIC language.”

People who criticize Israel are not, ipso facto, anti-Semitic.

Nor are the people who apologize for Israel’s bloody excesses necessarily qualified to judge the motives of others who do not accept such behavior: fanatics in any realm of human activity are never people qualified to sit in judgement.

It is an insult to logic and intelligence to have this slur repeated, over and over, yet in every forum of public opinion concerning Israel, we have this name-calling repeated.

It is ad hominem attack which itself reflects clear prejudice and often just plain hatefulness.

If Israel is to be a state like any other state, it is subject to the same criticisms as any other state, full stop.

And today Israel, as a state, breaks almost every international norm and treaty and convention you care to name.

People who care about such things are not to be put off by gratuitous insults.

There are huge issues at stake in Israel's behaviors and in its demands, and since Israel and her supporters demand of people in Canada, the United States, and Europe, never tire of seeking assistance and support, surely the people of these countries have the right and obligation to speak about very troubling matters.

Israel extra-judicially kills at will regularly. If you want to support that, fine, but there is no argument against the ugly fact.

Israel steals the homes and farms of others regularly. Again, if you want to support that, fine, but it is practice violating every norm of a free society and indeed of a free enterprise economy operating under laws.

Israel keeps millions in oppressive bondage with no genuine rights or application of just laws. You are free to support that, but others are right to observe it is a throwback to societies we all believed were things of the past.

Israel attacks every neighbor that it has, over and over, and it demands military action against countries like Iran who have made no threats. You are free to support that, but others are just as free – in our society at least – to say that the invasion of Iraq, which the U.S. conducted on Israel’s behalf, was a terrible war crime, responsible for deaths of a million souls, and repeating it in Iran is simply unthinkable.

FURTHER TO GERALD CAPLAN'S REASONED WORDS ON IRAN - JOHN BAIRD, THE CONSERVATIVES' UTILTY ATTACK-DOG MINISTER, SAYS IRAN IS A THREAT AND NOT RHETORIC - SOME HARD FACTS

A SERIES OF RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Why on earth would anyone think John Baird knows what he is talking about?

Apart from the fact that Mr. Baird has proven himself in public numerous times a dishonest and patronizing and unethical politician, Canada in fact has no equivalent of MI6 or the CIA, so we have absolutely no information sources of our own (CSIS being limited to domestic efforts).

Baird is merely echoing the words of Israeli and American sources, both of which not only have their own special interests for what they say but are proved liars in countless instances.

We have the blunt testimony, made public through error, from the presidents of France and the United States as to what a complete liar Mr. Netanyahu is, an unprecedented and unimpeachable testimony into secret affairs.

Israel endlessly plots to gain advantage and position throughout the Middle East. Its plots have nothing to with genuine security but with a desire to sit as arbiter of all affairs within a thousand miles of its borders (whatever those are).

Only the other day the United States quietly cancelled a large joint military exercise with Israel, having become quite fearful that Israel would exploit it for engaging the United States in war with Iran.

Top level American military and intelligence men expressed their deep concerns to Obama that Israel's series of black operations in Iran, including the assassinations of several scientists were aimed at triggering just such an event.

It would not be the first time for Israel: both the Six Day War and the two-hour attempt to sink the American electronic spy ship USS Liberty in 1967 were black operations, the second intended both to blind the United States as to what was happening in the war and as an effort to draw the United States into it.

And you cannot get much blacker than Israel's now-known sharing of nuclear technology with apartheid South Africa.

Baird serves Harper's interests as a faithful junk-yard dog, and we all know Harper has bent over backwards to express views on Israel and Israel's interests which have no basis in Canada's traditional foreign policy.

Harper is motivated in at least two ways in this dark effort: one, he is a fundamentalist Christian full of biblical nonsense about Israel and the end of time from the nightmare lunacy of the Book of Revelations.

And two, Harper is miming American Republicans in being totally solicitous of all things Israeli because it brings in a steady flow of campaign donations, and we know Harper has as a goal for personal achievement to destroy and replace the Liberal Party, with campaign financing games being a major tool towards the goal.

Baird only demonstrates he is one more shabby new-Conservative politician ready to put short-term goals of party political success ahead of Canada's genuine long-term interests, which absolutely do not include ugly business like starting another Iraq-style war with Iran, a country guilty of nothing, and perhaps convulsing the world into a major crisis.
____________________________

"I recently watched a documentary about the rise of Adolph Hitler. Seeing all those cheering, delighted 'fans' at every event as he gave his speeches made me wonder what kind of people could applaud that sort of bile and hate. Reading the comments in the Globe, though, I can easily see we still have that same sort around today in Canada. I think half the regular comment posters here would cheer another Hitler if he promised to rid the world of Jews."

The comment is ignorant beyond telling.

I have studied the rise of Hitler in serious and scholarly books. The rise of such people provides important historical lessons needed to protect democratic and human values.

Most Germans never wanted Hitler.

Despite the most strenuous efforts, he was never able to get a bit more than 37% of the vote.
Hitler took over in an elaborate coup d’état after having been appointed as Chancellor by President Hindenburg, an old man desperate for peace in the streets and a man who previously was quite contemptuous of Hitler.

And most Germans never wanted war, but they were trapped by a vicious and ruthless government. Just read the works of the great American journalist of Hitler's time, William L. Shirer. He was there, and he was an intelligent and perceptive witness to events.

It is not just a coincidence that the popular vote for Harper is close in percentage (39.6%) to that of Hitler's highest achievement: every society has malcontents, ideologues and savages as part of its fabric, just as a certain percentage of every human population is mentally unbalanced.

And when people - politicians or ordinary people making grossly dishonest comments - tell lies, over and over, louder and louder, we should all be acutely aware we have entered a danger zone in human affairs.

Baird has nothing but prejudice and no genuine information whatsoever to support his yelling and chest-beating.

How would we distinguish that mode of behavior from a small-time Joseph Goebbels type?
We cannot.
__________________________________________

"A very good reply by Mr. Baird.

"The difference between Iran and other dangerous countries like Pakistan is that Iran actively funds, trains and directs terrorist organizations that target the likes of Israel and the US and now Saudi Arabia. Iran is also very bellicose about annihilating Israel or the Zionist regime like they call it (as if there is a difference?) and this is before anyone was talking about attacking Iran.

"In the end, people here who ignore the facts at all costs will never be convinced until a bomb falls on their head."

It ain't our heads on which bombs will fall.

It's 70 million completely innocent Iranians.

Just as the Iraq invasion - again, a product of Israel's tireless efforts on a very weak American president - killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and destroyed a society for a generation.

It is only the genuine ideologues and haters pushing for extreme measures against Iran.

And surely we all know by now where policy driven by ideologues and haters takes us.

A one-way trip to nowhere.

And note what colossally dangerous prejudice the person making the comment displays: “other dangerous countries like Pakistan."

Goebbels couldn't have said it better.
_________________________________

“The only threat a nuclear armed Iran poses is to the American ability to invade them.
“End of story.”

A brutal truth, but only a partial truth.

No country would ever use nuclear weapons in that fashion, because it would be national suicide.
And that is also precisely why the ideologues and haters who promote Israel's twisted views do not understand reality.

We know Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons because former President Carter told us that a couple of years ago.

The truth is that even were Iran developing nuclear weapons - and it is decidedly not doing so - all that would result is the kind of stand-off we had in Europe for decades.

And that stand-off kept the peace.

Israel does not fear Iran with nuclear weapons per se. It fears the rising influence of Iran in the region, an influence which in part stems from America's stupid invasion of Iraq, another insane project advocated by Israel.

Israel unquestionably wants the same kind of virtually absolute authority in its region that America enjoys in the world at large.

The word for that is simple: it's imperialism.

So here we have, once again, imperialistic and grossly selfish motives posing as desperate security fears and humanistic concerns.

It simply ain't so.
__________________________________

"a rapid [sic] left-wing Jew" liza writes in describing Mr. Gerald Caplan.

Again, Goebbels could not have said it better.

How does anyone, not mentally unbalanced or viciously hating, write such ugly things?

Were anyone other than an apologist for Israel to utter such hate-speech, he or she would be attacked savagely.

But it's okay when you promote war and destruction on behalf of Imperial Israel.
__________________________________________

"It really is time for people to wake up. This is real.

"Remember 9/11."

Ah, the ultimate stupidity has been uttered: "Remember 9/11."

9/11 was a crime committed by 19 unstable men, each of whom paid for it with his life.

But that didn't stop the arm-pumping, belly-over-belt crowd from murdering in blind rage at least half a million people having nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.

Gee, I'm glad we have writers like this to remind us of stupid human beings can be.
We're chimpanzees with bigger brains, just big enough to cause horrific destruction.
__________________________________

"Perhaps Mr. Baird and his colleagues will take the time to educate themselves"

When what you are after is propaganda and appeals to humanity's worst instincts, you don't educate yourself.

Why let education stand in the way of rage and irrationality?

It's so much more fun to stomp up and down like Mr. Baird does, the very picture of an angry child, albeit a terribly ugly one.

http://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/2010/06/canadas-john-baird-does-lunch.html
____________________________________________

"Gerald Klu Klux Kaplan has the IQ of pond scum and it is to this paper's eternal shame that it publishes his ignorant and hateful delusions. Since when does the globe publish racists like him? If Mr. Klu Klux Kaplan hates the jooz so much, maybe he should write for Stormfront or something."

Sorry, but apart from the misspellings, isn't it people like you who hurl ugly names, instead of cogent arguments, who demonstrate low IQs?

Although in truth, IQ has nothing to do with it.

Goebbels was a highly intelligent and educated man, but he was a hater and a believer in ugly fantasy.

And just so, this writer.
__________________________________

“Baird and his staff write well, but they cannot hide their ethically indefensible support for Israel's politics of repression, aggression, and religious superiority. I worry far more about Israel and the US than I do about Iran.”


They don't want to hide it.

They make a very clear and public appeal to the supporters of Israel's bloody excesses.

It's precisely the scenario we see with America's Republicans, all racing to outdo each other in excessive and nasty statements about whatever it is that Israel does not like.

How can anyone argue that such people are serving the national interest?
__________________________________

"For those whose comments are full of anti Islamic stuff, are you aware that a proportion of the Palestinian population that was driven out after WW II was Christian?"


I'm glad you remind us of that truth.

Hanan Ashwari, for example, an able politician and academic, is Christian.

And so are tens of thousands of Palestinians.

By the way, it is illegal in Israel for Christians to preach conversion as they do in Canada or the United States every day.

A WRITER CORRECTLY OBSERVES THAT THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA ARE WRONG ON THE IRAN THREAT - INDEED AND WHAT IS BEHIND IT ALL

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GERALD CAPLAN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

There is nothing threatening about Iran, absolutely nothing.

Indeed, after the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War - started by Hussein's Iraq and encouraged and abetted by a United States keen to see Iran hurt - which was a war on a per capita basis about as bloody for Iran as WWI in Europe, Iran has had every reason to avoid war.

Despite the religious extremes of the state - something, by the way, very much present in Israel too with its nasty ultra-orthodox groups - Iran has not been aggressive towards any of its neighbors.

Iran is not even heavily armed if you take as a standard of comparison Israel, the world's most heavily armed country on a per capita basis, its spending beyond all reason for the size of its economy.

Indeed Israel, as we all now know, is armed with nuclear weapons, the very thing it daily shamelessly accuses Iran of working towards.

It is sickening to hear Israel threaten day after day a people who do no harm.

And of course Israel doesn't just threaten by itself, it pushes the United States through a lobby the like of which exists no where else to threaten and make ominous moves and demand extreme sanctions.

The United States keeps two to three aircraft carrier groups off the coast of Iran, an immense and terrifying presence which Iran has done absolutely nothing to deserve.

Israel itself now has at least one submarine there, likely equipped with American Harpoon missiles it illegally fitted up with small nuclear warheads a few years back.

What could be more threatening than this presence accompanied by the frightful rhetoric we hear and read from Israel?

There is one sad truth in this matter, and that is the inordinate influence of the Israel Lobby on U.S. politics.

The United States committed a world-scale atrocity invading Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands and setting back a vibrant Arab land decades.

And the only real reason for that crime was to flatten Israel's most unflinching opponent. While the U.S. has never admitted that formally, both analysis of the situation and an inadvertent blubber from George Bush confirm it.

Now Israel wants Iran flattened, under the flimsy excuse Iran is developing nuclear weapons, something every single expert who knows anything says is not so.

What Israel actually wants is Iran flattened because of its growing influence in the region. Israel, quite simply, wants to be hegemonic power in the region, a miniature replica of the United States in the world at large.

And we are fed an endless series of lies and distortions to assist Israel in achieving that. Look at every Republican presidential candidate, and you will find people receiving massive campaign contributions to promote nonsense from "there are no Palestinians" to "I'd attack Iran immediately," none of which is fair or ethical.

And in Canada, we have an American Republican wannabe as our prime minister now who tailors his statements to precisely the same purposes and for precisely the same reasons.

Insanity.

AMERICAN MAGAZINE EDITOR SUPPORTING ISRAEL QUITS AFTER ADVOCATING PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION - ISRAEL'S DESCENT INTO INSANITY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Quits?
 
Big deal.

Threatening the President's life is a crime in the United States.

The man belongs in prison.

This whole matter shows how sick and twisted the support for Israel has become.

Bad enough calling every critic of Israel's ugly policies an anti-Semite, a favorite practice of frustrated supporters who do not get what they want.

But now this?

It is not to be taken lightly that a prominent man feels he can do this.
__________________________________

"The Israelites are given over to murdering people that they don't like .........
"Shamir and his Stern Gang murdered Count Bernadotte, the Swedish Peace Envoy ........."

Yes, indeed, along with literally hundreds of other murders and acts of terror in the 1940s.

Israel was born in terror, and instead of growing into a respectable member of the world community, it has only gone on to become something very unpleasant, violating all fair-minded people's sense of fairness and decency.

And it comes as no surprise that its fervent supporters behave in the same fashion.
It was not that long ago that a prominent American lawyer advocated in writing the execution of all family members of any Palestinian caught in an act of terror.

And what single act in our day is more terrifying than Israel's assault on Gaza, which is basically a refugee camp, killing 400 children, a thousand others, and lying about every detail of that savagery since?

Then still imposing 4 years of illegal and inhumane embargo on the same people and using murderous acts of piracy to enforce it?

Israel, sadly, has become little more than a mafia state: it murders, it steals, it oppresses, and it breaks all international law with impunity, lying and shamelessly claiming the right to do things no one has the right to do.

And the public is supposed to say fine because poor Israel feels threatened.

Israel is threatened seriously by absolutely no one or nothing but its own insanity.

The threat Obama represents, if it can even be called that, is that Israel must eventually abide by rules and treaties, assuming its previous borders, but Israel wants everything and it wants the non-Jews gone.

Hardly a stance any person of ethics can be expected to agree with.

REVIEW OF JOAN MELLEN’S FAREWELL TO JUSTICE - THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION AND JIM GARRISON'S INVESTIGATION

A note to readers: Normally, I post my book reviews only on another site of mine, Chuckman’s Miscellanea of Words, but because of the nature of this book and its being the 48th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination, I am also posting on this site.

The blurb inside this book tells us that Joan Mellen is a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University, and sadly that fact confirms my darkest fears about American education, because Ms. Mellen, as amply demonstrated by significant portions of this book, often cannot write a literate paragraph. It is appalling how many badly written pages are in this volume.

Why did I continue to read it? I am a great admirer of the late Jim Garrison, who incidentally was a pretty fine writer, and being aware of the hatchet-job books done on his efforts in the Kennedy assassination, I wanted to read something of a defense. Ms. Mellen’s book is one of the few, so I persevered through her muddy paragraphs in hopes of reaching a bit of clear water and learning something.

Well, it does get somewhat better through the middle of the book, and there are some interesting points and details raised here.

I very much believe that Jim Garrison stumbled upon something big in New Orleans, something very big, part of the conspiracy to kill John Kennedy, a conspiracy carefully ignored by the Warren Commission and later by The House Select Committee.

Garrison was a very intelligent and able man, but no individual, no matter how bright and brave and dedicated, could have completely withstood the assaults of a Washington establishment determined to smear and mislead and destroy him. The imbalance of forces was terrifying, and the efforts likely shortened Garrison’s life. This book does document some of that in its better-written portions.

I never shared Garrison’s belief that the CIA as an organization killed Kennedy, although it just could not be clearer to people who’ve read enough on the subject that the CIA always worked to manipulate and distort evidence in this matter. Indeed, it continues to do so to this day.

For Jim Garrison, fighting all the dirt and abuse, it would naturally seem that they were covering their own responsibility. I believe rather that they have been covering what would have been explosive information in the 1960s: that their private army of Cuban terrorists killed the President, aided more than likely by the direct or indirect help of the CIA handlers responsible for arming, training, and paying that gang of cutthroats in their long efforts at mayhem and murder in Cuba and in Florida.

People today almost cannot imagine the fetid political atmosphere in the United States of the 1950s and 1960s. It was poisonous, so much so that in many other places people were deeply concerned that the United States would do some terrible things. That view was part of what informed spies the Britain’s Cambridge Circle. The United States in that era seriously considered a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union and later on China and it thought nothing of invading a country like Cuba or of overthrowing even democratically-elected governments like those in Guatemala and Iran.

Discrediting the CIA in any way at that time, much as it was deserved, was regarded almost as treason, and that was why the CIA lied and cheated its way through every effort at genuine investigation. The CIA was up to its armpits in collusion with mobsters and thugs of every description to achieve the overthrow of Castro, and when its secret army of Cuban fanatics killed the President, with or without the assistance of their professional CIA handlers, it simply could not be revealed. Truth be known, I feel confident many of the CIA’s career men were glad when he died, believing he did not possess the blind faith they embraced.

The FBI too was glad. Hoover hated the Kennedys beyond describing. And with CIA backing and other political backing, it felt safe to cover and even destroy evidence in its almost laughable race to find poor Oswald guilty, and it was very convenient to portray Oswald as a “Commie nut” since the lifelong passion of Hoover was to lynch as many Communists as he could, even while he was friends with American gangsters.

For some while after the assassination, the CIA tried – through articles and books by its assets in American publishing – to blame Castro for the assassination, but that pathetic story pretty much withered away, Castro being far too clever to have hired someone like Oswald or to have given America’s establishment the excuse it wanted to cover an invasion.

It is well known in intelligence operations that you not only prepare a primary fall-back story – the Castro story – but a secondary one should that fail to gain traction, and that second one is blaming the mafia. The inept Robert Blakey, largely responsible for the feeble efforts of the House Select Committee investigation, put that idea forward. So too did others in a series of contrived books.

It is still around today, with new proponents surfacing periodically. What the story ignores is the virtual impossibility of getting the various mafia clans – the mafia not being a single organization but a group of loosely cooperating families – to agree on so extreme an act, putting all their billions in assets at risk and giving law enforcement the perfect excuse to shut them down completely.

Again, in Bertrand Russell’s profound question, “If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?” So we pretty much know ipso facto that Oswald cannot have been the lone killer, and that’s apart from his lack of motive and talent and an almost complete lack of sound evidence.

So what is the CIA hiding? Its own embarrassment and incompetence and criminal behavior with terrorist groups like the Cuban refugees, as well as the extreme danger to a free society of having such a well-financed organization with almost no responsibility to anyone.

FOR THE MUSLIM WORLD IT"S NOT A SAFE OR EASY PATH TO MODERNITY - A COLUMN BEGS THE QUESTION OF WHEN IT IS EVER SO FOR ANY SOCIETY - SOME HISTORY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DOUG SAUNDERS IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Sorry, the premiss of this piece is shabby.

There's nothing special about “the Muslim world" which makes the path to modernity neither safe nor easy. Indeed, saying so, demonstrates not a good grasp of history and provides one more sad bit of evidence of the Islamophobia with which we are inundated.

Just a few hundred years ago, Christians were hacking each other into pieces and burning alive those who varied in some minute detail, such as the nature of the bread and wine at mass, in their faith.
Yet Europe today is generally regarded as the world's most civilized and tolerant set of societies in the world, although the social impacts of heavy immigration are beginning to erode that view.

The path to modernity is never, never safe or easy, for anyone, and, truth be told, it is never finished. We are always playing catch-up in our laws with the social changes engendered by technical and economic change.

The idiot-savants at the Pentagon and the CIA would have us believe that you can just change an ancient society in a matter of years, but that belief is the equivalent of thinking you can remove an ancient, ailing oak tree from your yard with a hand scoop.

It took virtually all Western societies centuries to evolve even to the state of civilization we see now.

The beginnings of the modern era go back about five centuries, a time span which reflects the emergence of a new standard in economic growth. Still, even those five centuries are filled with riots, revolutions, wars, and countless horrors.

Even in “the New World,” the United States took more than two centuries to become the approximation of a democracy we see today. In the wake of its Revolution, almost no one could vote, it being estimated that maybe one percent of Virginians could vote, blacks and women being excluded but also, often not appreciated, most white males. You had to have a certain amount of wealth to cast a ballot.

Even then, the Senate was appointed until 1913, the President was elected only by the Electoral College (a small group of the moneyed elites), the popular vote did not determine anything, and the Supreme Court dared not dream of enforcing the Bill of Rights across states so it remained an empty set of high-sounding words. It took decades of change and strife to get what we see today, including what was the bloodiest war ever experienced by Americans, the Civil War, in which it lost roughly twice the people it lost in WWII.

The immense turmoil and mass murders in getting votes and rights for blacks went on for most of the country's history. In the 1920s, several black towns in Oklahoma and Florida were virtually wiped out by white mobs, the bodies of hundreds buried in mass graves.

Women only gained the vote in 1921 after a long and difficult struggle.

The truth is that democracy in some form and respect for human rights are virtually inevitable when an old society experiences consistent economic growth. Economic growth and the rise of a strong middle class act almost like a solvent on the customs and beliefs of old societies. It is a long process, and it is never without a good deal of pain.

Even in North America we are not through with the process of economic development affecting old ways: look at all the turmoil over matters like rising divorce rates, abortion rights, and gay marriage – all things which are necessary and, in a sense, inevitable for a free society which continues to grow and change.

MY WHAT A SURPRISE: TALKS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINIANS END WITH NO BREAKTHROUGH

POSTED COMMENT TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Breakthrough? Isn't that a rather delusional word to use in this context?

How do you get a breakthrough from a nasty bully who for some years has had everything going his way? Continued assassination, torture, abuse of millions, illegal blockade, and no one dares say a word.

What incentive can you possibly think of to push Israel towards fairness and decency? How else do you make a bully behave himself if you don't apply pressure?

Only the United States pushing hard to get results - as Obama started 3 years ago doing - would get even minimal results, but of course Obama was literally reviled and called hateful names in Israel so now he has joined the crowd of bought-and-paid for American politicians who dare not say one tough word about Israel.

We heard the quiet truth from Sarkozy and Obama at the press meeting a while back when a couple of honest exchanges were heard by reporters in error. It was almost the only truth we have had reported in years on this appalling situation.

Israel and its Lobby in the United States have created a virtual machine to stall all meaningful efforts and to create an endless, almost sickening round of absurd statements in the mouths of American politicians hoping to get elected.

Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney - to say nothing of the truly ignorant Bachmann - have all made ridiculous statements on Israel's behalf just for some campaign funds in Iowa. Where's Israel's incentive to compromise?

After the last Congressional elections in the United States, about 80 new Congressman were given deluxe trips to Israel where they are typically feted and fed the right words to use in future. To refuse such a "gift" is almost like signing your own political death warrant, so virtually all of them go.

What have the poor Palestinians to counter that kind of unbelievable influence peddling? Nothing but a just cause, and in the power structure in Washington, that counts little more than spit.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF SAYS WE NEED A POLITICS OF FAIRNESS: DOES THE MAN RECOLLECT ONE DETAIL OF HIS OWN MISERABLE POLITICAL CAREER?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL IGNATIEFF IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Mr Ignatieff, here's what I consider serious unfairness in our politics.

A few Liberal Party insiders go down to Harvard to lure a boring academic to return to Canada with the promise of likely leading the party about which he knew nothing.

The boring academic got parachuted into a riding about which he also knew nothing, and he refused to live in the riding, even though he once said that he would.

The boring academic made some speeches, in the course of pursuing the party's leadership, undeserving of it as he was, with thoughtless statements ready-made for exploitation later by Conservatives in attack ads.

The boring academic later, after the political demise of the politician who beat him out for the leadership, accepts being parachuted into the party's leadership without being tested by any meaningfully democratic process.

The boring academic proves a boring and genuinely inept political leader.

Every poll and gathering proves Liberals themselves do not like the boring academic, but he persists until he can lead the party to its degrading defeat.

And sure enough, the boring academic makes a dumb decision for an election which dooms Canadians to at least four years of Harper's slash and burn.

After quitting in a rush and accepting a sinecure at the University of Toronto, the boring academic manages to pound out a boring article every once in a while to be published in the Globe and Mail.

Sound familiar, Mr Ignatieff?

HARPER AS HOCKEY PRIME MINISTER?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Rubbish.

Cute kitties in his lap didn't work.

Neither did banging out pop songs on a piano.

So the dark bulk is trying to use hockey to make himself look human to Canadians.

But it won't work. This man is an obsessive creature endlessly seeking new avenues to exert his power.
Nothing else matters to such a man.

He reminds me, as a personality type, of Martin Bormann, the terrifying eminence grise of the Third Reich.