Banks, Israel, and unpredictable you | The View from Canada |Axisoflogic.com

Miles Report No. 76 - Banks, Israel, and unpredictable you.

From what has been happening with Canada’s domestic and foreign affairs, and also with watching the incredible circus south of the border, the observer has to wonder about the sanity of the people who pretend to govern in our interests.

Canadian problems

Canada’s new bank - It was announced recently that the government was creating a Canadian Infrastructure Bank in order to facilitate the spending of infrastructure money (that part is obvious).

Canada already has a national bank. Unfortunately under the agreements/rules of the Washington consensus establishments (World Bank, WTO, IMF, BIS, SWIFT et al) the money that Canada spends has to be borrowed from private banks. Thus a huge debt is built up with large interest fees dominating the repayment from the taxpayer through the government to the private banks. Not a bad deal for the banksters, nor the “government”, crazy stupid for the taxpayer.

Crazy stupid because as a sovereign bank, the Bank of Canada under existing laws has the full legality to print money - which it could do, and lend it to the government without interest for the infrastructure projects - certainly would save the taxpayer a ton of money. Canada would then own its own debts and not be at the mercy of the private banks - other than for their manipulation of the various currency and commodity values around the world.

At what level does the new infrastructure bank operate? Is it mainly a holding pool of government money to be distributed to pay for infrastructure development - no interest charges involved? Does it combine with private capital that always seeks a profit, either by paid interest (in this case from the Canadian taxpayer) or from some form of fee/tax for users (bridges, roads et al) or from taxpayers in general (waterworks)?

On the surface this seems simply to be another way in which the powers that be can enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayer. The government needs to provide much more information about the structure of this new bank, otherwise it remains under suspicion of being a payback system for crony corporations - payback by way of the taxpayer.

Canada’s new approach to Israel - Canada’s Governor-General David Johnston, technically the Queen’s representative in Canada, has visited Israel/Palestine in order “to road-test a more balanced Canadian approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Part of the trip included a trip to visit with Abbas in the West Bank territories.

Johnston said, "Let me reaffirm Canada's commitment to work with Israelis, Palestinians and other partners to uphold the prospects of a two-state solution, and achieve a just and lasting peace."

The CBC online article also indicated, “More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, considered illegal under international law by Canada and most of the international community, although Israel disputes this.” [1]

The problems with Canada’s position are several.

In the first instance, while Canada does officially recognize the international perspective, its action in spite of its words are fully supportive of Israel: this is especially true domestically where a position in the Parliament was declared “condemning” the BDS movement. Given a bit more push from Israeli sympathisers in Canada and more pressure from the Israeli government, and pretty soon it will be illegal. Much of Canada’s security/military trade is connected to the Israeli military corporations and security services. Canada also has the Jewish National Fund registered as a charitable organization for tax purposes, but violating Canadian law that does not allow discrimination for housing.

Another problem is with Abbas himself. Essentially he is simply Israel’s puppet, dancing to their tune in order to keep the money flowing into his coffers. He is not a legitimate democratically elected leader as the elections of 2006 were annulled by both the U.S. and Canada in concert with Israeli interests to not have a democratic government to negotiate with - better to have a sidelined terrorist group to create the necessary fear factor with.

The biggest problem is simply that the two state solution is simply dead. Israel will not create an independent state within its own boundaries. What exists is a de facto series of non-democratic cantons/bantustans controlled by the Israeli military and having no real sovereignty now or in the future. What exists is one non-democratic state, without a constitution or a Bill of Rights (other than that Israel has signed the UN Charter), continuing to settle on land expropriated/annexed from the Palestinian population.

Israel's great fear has been and remains the demographic factor - too many Palestinians. Not the terrorist, not the undemocratic Arab states around them, not even ISIS if reports from the Syria/Golan Heights border are true - but more simply the Palestinians very existence is the greater fear. If the Israelis could, the Palestinians would certainly be ethnically cleansed along with the current cultural genocide that is occurring.

Johnston did not visit Gaza for unspecified reasons: afraid to see the destitution caused by the Israeli attacks; not wanting to even acknowledge it is a problem; not wanting to insult his hosts in spite of wanting to be able to criticize Israel? The CBC noted further, “Trudeau promised a return to Canada's “traditional approach” to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, adding that his government "won't hesitate" from criticizing Israel over its settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.” This “traditional approach” has generally recognized Israel’s “proportionate” responses to Gaza attacks but otherwise ignored the conditions that exist there. As well,

"Israel is a friend, Israel is an ally, Israel is a country that has values and an approach on many, many issues that are very much aligned with Canadians values," Trudeau said.

"But, at the same time… we won't hesitate from talking about unhelpful steps like the continued illegal settlements. We will point that out. We will continue to engage in a forthright and open way because that's what people expect of Canada."

"There are times we disagree with our friends and we will not hesitate from pointing that out. There are times we agree with our friends and will stand with them," he said. "And there are times we will disagree with our friends, but we will stand by our friends. We've all had that friend we've had to do that for." [2]

In other words not much will change, we’ll continue to use words, but we will not do anything or make any actions that changes our relationship.

Canada today, regardless of the change in government, still follows the British tradition of imperial control. Part of that control in the Middle East is Canada’s support of Israel as a nominal democratic outpost surrounded by hostile and corrupt neighbours. Another facet is Canada’s willing submission to the policies of the U.S. and its desire for imperial hegemony. Another aspect is Canada’s domestic policy in relation to its own First Nations people, very similar to what Australia has done to the Aboriginal tribes, and what South Africa attempted with their official apartheid policy. All read of imperial control for resources and power, without concern for the indigenous populations.

[1] Gov. Gen. David Johnston walks fine line on Middle East visit. Israeli and Palestinian leaders urged to get back to negotiating table. Derek Stoffel.   www.CBC.ca. Nov 02, 2016.

[2] Trudeau Says His Government Willing To Criticize Canada's 'Friend' Israel. Ryan Maloney. 03/07/2016.   www.huffingtonpost.ca.

Unpredictable you.

This morning (Saturday, November 05, 2016) Brian Stuart, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs (University of Toronto) was interviewed concerning events in Syria. The Munk School is funded by a private person, Barrick Gold founder Peter Munk. Barrick Gold controls several controversial mining operations and is described as a “right wing ideologue”. He keeps control of the Munk School by allocating funding according to how well the school abides by his belief systems. In general, that system consists of pro-imperial U.S. actions (anti-Iran), anti-Russian/Putin rhetoric, and full support of Israel. It is basically a private think tank under the guise of a university school.

Brian Stuart is described within the school as having a very distinguished career as a journalist. However, simply being a career journalist does not mean without bias. This morning he made comparisons between presidential hopeful Trump and Russian leader Putin. His main vocalized concern was the “unpredictable” nature of the supposed Trump government, and the actual Putin government, with two “unpredictable” persons - implying all the negativity he could muster - with their thumbs on the nuclear button.

In one sense he is correct, they are both unpredictable. But the reasons for that differ widely. For Trump, he is an off the cuff narcissistic showman lacking any true understanding of how the world works (but even then, one has to wonder at his showmanship abilities with grandiose and flamboyant statements only bordering on reality, and his final campaign video contains some truths about the U.S. establishment).

Putin is unpredictable for entirely different reasons. The main one is that he demonstrates an ability to outsmart the collective intelligence of the west. I use “intelligence” loosely, as western intelligence is so enamoured of itself that it cannot put itself inside someone else’s perspective in order to be able to think like them, and thus make them predictable. All seventeen U.S. intelligent agencies, combined with Canada’s dozen or so (different police agencies, CSIS), truly do not understand Russia and Putin.

Much of this is wilful, not wanting to understand Russia’s natural interests, not wanting to accept that there is someone with a strong military willing to stand up to the idea of U.S. global imperial hegemony. Some of it is ignorance of history, not knowing or caring about the number and seriousness of military attacks already made against Russia by western powers. Nobody seems to recall the Yeltsin/Clinton era when U.S. interests promoted a financial “shock doctrine” which attempted to make Russia subservient to western financial interests, and succeeded in greatly weakening the state in many areas.

Putin’s arrival, bestowed by Yeltsin (probably his only good legacy), helped revive Russia. Today, Stuart’s characterization of Putin as “unpredictable” simply indicates that he does not understand Russia and Putin, or perhaps he chooses to be wilfully ignorant of Putin’s achievements for Russia, or he is a Brzezinski kind of character who simply hates Russia for being itself, but not the self it was several decades ago.

Personally I would trust Putin’s hand on the nuclear button before that of Trump - but even more so than under Hillary Clinton’s chicken hawk grasp. Oh, by the way, Mr. Stuart, Trump indicated he wanted to talk with Putin, not bomb him.

The CBC of course is not trying to be balanced about all this. The Munk School is their “go to” think tank. Recently I have never seen anyone from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives or any other contradictory/alternate group. In Syria, Russia is committing “war crimes” in Aleppo, while the U.S. is only causing “collateral effects” in Mosel, both for the same kinds of actions. Stuart critiqued the latter idea, indicating that if the U.S. did not participate in Syria, things would be much worse with more civilian deaths as there is in Aleppo with Russia’s bombing campaign - which at this date had been suspended for ten days! [3]

It gets tiring, but constant reminders are needed of the millions of casualties caused in Iraq, the depleted uranium attacks and the destruction of Fallujah, the chaos in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, none of which ever seems to have a connection to illegal U.S. military actions in Syria or Ukraine. Russia and Putin are not the “unpredictable” actors Stuart attempted to portray them as. They have out-maneuvered the U.S./NATO attempts to gather more control of the region, restored Russia's strength and pride, and brought it out of reach of isolation as it looks for different partnerships with China, the BRICS, and many other developing countries (and recently the about turn against the U.S. in the Philippines by Duterte).

The CBC is very much within the media bias working towards creating the establishment's evil 'other', in this case Putin and Russia. The language used, the commentators used, and the presentation of only a narrow perspective creates the manufactured consent necessary for the government and corporations to retain power both by diverting attention away from their own greed, while creating the grand distraction of the 'evil other'.

[3] ... and just try posting something critical of Israel on CBC’s Facebook or the CBC web page - it won’t last long.