Ethical & Moral Collapse

Ethical & Moral Collapse

 

UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (Reuters) - United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday said Israel has only authorized for Gaza what "amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required" and again signaled that the U.N. won't take part in a new U.S.-backed distribution plan.

 

-             Israel has only authorized a 'teaspoon' of aid for Gaza, UN chief says, Reuters

 

Gregg Wall (5-24-2025)

 

How many innocent babies, children, and women lie dead in Bibi Netanyahu’s Gaza concentration camp & morgue?  Aljazeera says at least 61,709 dead, 17,492 of these children, with 111,588 injured, as of February 3, 2025; but Trump, attempting to rationalize a future Trump Plaza - Gaza and a real estate boom, places the body count much higher, suggesting several hundred thousand dead, perhaps closer to 500,000.  That was mid-February.  For Trump, the number of dead is reason to complete the job of ethnic cleansing, not halt it... paving the way for a real estate developer’s dream & profits.  Gazans are starving now, in an entirely engineered and manufactured crisis.

 

The lies, misinformation, and bodies surrounding the West’s genocide in Gaza are piling up so fast and so high, it’s challenging to keep track.  But one thing can be counted on:  Western leaders continue to support mass murder, fund and support the State of Israel’s pogrom, with intelligence, logistics, material support, and military equipment.  And the Western corporate media, particularly the United States press, has come down almost universally on the side of the Israeli government.  Even America’s Palantir is said to be planning and organizing bombing raids and drone strikes… atrocities that would have, should have ceased long ago but for the complete ethical and moral collapse of the West. 

 

Just this week, Monday to be precise, Messrs. Carney, Macron, and Starmer… leaders of Canada, France, and the UK, respectively…  came forward with condemnation and threats to take “concrete steps” if Israel did not stop its military offensive and starvation campaign inside Gaza.  The leaders also took the opportunity to express support for formal recognition of Palestine and a two-state solution.  But as is often the case, the words ring hollow.  Why not announce recognition of Palestine, why not announce immediate support for splitting the State of Israel and Palestine in two or along U.N. recognized borders, along with a demand at the U.N. for an international peace keeping force?  The banker, Macron, has made plenty of observations about Israeli and Western barbarism before, expressed concerns, made recommendations with zero, or limited, follow through against the Israeli government (against Bibi’s reign, who is wanted for war crimes in the Hague).   

 

This week, here in Canada, the Globe and Mail tried to put a political spin on PM Mark Carney’s & friends’ condemnation and threats.  Carney, also a banker – see a pattern, was praised by the Globe and Mail (G&M) for showing independence from the United States and not toeing the Trump, Netanyahu party line.  The paper went onto to note, Carney will likely have scored points with the Global South, namely Brazil and South Africa, and greased the skids for election to the UN Security Council.  Who knows, G&M went onto to note:  ... “it‘s possible that Mr. Carney’s decision was also based on humanitarian concerns – that he was picking a fight on behalf of children and other helpless civilians.”  Gee, cast in this light… it’s as if the point of the entire exercise, from Team Carney, Macron, and Starmer, was about absolving themselves from obvious war crimes and scoring political points with the right countries and organizations.  Saving children and women, that’s an afterthought.

 

And in the UK, a country that has been providing air and weapons support for the American/Israeli genocide all these many months, was said to have held up on condemnation for political reasons.  Namely, that the Labour party had faced allegations of antisemitism during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership (which in retrospect, now looks increasingly like a smear campaign directed at, and to remove, the lefty, Corbyn).

 

In response to international pressure, Israeli leadership let less than ten trucks cross the border initially, at the same time the UN reported 14,000 babies are on the verge of starvation and death.  As of Friday, the Israeli government now claims about three hundred trucks have been permitted to cross into Gaza, after eleven weeks of Israeli blockade, but the UN claims only a third of those truck have actually delivered to warehouses and the trucks allowed in amount to a “teaspoon,” versus the aid that is required to turn the situation around.  Meanwhile, the bombing, murder, and mayhem from the United States and Israel continues.  The Israeli government and its military leadership are so unhinged that warning shots were fired at international diplomats, including Canadians, visiting the Jenin refugee camp.

 

Lost in all this was the thousands of Israeli citizens, and thousands of pilots, reservists, and troops protesting Bibi’s war and genocide, some refusing to serve.  Lost in all this is the majority of Israelis, now, want the hostages brought home and the war… ahem, genocide… to end, many fearful that Israel is now a pariah state.  There is rebellion brewing in Israeli society but one would not know this from American politicians and many of the American press, who still trot out the AIPAC/ADL party line, to wit: Israel has right to defend itself against terrorism and do you condemn Hamas.  No few in number repeating some of the vitriolic rhetoric used inside the Israeli Knesset itself.  Trump, of course, promised to end the war on the campaign trail but has supported Bibi’s ethnic cleansing campaign, since entering office.  And the latest wrinkle, just as Carney, Macron, and Starmer raised their voice this week and the media started to criticize the Israel gov, two employees of a Jewish Museum in Washington were gunned down.  Beyond a doubt a deplorable and repugnant act, but the American MSM and Netanyahu used the event, to once again conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, as cover for America’s and Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.  Netanyahu has accused Carney, Macron, and Starmer of fueling antisemitism.

 

So just to recap, three world leaders (members of the G7) went on the offensive this week against the Israeli government and called out the campaign in Gaza and the West Bank, simultaneously, Western media seemed increasingly willing to criticize Israel’s genocide & draw attention to the man-made famine inside Gaza… moreover, Western diplomats were shot at this week by Israeli soldiers.  Israeli society also appears to have turned the corner, with the majority supporting an end to the war and bringing the hostages home.  And out of the blue comes the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers and the news cycle, seemingly, turns 180 degrees on a dime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conveniently left out of all this by the American & much of the Western press, but widely covered in the Israeli MSM, are the events leading up to Oct 7 itself: Bibi’s fourteen years of support for Hamas; how Bibi, on trial for corruption charges and facing possible prison, had the most to gain from Oct 7; how the Hamas attack was launched from the Gaza concentration camp, under the Israeli government’s oversight, supervision, & control; how the Israeli government knew and was repeatedly warned of the pending attack for a up to a year in advance; and how Israel murdered its own under the Hannibal directive on October 7^th.  Arguably, the end goal of all these events was to stir up Israeli public support for destroying Palestinian homes & livelihoods, the pogrom aimed at Palestinian women & children, and annexing Gaza…  and with the aim, the clearest goal of all, propping up Netanyahu on the Israeli throne.  That’s right, so much of this ocean of blood is about gratifying the egos of diseased, old, white men.  All this, with blind deference by the American government, from the Biden and Trump administrations.

 

The world is watching, the complete ethical and moral collapse of Israel, the United States, and the West.  Bibi & the Western MSM uses the term, antisemitism, like a weapon to keep Western leadership in line, with the same expertise that the Israeli gov and artificial intelligence sends drones into Gaza to murder starving women and children in tents.  The term, antisemitism, has been completely weaponized by the entirely corrupt American and Israeli governments and Western MSM.  As for the tens of thousands of victims, including the two Israeli staffers, it’s clear that this is the natural outcome of a radical, white supremacist ideology called Zionism… a hate based belief system, not unlike America’s de facto policy of Manifest Destiny, colonialism, and hatred of indigenous peoples, globally, that goes on to this very day (but was clearly self-evident at the nation’s founding).  

 

Antisemitism has been deliberately conflated with Zionism and anti-Zionism, especially by the American and Israeli governments, so that allegations of same issuing forth from Netanyahu’s, Trump’s, or Biden’s mouths have been rendered a mere propaganda tool, a verbal assault weapon designed, purely, to keep the public & world leaders deferential and in full support of the Israeli state.  That is to say in some instances and some contexts, the word, antisemitism, has been rendered virtually meaningless.  The term, antisemitism… in the context of being used by Christian charismatics & evangelicals… likewise is used to provide cover, support, and drive fear for the continuation of the mass murder that is being live streamed throughout the world for going on two years.  And in American and Israeli leadership’s mind, strengthen the Zionist state.  (In the case of the extremists in America’s fascist, Christian charismatic & evangelical denominations, all of this is supported with the goal of bringing about the end times, the second coming.  Ideas and a genocide that are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ.  Christ would not condone the mass murder of women and children… is America’s evangelical Christian community insane?)

 

Make no mistake about it, real antisemitism, like all racism and islamophobia, is disgusting and must always be condemned.

 

However, condemnation and protest against Zionism, itself, like American & Western barbarism and colonialism, is entirely legitimate and should be encouraged, not attacked (which is why Trump’s crackdown on 1A and the Constitution are obscene).  Anti-Zionism, as the world is quickly discovering, is inevitable, given the ever-growing list of crimes and ever-rising body count of women & children inside Gaza and the West Bank and throughout the Middle East.  (By the way, none of this is news.  Analysts and scholars... like Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Norman Finkelstein, Erin Galvin, and Rania Khalek, and many other brave souls... have been condemning Zionism for abuse and as a fascist movement.  And they are one hundred percent correct.)

 

Antisemitism… along with Islamophobia, misogyny, & racism… must always be condemned.  And no small measure of the antisemitism that afflicts the world is the outcome of the American and Israeli governments’ deliberate policies in Palestine.  Arguably, the goal of antisemitic blowback is the de facto policy of the Israeli government, again to provide legitimacy or rationalization for decades of colonialism, genocide, and the Zionist project.  Antisemitism, fostered and produced by the State of Israel and the United States, as a direct result of government policy, leaves some of Jewish patrimony with the belief that Israel and Zionism are all that can be counted on and is their salvation.  Therefore, completing the cycle, the circle of Zionist violence.  In brief, Netanyahu uses racism directed at Jewish people as a weapon, a cudgel to keep Western leadership controlled and in line and to keep the Israeli public and those of Jewish ancestry fearful and in line.  But used in this capacity, dripping with misappropriation and hate, coming from both the American and Israel governments, ultimately, charges of antisemitism are no more powerful than Hitler or white supremacist ravings about Jews or “the other.”

 

At the end of the day, Zionism is political ideology no less virulent than white supremacy and right-wing nationalism, that uses antisemitism, Jewish people, the Holocaust, and the Jewish faith as shield for its colonial projects, extremism, & violence.  As such, it is time for the American, Israeli, and Western governments to be held fully accountable by the world, so that the plague of antisemitism and racism does not spread further.

 

And it’s time for world leaders… like Messrs. Carney, Macron, and Starmer… to actually walk the walk and not merely, talk the talk (for purposes of political expediency and to provide a smoke screen to hide their own special brand of cowardice).  Nothing less than the moral degradation & disintegration of the Western world, and any claims to moral superiority, are on full display… claims that are presently burning on the ash heap of history.

 

Finally, Israeli Zionists are not the only ones to claim victim status… take a look around, from White Supremacists to Conservatives and Christian evangelicals… many “leaders” are quick to sell fear & victimization as way to keep the flock frightened and in line, build up a political or religious following, and strengthen the leader's hold over their followers.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025

Canada’s Welfare Kingdom: Alberta

Canada’s Welfare Kingdom: Alberta

 

If governments removed explicit subsidies and imposed corrective taxes, fuel prices would increase. This would lead firms and households to consider environmental costs when making consumption and investment decisions. The result would be cutting global carbon-dioxide emissions significantly, cleaner air, less lung and heart disease, and more fiscal space for governments.

-             Fossil Fuel Subsidies Surged to Record $7 Trillion, International Monetary Fund

            

Gregg Wall (5-10-2025)

 

It’s been an interesting two weeks here in Alberta, Canada.  The ultra conservative central banker, Mark Carney, was voted in as prime minister, under the Liberal party (thanks in large part to Donald Trump).  W/in a matter of hours Alberta’s premier, Dani Smith, began rallying her rabidly populist base to support secession, going so far as to issue an ultimatum and a list of demands to Ottawa.  Alberta’s populist-right government has done tremendous damage to the Alberta economy, public healthcare, jobs and opportunity, and even ran off a renewables industry, billions in investments, and tens of thousands of jobs.  But for reasons unknown, premier Smith’s rural base of support is accepting of all this failure.  The United Conservative Party (UCP) faithful appear to be single issue voters, to wit: hating Trudeau, despising Libs, and forever foaming at the mouth over something called equalization payments.

 

Alberta’s claim to fame isn’t its beautiful Rockies, its majestic farmland and prairie, Alberta’s indigenous population and growing diversity… but rather, at least for the far-right UCP voter, Alberta’s fame and pride stems from Fort McMurray’s dark pit of tar sands hell.  In their minds, Alberta is oil country.  And as result of that oil, its revenue, and perceived wealth, Alberta transfers somewhere between $15 to $25 billion, per annum, more in various forms of tax revenue to the federal government than Alberta receives back.  All the other provinces & territories are net contributors on a much smaller scale, like BC and Ontario, or receive more from the Feds than they pay in.  This issue, that Alberta pays in more than they receive from the Feds is a never-ending source of angst for Alberta’s rural population, who are deeply worried about this relatively paltry sum and feel that the O&G industry has been constrained and put upon by the Feds (even though PM Trudeau did what PM Harper did not achieve, build a taxpayer funded pipeline for the industry to the Pacific).

 

I say ‘relatively paltry sum’ because when we examine the reality that the entire Fort McMurray O&G operation is one of the biggest taxpayer funded money pits known to humanity, as is the global O&G industry…  the deception & illusion that Alberta O&G is a godsend, a gift that is being abused by the Libs and all the other Canadian provinces, quickly evaporates.  The reality is the Liberal party leadership are in on the scam, maintaining the charade that this industry is viable, likely at the behest of the industry insiders, high net worth individuals, and politicians, who are the primary beneficiaries of endless federal and provincial welfare flowing into the industry.

 

The reality, thanks to the Fort McMurray operation, Alberta is the recipient of hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies annually.  The O&G industry receives far more in funding … direct subsidies, indirect subsidies, and externalities (known costs & expense passed onto the general public) … than any other industry in Canada or the world for that matter.  Moreover, Alberta oil is some of the most toxic form of sludge on the planet, w/ some of the highest, if not the highest, production, processing, travel, and refining costs on the planet (much of it, presently, exported to the United States).  In short, this is some really nasty stuff, in an industry already noted for cancer alleys, killing one in five humans through air pollution, destroying clean air, polluting fresh water, turning land into Superfund sites (or FCSAP in Canada), and basically, cancelling the planet.  In short, Fort McMurray, Alberta is the epicenter of hell on earth. 

 

As for the hundreds of billions in subsidies?  Here, I refer to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis that states global fossil fuels subsidies are $7 trillion per annum… the lion’s share of those subsidies are intangibles/indirect and externalities (that is, known costs and expense paid for by society at large or simply avoided at the moment, a deadly & toxic can endlessly being kicked down the road for future generations).  More recently, two Dartmouth professors released another study, designed to tie 111 fossil fuels companies to their emissions, and concluded that these companies have generated $28 trillion in climate damages to the planet, between 1991 and 2020.  The goal of this study is to tie fossil fuel companies directly to their liabilities to achieve better outcomes in civil litigation (so the industry can be held accountable, like Big Tobacco).  And the icing on the cake, the University of Chicago and Wharton School estimate that fossil fuels consumed by corporations will cause $87 trillion in social costs by 2050, in the United States alone.  That is, eighty-seven trillion U.S. dollars… as noted by Bloomberg multiples of U.S. GDP and the offending companies’ market caps.

 

Those are interesting numbers but how do they tie into Canada?  Indeed, these are global studies, but we know that Canada produces between five and six percent of global oil and gas production.  If we take 5% of the IMF number of $7 trillion, we can estimate that Canada’s oil patch receives $350 billion in subsidies per annum, again most of this figure is indirect subsidies and externalities (like the town of Jasper, AB burning down last summer, Canada’s pristine forests and parklands that catch fire every summer, greater cardio vascular and lung disease tied to the garbage Fort McMurray’s products emit into the air, higher food costs and property insurance premiums as a result of the climate catastrophe unfolding before our very eyes, etc.).  So, there’s that.  Now, if we take 5% of the $28 trillion in liabilities, outlined and published in Nature by the Dartmouth team, we get unfunded liabilities for Canadian O&G of 1.4 trillion dollars (these are American dollars by the way; if we apply the Canadian exchange rate these figures climb higher, 35% to 40% higher).  This, from an O&G industry that is reporting out record profits, that uses tax cuts and all manner of government welfare to engage in stock manipulation (aka stock buybacks) and pay themselves astronomical dividends, while employing fewer and fewer Canadians & Albertans as time passes by.  This, from an industry that has abandoned O&G wells throughout Alberta and for whom, Alberta’s premier has graciously sought to clean up at taxpayer expense (with estimates ranging from $33 to $70 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars).  Hundreds of billions for well cleanup, land remediation, a climate crisis, higher food costs, contaminated air, water increasingly poisoned along with fish and wildlife… $1.4 trillion doesn’t really seem like a lot.  Does it?  The figure appears low.

 

The point to all this is … with the Fort McMurray pit of hell & Canadian O&G industry consuming $350 billion in subsidies from Canada, the public, the taxpayer, and factoring in the ever increasing costs of living & dying… and with unfunded liabilities of $1.4 trillion (more than likely, much higher)… perhaps the rock ribbed, rugged individualists, aka the UCP party faithful, shouldn’t get their panties in a wad over the $15 or $25 billion Alberta sends to Ottawa annually.  Maybe?   (Note, the $16 to $25 billion paid to Alberta, per annum, in royalties, land use, rents, and taxes, and the  $53 billion, for the years 2007 through 2019, paid to the Feds in corporate income taxes, royalties, and fees…  by Alberta O&G…  doesn’t begin to cover the endless ocean of public and taxpayer subsidies that keeps this industry alive & in existence.  By the way, that $53 billion figure comes from the Canadian Energy Centre, a pro-industry lobbying group, founded & funded by the far-right, provincial government.  Nor have we delved into the forgone opportunity costs of plowing hundreds of billions into this lethal industry, so a tiny segment of the population can grow filthy rich, instead of placing that money into far more productive uses.)

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is shown at a press conference in Calgary on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. PHOTO BY JIM WELLS /Postmedia (w/ editing from JM Hamilton Blog)

 

The bottom line, if Fort McMurray’s criminal and repugnant O&G industry was cut off from direct subsidies and forced to pay $1.4 trillion in past liabilities, the industry would go bankrupt and cease to exist, at least in its present form.  Which might explain why the Queen of the Damned, premier Dani Smith, shut down the Renewables industry in Alberta, so as to leave the province almost entirely dependent upon a dying, vile, and repugnant O&G industry.  Interestingly, before Dani Smith was premier, she was a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry.  Notice, Alberta’s conservative voters get really excited about $15 to $25 billion paid annually to Ottawa; but conveniently, these same individuals go silent when their pet industry, O&G, is the recipient of hundreds of billions in government, public, and taxpayer funded subsidies and welfare, annually.

 

Does it get anymore corrupt and rotten then that?  Well, I’m afraid it does, because if we examine Dani’s and UCP's track record, the conservative government’s reign of chaos & terror has been a complete abortion, including but not limited to:

 

Tanking Alberta; 

Affordability crisis; 

Food Bank Usage soars;

Betrays Alberta & Canada; 

High unemployment;

Low wages;

Got in bed w/ Trump;

Trashed healthcare; and

Endless Scandals, including CorruptCare and crony deal making with taxpayer money.

 

And now, UCP and their supporters want a referendum on independence (as a coverup & distraction from the aforementioned laundry list of failures and past sins)?  In fact, UCP plans on amending the rules that would lower the number of signatures required to make that referendum a reality.

 

UCP can’t manage Alberta or its affairs now, and the party has saddled Alberta with a trillion dollars – plus in fossil fuels liabilities and hundreds of billions in subsidies, per annum.  Make no mistake about it, the management and ownership of Alberta O&G, and the industry globally, have zero intentions of paying those liabilities.  UCP has, arguably, done this with their partners in crime, the Liberals in Ottawa.

 

Meanwhile, the crazies and freaks, the UCP cult, want to be a sovereign nation.  There’s a thought.  From a purely financial perspective, perhaps Canada and Canadian taxpayers would be well advised to cut Alberta, and its trillions in subsides and liabilities, loose?

 

Then again, perhaps a better solution is to bankrupt the industry, nationalize, with the proceeds funding a green transition, cleanup, remediation, and reparations to First Nations.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025