The offering from Mrs. Elvena Slump (Gap between rich and poor, Western News Jan. 30) has me a little perplexed.
Her comments concerning the World Economic Forum, albeit pretty much a cut-and-paste from the Internet, indeed has merit. Mrs. Slump notes “The widening separation between the rich and the poor is gaining recognition. After a century of growth … modern globalization has tipped leading to extreme concentrations of wealth and irrational outcomes …” This inequality is evident here in our North American economy and is even more glaring and quite disgusting when considering global conditions. For example the 2014 GDP of the African nation of Tanzania was around $40 billion to support 50 million people. The 2014 profit for the “too big to fail … too big too jail” Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs was around $40 billion divided up between around 125 banksters.
Mrs. Slump’s thoughts and opinions are usually pertinent and well researched, however the concluding sentence of this letter has me baffled.
Her claim that “Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko left Davos early to deal with a surge of 9,000 Russian troops crossing the border, into the fighting centres of Donetsk,” is an unsubstantiated and a patently false statement.
Does her proof of such Russian aggression come from the Nazi-infested Kiev junta or from Stephen Harper? The Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an independent non-partisan body who have been deployed throughout Ukraine, primarily since the Malaysian MH17 tragedy, have repeatedly reported that there is no evidence of Russian military forces anywhere in Ukraine. Repeatedly. No evidence. Not anywhere.
But don’t take my word for this, check out the following, it’s all in the public domain: Frances A. Boyle-Professor of Law, Univ. of Illinois; Craig Roberts a journalist and former US Treasury official Malcolm Fraser. I could continue, there’s more. Also an article by Patrick L. Smith entitled Our dangerous new McCarthyism at www.salon.com and www.canadianpatriot.org special report on Ukraine are worthwhile.
The Greek tragedian Aeschylus first stated, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” This age old homily still holds true.
Brian Gray, Penticton Candidate(Ind.)
South Okanagan-West Kootenay
