The NDP has shifted from being the party of the workers to the elitist left.
The political class and the in-crowd of the economically secure think the 10's of thousands that supported the Freedom Convoy are just a bunch of losers (the fringe minority with unacceptable views - well, unacceptable to them because they don't have to go to bed at night with the shoe of the elitists pressed down on their heads) and they think that because of the echo chamber of those around them who agree they have it all figured out.
I really don't understand the NDP. They are abandoning the working class at a moment in history when there is a huge pool of people disenchanted with globalism and unhappy with their economic circumstances. Even conservatives are open to ideas that would have been owned by the left 20 years ago (more unions, trade restrictions, sectoral bargaining, etc.) They are missing a great opportunity.
The convoy raised millions from people without money. Outstripped every political party if I recall correctly. And FINTRAC did confirm it was mostly small donations from grassroot Canadians, not the evil foreign guys. I'm not talking about the pros and cons of the convoy, just commenting on the fundraising issue you raise.
Well, is it capitalizing on outrage, or responding to outrage?
Giving people someone to be angry at? Or responding because people are already angry and they're met dismissively with nothing but contempt?
People are outraged for a reason. And some of the reasons for that outrage are legitimate. So far the response from the political class and the economically-secure to the outrage has been to ignore it, dismiss it or disparage it. Look at some of the other responses to comments here. The class divide deepens.
And so it burns, and burns some more, until it flares up and results in outrage.
The establishment won't respond to it. So someone else eventually will and the establishment will be challenged.
Couldn’t agree more. I can’t recall ever being more disaffected as a voter, and I’ve been voting for nearly 50 years. We're faced with so many crises that demand bold, creative responses, yet all we get is virtue-signalling from our Emoter-in-Chief. Or mean-spirited, bullying contempt if we’re talking about his predecessor.
Convoys, COVID, the war in Ukraine, housing, health care: the best our provincial and federal governments can do is window-dressing and platitudes. Just look at the way we treated the Afghan translators. It has laid bare the moral vacuity of our leaders.
They are just not equal to the task. No wonder a rabble-rouser like Poilievre attracts so much support. Never in a million years would I vote for someone like him, but I understand why so many
I suspect it's a bit of both. There can be no question that there's a lot to be angry about.
I think the political class has been so completely co-opted by business that its response is a complete failure. All one has to do is look at the balance sheets of big business in the last 2 years to know that there's lots of money around to address real problems...it's just in too few hands.
The country requires a leader. I'm not sure it has one.
Outrage is outrage and FB is the vehicle. I'm all for people getting angry about real issues. Not those posers in Ottawa. But outrage needs an outlet, a direction, or people are just back in the pub complaining to their buds.
Economically secure. That's a new one. Are you a socialist? Do you want to take from that economically secure person and redistribute that wealth? Is PP exempt from your political class? How is anyone running to be the new Con leader to anyone planning on running for a seat down the road not part of your political class.
It burns and burns? What is burning until it's outrage? I've always found that outrage or simple rage, to use your analogy, is a flash fire. Immediate and hot. Not simmering like spaghetti sauce.
List some contempt. And not the "truckers" that's done. Who are you trying to rile up? Use words.
They are weakened by factionalism, as always. That's why so many of their very good policies never see the light of day. It's a shame but even their leader recognises this, I think.
I'm sure I'll regret asking, but how could the war have been avoided? It could have been avoided if Ukraine had been severed...perhaps. Maybe if the Eastern provinces had a referendum about which country they wanted to be a part of...but who would oversee it? Isn't all that just appeasement of Russia?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your theory is that the neighbours of superpowers have no national autonomy? Ukraine had no right to ask to join NATO or align with the west because it would upset Mother Russia? It's an interesting debate. It means that Canada's and Mexico's decision making is effectively tied to permission from the US. I'm already of the belief that Canada has all but been economically annexed by the US, and our dependence on them is well...depressing, but I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about the implications if we formed a military alliance with China...simply because geography makes the idea absurd. It's an interesting debate.
While Mearsheimers (sp) lecture is fascinating, I just can't do YouTube as a source. There is just too much garbage to sift through, and I can't sit still that long. It will be interesting over time to see if the sanctions against Russia, and the locating of other sources of energy for Europe does to impact Russia. We now know they're a nuclear power but otherwise a totally dysfunctional military. That entire threat is greatly diminished. I suspect they will occupy the Donbas before long, and attempt to make peace in time for Putin's May Day parade so he can announce the end of his "military operation" and glorious victory. At that point, Russians would likely expect a return to normal. I don't think that's going to happen.
In the end, I don't think Putin had any right to invade and is a war criminal. So is George W Bush who did the exact same thing, also based on a sea of lies. Americans seem very uncomfortable with that idea as it violates their view of themselves as the "good guy". The idea of destroying China and Russia seems absurd but is a measure of just how out of balance the world is. It's pretty clear that the world leaders are no longer the politicians ...almost like Ludlum's "The Matarese Circle" has come to life. The debate goes on. It's interesting to look at how the world functions from different viewpoints. The west has redrawn borders after every war and seems to find a way to get it wrong every time. But if borders really mean nothing........
Let's see if I understand you. You want the cowardly functionaries who pander to war lords to cave to Putin's demands and threats.
There is a HUGE back story, it's called history. Information on what's happened in, say, the past 7 years is easily available. Today the problem is everyone grabs on their favorite talking head (youtube is so easy) because everyone has an opinion that is as good as anyone else and no matter how skewed the info is.
Canada is a propaganda ghetto? But your need is filled by Consortium News. Any rag that has the ongoing Assange saga doesn't make me grab my reading glasses. Sorry. But there are 100's more out there. Maybe try some others. (The US has so many websites for you bc they are in English)
It must be really difficult to get any sleep while balancing on willfully ignorant heads.
You know, I've never considered myself to be an elite before. Considered trying to be a Champagne Socialist but I don't like the stuff. I'm a Boomer and we got an earful last week on that.
The Con-voy didn't have unacceptable views. They didn't have any views. They were incoherent. Any flag that was pointed out was denied. The didn't use their words they used their horns. They arrived with an MOU. Prop up any hairy young guy and ask him why he was there and 6 others with their phones would start interrupting each other, while the young hairy guy nodded like a bobble-head yelling FREEDUM and Bitcoin!. Yeah, for the most part the "truckers" (we know they were a small number not of the actual working truckers who we all appreciate) were a bunch of losers. 1 week was a long protest, 3 weeks was simply stupid. 10's of thousands? Ha!
That's what the Liberals are counting on, but they are going to be challenged too.
And if the Conservatives elect someone like Charest or most of the other declared candidates for that party, who are just other elitist's trying to paint themselves as being different, they're going to be challenged too.
The wedge in the class divide is getting much, much deeper and the scorned in Canada are starting to find their voice.
Not even remotely. But, if we're talking about which direction the deepening class divide in Canada is pushing things, I think if the Conservatives elect a candidate who is viewed as an elitist just trying to paint himself in blue, that's the direction many voters could go. And it concerns me greatly (for the future of our country) that many from the opposite side will think the solution to that is to yell louder at those who are already scorned.
We are following down the same general path as France and the US in my opinion unless we do something overt to change the direction.
That might be the attraction of the large crowds to Poilievre.
Who is in this great divide? This deepening "class" divide? What makes an elitist? Graduating from a good Uni? Money? Inherited money? Must people be viewed as working class, elite class (upper), (aristocracy can't be far behind), middle class, elderly and then there are just the poor sods, working or not. Who are the scorned? Once, everyone who was not a white male was scorned to one degree or another.
Every single Con who is running for PM could be labeled an elite, an upper, privileged class. PP could have quit ages ago and still get a hefty pension forever. The lad has never had a real job in the real world. What does he know about anything except in the most distant and abstract way. Have him explain wood prices to you. How will someone like him uplift the "scorned"? But before PP can inflict himself on everyone he needs to lock in the Cons. Rallies are not votes.
I would like to think that we are not in lock-step with the American's yet. And if no one mentioned Le Pen, few here would care. Je suis conne. Know your memes. You pull up two countries for comparison. How about the UK, the Netherlands, Spain etc etc? Is the US, France, etc. doing something about their class divides? Will Trump run in '24?
Ah yes, Macron, and his globalist elite. The very crowd that Trudeau is so enamoured and involved with. They must offer up Utopia and undying happiness to the peons for a vote. While they and the massive globalist corporations take over the lives and businesses of the people, dictating who may say what and on where. That utopia that strips the people of all control as they are wholly dependent on the government to survive. Yes we see them in Shanghai up in their whaling towers, jumping to their deaths. That is after they put their pets in plastic bags to be slaughtered in the streets before their eyes. That is your utopia. Any one thinking it’s other than that when you hand your lives and all control to government officials who crave power and wealth (they all do) this is how it ends. There is no utopia and you can not buy happiness..
We’re we not locked in our homes? Where the large corporate globalist entities not allowed to remain open while they shut down small and medium sized private businesses? How can it be safer to go to Walmart with thousands of other people over going to a local small grocer? Why did all global corporations and billionaires make trillions while private business owners went bankrupt or committed suicide due to their entire life’s work being destroyed from government dictate! Have you ever been locked in your home for any reason in this country before? Not only for two weeks but two years this has gone on. Confining travellers to hotels for entering their own country, vaccinated, and taken to a hotel room with no food. Did they break a law and go straight to jail with not even a whisper of a defence ? Are they not confining Canadians to their Provinces and country Disallowed to leave because they refuse their vaccines? Firing people who will not take a vaccine that they have no information on? There has been no informed consent, as they refuse to tell people anything about the vaccine, the bad outcomes or give them enough information to call it informed consent. You just have to trust the people in charge who say it’s ok. That is not informed consent. The fact that Pfizer and the FDA had to be taken to court to release the information on the drug trials of the vaccine. They needed 75 years before releasing it? They call that informed consent when even other doctors and scientists wanted that information to know more!!!!!! The truckers convoy freezing bank accounts, throwing them in jail with no due process while the media and government both lied in order to bring the emergency act in and their riot squads against them. Freezing their donations twice! Saying it was foreign funded. It was all lies from the media and Trudeau’s good friend and former Liberal MP, the Mayor of Ottawa! Yes it’s not just that Trudeau is a Dictator but he has a deep admiration with the CCP, and it shows. So yes I am saying that Canada is close to being Shanghai. Give it a few years and we will emulate it perfectly.
So very many buzz words but dead pets and Shanghai (whaling?) towers was new.
Ya know, way back when, March 2020 or thereabouts we first became aware of Covid 19. A novel coronavirus that would magically turn many into instant FB MDs. Impressive. And many a FB & yt lawyer too.
Thousands of other doctors and scientists and people who's jobs I cannot pronounce worked and collaborated and tested and modeled, over and over again and they came up with guidelines and warnings and amazingly, vaccines. They were not correct all the time but mostly they did an exemplary job and millions of people around the world are alive today because of it.
I do not know what province you are in ML, but I can guess. In my neck of the woods, malls were closed but opened with masks and limited numbers a few months in. Summer was not bad and we are a tourist town. My grandkids visited we went horseback riding. The drug stores and grocery stores never closed. Restaurants did take-out or curbside. Trucks delivered supplies, food banks stayed open. The dog was walked, sometimes on the beach. People were polite, thoughtful and we all gave each other space. I can't help but think you must live somewhere where it's more of an angry dog-eat-dog place. So much stress. But it was a pandemic. They have happened in the past. It was not a ploy to lock everyone up and make you crazy playing Cassandra.
Now, back on FB and youtube it was another story. ML knows those stories as do most of us here. Most of us know that they are not even different opinions, they are misinformation. They are designed to hurt, not help.
What is your problem with the CCP? The 2nd largest economy on our interesting globe. Xi has been pulling his billions of citizens (1.4b?) out of essentially feudalism and he is doing it. We don't have to like the methods but big sweeping BS statements reflects badly on you. I don't like their politics but they have a history that stretches back thousands of years. You hate China because JT "admires" it? Maybe Xi is getting Dictator hair tips from JT.
Riot squads? Lies from all that media that was pouring out all of those phones? Hardly. Don't use a "go-fund-me type of set up for your revolution, that's just stupid. Those great unwashed were not going to get a nickle of it. How about that guy from Alberta who lives in his car now because he lost everything. He donated and drove and helped doing stuff and he kept all his receipts like they told him but he is living in his car! He couldn't make his rent! C'mon ML, help the guy out.
Who isn't getting due process? Whatisname King? He has a bevy of personal lawyers to handle things for him. I know this bc I saw his video.
There is little need of me saying anything to your truth telling with nothing but further misinformation. As you have told me before I am wrong. It’s not my job to convince you of anything, as you already know it all. I won’t disrespect your opinion of events nor will I call you a liar. I just think we live in two different worlds. Let’s just leave it at that.
You are the one making sweeping declarations. I'm just responding. It's not so much an opinion that I have shared with you, it was more along the lines of lived experience in my neck of the woods. I would never imply that all of Canada experienced the same. Oh yes, obviously 2 different worlds.
Not one sweeping declaration, it’s called the truth. Was there something I put in there that was not truthful that is bothering you? You suggested I was speaking mistruths as you did not experience the lockdowns like many of the small and medium size businesses? You were not harmed financially or put into bankruptcy due to Covid lockdowns? You obvious were not one of the hundreds of thousands that died of an overdose during the lockdowns, that is obvious! I would say that yes, you do live in another world that is protected by a pension, pay check, your in the laptop class, or a government employee who received several raises while others lost everything? You lost nothing financially? You never lost your job? Your grandchildren did not lose a year or more of schooling? You never had a love one locked in elder care that you could not visit, perhaps even died alone due to not being able to see them? You had no one say you could not leave your Province, country, or home with out fines or jail? You were not made to be taken to a hotel to which you were allowed no phone call, no food, unless they bring it to you, until your test came back negative regardless you were double vaxed? You never got a seven hundred dollar fine for walking your dog in a park where there was no people ? You are saying that nothing changed for you?
You tell me that it’s fine to throw people in jail for protesting the very rights you say you never lost? Then you say they are terrible people for standing up for what is right in this country because you went to their Facebook page? Whether you like some of the leaders or not, did you take the time to go to the protest and then make a judgement by what you saw or at least watched the live streams made available that were live and uncensored? Yet you feel it’s your right to judge them all just as the our fearless leader did.
You have not seen the millions in Shanghai locked in their high rises, with no food, throwing the cats into plastic bags if the people tested positive for Covid? They butchered the animals in the street in case they spread the virus! The people were Whaling from their towers at night. Yes I do believe you do live in a far different world than I. One where you never worried about why Canada was following in the footsteps of a communist , authoritarian regime, introducing lockdowns, instead of following our own already planned and practiced, across Canada, emergency preparedness plan? You think it was wise to shut down all scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, and health care professionals from speaking out that perhaps had more information than the Government’s hand picked Experts? Well sir, you will have to forgive me for saying this but Canada was a country that had free speech and the more professional voices, input and ideas, when in the middle of a pandemic, or any crisis would be a good thing! Yet your going to tell me these politicized picked experts were far more informed. I challenge you sir to prove anything I have said as a mistruths.
As for the CCP If you think that Communist authoritarianism is such a wonder and you too have a deep admiration for the way they can get things done, perhaps you should pack your bags and go and experience it yourself. No sense listening to hear say and misinformation, you need to go there and experience It. Don’t let those vaccine mandates keep you tucked safely in your back yard, or disallow you from leaving your Country because you would prefer to have informed consent (that means you know all the information on the vaccines including what might be harmful to you and what may happen in the future due to the vaccines). Please go an experience your China and Shanghai just to ensure you are not being misinformed.
Macron beat Le Pen previously because people worried that she was a bigot who would discriminate against a sizeable majority of French citizens, ie Muslims.
Now we know that Macron is a bigot who discriminates against a sizeable minority of French citizens, ie the unvaccinated.
5% of the French are Muslim, and 20% of the French are unvaccinated. Does that mean an anti-unvaccinated bigot is worse than or better than an anti-Muslim bigot? I think it's much of a muchness, personally. But then, I'm not a bigot.
You know, maybe it's time we took a very long and very, very hard look at the 'globalist' economic model we've been following for the last 35-odd years.
From signing "free trade" deals that were effectively bills of rights for foreign companies and transferred power from elected officials to unelected, unaccountable trade bureaucrats, gutted key regulatory protections (one reason our banking system didn't implode the way America's did in 2008 was because of our stricter banking regulations), constantly gutting the tax bases and making it harder for governments to actually do the things we expect them to (from education to infrastructure to the military, and running up huge deficits when we run into sudden problems) and allowing good-paying jobs to be constantly moved offshore, it's all led to, as Ms. Raworth and several other commenters have alluded to, rising inequality, people feeling like they have no future and increasing receptiveness to far-right populism.
When a conservative stalwart and leftist punching bag like Jonathan Kay writes about how he finds a lot of the ideas suggested by Linda McQuaig reasonable, and the International Monetary Fund is sounding the alarm on the dangers of rising inequality, there's clearly something very, very rotten in Denmark.
It's been a while coming but anyone with a brainette saw the probable results of that nonsense coming. I thought 30 years because that's how long things like this take to have their most effect on us. The first 2 decades are warning shots but no one seems inclined to pay attention. It's like knowing there's a tsunami coming but being surprised when you're washed out to sea while filming it.
Kay flat-out says that his faith in laissez-faire norms was shaken by the 2008 crisis, and he was surprised at how reasonable he found the policy suggestions of McQuaig and her co-author Neil Brooks. He even criticizes his fellow conservatives for mostly not even trying to come up with a solution for inequality, or to reconcile their faith in capitalism with the market fuck-ups of '08, or for coming up with solutions of their own to it.
I suspect that Kay hates being proven right on this issue.
I'm of the belief that we've reached a Catch-22 for the government. They can't tell the truth and get elected, and they can't fix what's wrong without telling the truth.
Because of that, and a political class that now answered only to business (see subsidies and tax breaks) instead of the electorate, you have a very large group of very angry disenfranchised people. As a certain Austrian Corporal figured out, give people hope, and someone to blame their situation on and they will follow you to the ends of the earth. Add to that, there are a lot of people who aren't too bright (based on FB commentary...some of it is mine :) ) and that group gets larger and angrier as it absorbs misinformation by the handful paying no attention to whether it's real. When people start calling the act checkers liars because "they did their research", the problem grows fast.
The pressure is becoming explosive, and the leadership in the western world is lawn bowling rather than addressing it with reality.
The GOP appears to have taken over that role for 2022 and beyond. I suspect democracy in the US effectively dies in November. What will be the implications of that for us? There is still a healthy chunk of the prairie population that would happily join in with that.
Le Pen learned her right-wing ways at her papa's knee. She's been spending that last few years softening her image, kicking daddy out of the party, immigrants...she luvs immigrants now tho she says they are responsible for the most barbaric crimes. She even changed the name of the party papa founded; the National Front is now the National Rally since '18. She is not a nicer softer Marine, she wants the top job. She and Macron just wrapped up a debate an hour ago. theguardian.com has it.
I don't know if Putin even bothered to salt. All he had to do was imply something nice to Trump and Trump would sing his praises. MAGAts were on board with all of that.
The NDP has shifted from being the party of the workers to the elitist left.
The political class and the in-crowd of the economically secure think the 10's of thousands that supported the Freedom Convoy are just a bunch of losers (the fringe minority with unacceptable views - well, unacceptable to them because they don't have to go to bed at night with the shoe of the elitists pressed down on their heads) and they think that because of the echo chamber of those around them who agree they have it all figured out.
They don't. And they are going to be challenged.
I really don't understand the NDP. They are abandoning the working class at a moment in history when there is a huge pool of people disenchanted with globalism and unhappy with their economic circumstances. Even conservatives are open to ideas that would have been owned by the left 20 years ago (more unions, trade restrictions, sectoral bargaining, etc.) They are missing a great opportunity.
Is it as practical a matter as fundraising? They need to appeal to people with money? Their old base doesn't have much anymore.
The convoy raised millions from people without money. Outstripped every political party if I recall correctly. And FINTRAC did confirm it was mostly small donations from grassroot Canadians, not the evil foreign guys. I'm not talking about the pros and cons of the convoy, just commenting on the fundraising issue you raise.
Capitalising on outrage.....such a simple concept. Giving people someone to be angry at. How many times have we seen that used throughout history?
Well, is it capitalizing on outrage, or responding to outrage?
Giving people someone to be angry at? Or responding because people are already angry and they're met dismissively with nothing but contempt?
People are outraged for a reason. And some of the reasons for that outrage are legitimate. So far the response from the political class and the economically-secure to the outrage has been to ignore it, dismiss it or disparage it. Look at some of the other responses to comments here. The class divide deepens.
And so it burns, and burns some more, until it flares up and results in outrage.
The establishment won't respond to it. So someone else eventually will and the establishment will be challenged.
Couldn’t agree more. I can’t recall ever being more disaffected as a voter, and I’ve been voting for nearly 50 years. We're faced with so many crises that demand bold, creative responses, yet all we get is virtue-signalling from our Emoter-in-Chief. Or mean-spirited, bullying contempt if we’re talking about his predecessor.
Convoys, COVID, the war in Ukraine, housing, health care: the best our provincial and federal governments can do is window-dressing and platitudes. Just look at the way we treated the Afghan translators. It has laid bare the moral vacuity of our leaders.
They are just not equal to the task. No wonder a rabble-rouser like Poilievre attracts so much support. Never in a million years would I vote for someone like him, but I understand why so many
would.
I suspect it's a bit of both. There can be no question that there's a lot to be angry about.
I think the political class has been so completely co-opted by business that its response is a complete failure. All one has to do is look at the balance sheets of big business in the last 2 years to know that there's lots of money around to address real problems...it's just in too few hands.
The country requires a leader. I'm not sure it has one.
Outrage is outrage and FB is the vehicle. I'm all for people getting angry about real issues. Not those posers in Ottawa. But outrage needs an outlet, a direction, or people are just back in the pub complaining to their buds.
Economically secure. That's a new one. Are you a socialist? Do you want to take from that economically secure person and redistribute that wealth? Is PP exempt from your political class? How is anyone running to be the new Con leader to anyone planning on running for a seat down the road not part of your political class.
It burns and burns? What is burning until it's outrage? I've always found that outrage or simple rage, to use your analogy, is a flash fire. Immediate and hot. Not simmering like spaghetti sauce.
List some contempt. And not the "truckers" that's done. Who are you trying to rile up? Use words.
They are weakened by factionalism, as always. That's why so many of their very good policies never see the light of day. It's a shame but even their leader recognises this, I think.
I'm sure I'll regret asking, but how could the war have been avoided? It could have been avoided if Ukraine had been severed...perhaps. Maybe if the Eastern provinces had a referendum about which country they wanted to be a part of...but who would oversee it? Isn't all that just appeasement of Russia?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your theory is that the neighbours of superpowers have no national autonomy? Ukraine had no right to ask to join NATO or align with the west because it would upset Mother Russia? It's an interesting debate. It means that Canada's and Mexico's decision making is effectively tied to permission from the US. I'm already of the belief that Canada has all but been economically annexed by the US, and our dependence on them is well...depressing, but I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about the implications if we formed a military alliance with China...simply because geography makes the idea absurd. It's an interesting debate.
While Mearsheimers (sp) lecture is fascinating, I just can't do YouTube as a source. There is just too much garbage to sift through, and I can't sit still that long. It will be interesting over time to see if the sanctions against Russia, and the locating of other sources of energy for Europe does to impact Russia. We now know they're a nuclear power but otherwise a totally dysfunctional military. That entire threat is greatly diminished. I suspect they will occupy the Donbas before long, and attempt to make peace in time for Putin's May Day parade so he can announce the end of his "military operation" and glorious victory. At that point, Russians would likely expect a return to normal. I don't think that's going to happen.
In the end, I don't think Putin had any right to invade and is a war criminal. So is George W Bush who did the exact same thing, also based on a sea of lies. Americans seem very uncomfortable with that idea as it violates their view of themselves as the "good guy". The idea of destroying China and Russia seems absurd but is a measure of just how out of balance the world is. It's pretty clear that the world leaders are no longer the politicians ...almost like Ludlum's "The Matarese Circle" has come to life. The debate goes on. It's interesting to look at how the world functions from different viewpoints. The west has redrawn borders after every war and seems to find a way to get it wrong every time. But if borders really mean nothing........
Let's see if I understand you. You want the cowardly functionaries who pander to war lords to cave to Putin's demands and threats.
There is a HUGE back story, it's called history. Information on what's happened in, say, the past 7 years is easily available. Today the problem is everyone grabs on their favorite talking head (youtube is so easy) because everyone has an opinion that is as good as anyone else and no matter how skewed the info is.
Canada is a propaganda ghetto? But your need is filled by Consortium News. Any rag that has the ongoing Assange saga doesn't make me grab my reading glasses. Sorry. But there are 100's more out there. Maybe try some others. (The US has so many websites for you bc they are in English)
It must be really difficult to get any sleep while balancing on willfully ignorant heads.
You know, I've never considered myself to be an elite before. Considered trying to be a Champagne Socialist but I don't like the stuff. I'm a Boomer and we got an earful last week on that.
The Con-voy didn't have unacceptable views. They didn't have any views. They were incoherent. Any flag that was pointed out was denied. The didn't use their words they used their horns. They arrived with an MOU. Prop up any hairy young guy and ask him why he was there and 6 others with their phones would start interrupting each other, while the young hairy guy nodded like a bobble-head yelling FREEDUM and Bitcoin!. Yeah, for the most part the "truckers" (we know they were a small number not of the actual working truckers who we all appreciate) were a bunch of losers. 1 week was a long protest, 3 weeks was simply stupid. 10's of thousands? Ha!
So many buzz words!
The scorned are finding their voice.
WTF are the scorned?
That would be Who ...?
That's what the Liberals are counting on, but they are going to be challenged too.
And if the Conservatives elect someone like Charest or most of the other declared candidates for that party, who are just other elitist's trying to paint themselves as being different, they're going to be challenged too.
The wedge in the class divide is getting much, much deeper and the scorned in Canada are starting to find their voice.
So you want everyone to vote for a Max dude?
Not even remotely. But, if we're talking about which direction the deepening class divide in Canada is pushing things, I think if the Conservatives elect a candidate who is viewed as an elitist just trying to paint himself in blue, that's the direction many voters could go. And it concerns me greatly (for the future of our country) that many from the opposite side will think the solution to that is to yell louder at those who are already scorned.
We are following down the same general path as France and the US in my opinion unless we do something overt to change the direction.
That might be the attraction of the large crowds to Poilievre.
Who is in this great divide? This deepening "class" divide? What makes an elitist? Graduating from a good Uni? Money? Inherited money? Must people be viewed as working class, elite class (upper), (aristocracy can't be far behind), middle class, elderly and then there are just the poor sods, working or not. Who are the scorned? Once, everyone who was not a white male was scorned to one degree or another.
Every single Con who is running for PM could be labeled an elite, an upper, privileged class. PP could have quit ages ago and still get a hefty pension forever. The lad has never had a real job in the real world. What does he know about anything except in the most distant and abstract way. Have him explain wood prices to you. How will someone like him uplift the "scorned"? But before PP can inflict himself on everyone he needs to lock in the Cons. Rallies are not votes.
I would like to think that we are not in lock-step with the American's yet. And if no one mentioned Le Pen, few here would care. Je suis conne. Know your memes. You pull up two countries for comparison. How about the UK, the Netherlands, Spain etc etc? Is the US, France, etc. doing something about their class divides? Will Trump run in '24?
If you can't see the class divide in Canada, you're probably one of the lucky ones who aren't on the wrong side of it.
Ah yes, Macron, and his globalist elite. The very crowd that Trudeau is so enamoured and involved with. They must offer up Utopia and undying happiness to the peons for a vote. While they and the massive globalist corporations take over the lives and businesses of the people, dictating who may say what and on where. That utopia that strips the people of all control as they are wholly dependent on the government to survive. Yes we see them in Shanghai up in their whaling towers, jumping to their deaths. That is after they put their pets in plastic bags to be slaughtered in the streets before their eyes. That is your utopia. Any one thinking it’s other than that when you hand your lives and all control to government officials who crave power and wealth (they all do) this is how it ends. There is no utopia and you can not buy happiness..
I'm no fan of either, but are you seriously associating the crimes of a Communist regime with "globalist elite corporations"? lol
We’re we not locked in our homes? Where the large corporate globalist entities not allowed to remain open while they shut down small and medium sized private businesses? How can it be safer to go to Walmart with thousands of other people over going to a local small grocer? Why did all global corporations and billionaires make trillions while private business owners went bankrupt or committed suicide due to their entire life’s work being destroyed from government dictate! Have you ever been locked in your home for any reason in this country before? Not only for two weeks but two years this has gone on. Confining travellers to hotels for entering their own country, vaccinated, and taken to a hotel room with no food. Did they break a law and go straight to jail with not even a whisper of a defence ? Are they not confining Canadians to their Provinces and country Disallowed to leave because they refuse their vaccines? Firing people who will not take a vaccine that they have no information on? There has been no informed consent, as they refuse to tell people anything about the vaccine, the bad outcomes or give them enough information to call it informed consent. You just have to trust the people in charge who say it’s ok. That is not informed consent. The fact that Pfizer and the FDA had to be taken to court to release the information on the drug trials of the vaccine. They needed 75 years before releasing it? They call that informed consent when even other doctors and scientists wanted that information to know more!!!!!! The truckers convoy freezing bank accounts, throwing them in jail with no due process while the media and government both lied in order to bring the emergency act in and their riot squads against them. Freezing their donations twice! Saying it was foreign funded. It was all lies from the media and Trudeau’s good friend and former Liberal MP, the Mayor of Ottawa! Yes it’s not just that Trudeau is a Dictator but he has a deep admiration with the CCP, and it shows. So yes I am saying that Canada is close to being Shanghai. Give it a few years and we will emulate it perfectly.
So very many buzz words but dead pets and Shanghai (whaling?) towers was new.
Ya know, way back when, March 2020 or thereabouts we first became aware of Covid 19. A novel coronavirus that would magically turn many into instant FB MDs. Impressive. And many a FB & yt lawyer too.
Thousands of other doctors and scientists and people who's jobs I cannot pronounce worked and collaborated and tested and modeled, over and over again and they came up with guidelines and warnings and amazingly, vaccines. They were not correct all the time but mostly they did an exemplary job and millions of people around the world are alive today because of it.
I do not know what province you are in ML, but I can guess. In my neck of the woods, malls were closed but opened with masks and limited numbers a few months in. Summer was not bad and we are a tourist town. My grandkids visited we went horseback riding. The drug stores and grocery stores never closed. Restaurants did take-out or curbside. Trucks delivered supplies, food banks stayed open. The dog was walked, sometimes on the beach. People were polite, thoughtful and we all gave each other space. I can't help but think you must live somewhere where it's more of an angry dog-eat-dog place. So much stress. But it was a pandemic. They have happened in the past. It was not a ploy to lock everyone up and make you crazy playing Cassandra.
Now, back on FB and youtube it was another story. ML knows those stories as do most of us here. Most of us know that they are not even different opinions, they are misinformation. They are designed to hurt, not help.
What is your problem with the CCP? The 2nd largest economy on our interesting globe. Xi has been pulling his billions of citizens (1.4b?) out of essentially feudalism and he is doing it. We don't have to like the methods but big sweeping BS statements reflects badly on you. I don't like their politics but they have a history that stretches back thousands of years. You hate China because JT "admires" it? Maybe Xi is getting Dictator hair tips from JT.
Riot squads? Lies from all that media that was pouring out all of those phones? Hardly. Don't use a "go-fund-me type of set up for your revolution, that's just stupid. Those great unwashed were not going to get a nickle of it. How about that guy from Alberta who lives in his car now because he lost everything. He donated and drove and helped doing stuff and he kept all his receipts like they told him but he is living in his car! He couldn't make his rent! C'mon ML, help the guy out.
Who isn't getting due process? Whatisname King? He has a bevy of personal lawyers to handle things for him. I know this bc I saw his video.
There is little need of me saying anything to your truth telling with nothing but further misinformation. As you have told me before I am wrong. It’s not my job to convince you of anything, as you already know it all. I won’t disrespect your opinion of events nor will I call you a liar. I just think we live in two different worlds. Let’s just leave it at that.
You are the one making sweeping declarations. I'm just responding. It's not so much an opinion that I have shared with you, it was more along the lines of lived experience in my neck of the woods. I would never imply that all of Canada experienced the same. Oh yes, obviously 2 different worlds.
Not one sweeping declaration, it’s called the truth. Was there something I put in there that was not truthful that is bothering you? You suggested I was speaking mistruths as you did not experience the lockdowns like many of the small and medium size businesses? You were not harmed financially or put into bankruptcy due to Covid lockdowns? You obvious were not one of the hundreds of thousands that died of an overdose during the lockdowns, that is obvious! I would say that yes, you do live in another world that is protected by a pension, pay check, your in the laptop class, or a government employee who received several raises while others lost everything? You lost nothing financially? You never lost your job? Your grandchildren did not lose a year or more of schooling? You never had a love one locked in elder care that you could not visit, perhaps even died alone due to not being able to see them? You had no one say you could not leave your Province, country, or home with out fines or jail? You were not made to be taken to a hotel to which you were allowed no phone call, no food, unless they bring it to you, until your test came back negative regardless you were double vaxed? You never got a seven hundred dollar fine for walking your dog in a park where there was no people ? You are saying that nothing changed for you?
You tell me that it’s fine to throw people in jail for protesting the very rights you say you never lost? Then you say they are terrible people for standing up for what is right in this country because you went to their Facebook page? Whether you like some of the leaders or not, did you take the time to go to the protest and then make a judgement by what you saw or at least watched the live streams made available that were live and uncensored? Yet you feel it’s your right to judge them all just as the our fearless leader did.
You have not seen the millions in Shanghai locked in their high rises, with no food, throwing the cats into plastic bags if the people tested positive for Covid? They butchered the animals in the street in case they spread the virus! The people were Whaling from their towers at night. Yes I do believe you do live in a far different world than I. One where you never worried about why Canada was following in the footsteps of a communist , authoritarian regime, introducing lockdowns, instead of following our own already planned and practiced, across Canada, emergency preparedness plan? You think it was wise to shut down all scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, and health care professionals from speaking out that perhaps had more information than the Government’s hand picked Experts? Well sir, you will have to forgive me for saying this but Canada was a country that had free speech and the more professional voices, input and ideas, when in the middle of a pandemic, or any crisis would be a good thing! Yet your going to tell me these politicized picked experts were far more informed. I challenge you sir to prove anything I have said as a mistruths.
As for the CCP If you think that Communist authoritarianism is such a wonder and you too have a deep admiration for the way they can get things done, perhaps you should pack your bags and go and experience it yourself. No sense listening to hear say and misinformation, you need to go there and experience It. Don’t let those vaccine mandates keep you tucked safely in your back yard, or disallow you from leaving your Country because you would prefer to have informed consent (that means you know all the information on the vaccines including what might be harmful to you and what may happen in the future due to the vaccines). Please go an experience your China and Shanghai just to ensure you are not being misinformed.
Yes and you would be a troll there as well.
I've deleted a comment by Terry that was WAY out of line.
Terry, do not do that again.
Macron beat Le Pen previously because people worried that she was a bigot who would discriminate against a sizeable majority of French citizens, ie Muslims.
Now we know that Macron is a bigot who discriminates against a sizeable minority of French citizens, ie the unvaccinated.
He deserves to lose.
5% of the French are Muslim, and 20% of the French are unvaccinated. Does that mean an anti-unvaccinated bigot is worse than or better than an anti-Muslim bigot? I think it's much of a muchness, personally. But then, I'm not a bigot.
You know, maybe it's time we took a very long and very, very hard look at the 'globalist' economic model we've been following for the last 35-odd years.
From signing "free trade" deals that were effectively bills of rights for foreign companies and transferred power from elected officials to unelected, unaccountable trade bureaucrats, gutted key regulatory protections (one reason our banking system didn't implode the way America's did in 2008 was because of our stricter banking regulations), constantly gutting the tax bases and making it harder for governments to actually do the things we expect them to (from education to infrastructure to the military, and running up huge deficits when we run into sudden problems) and allowing good-paying jobs to be constantly moved offshore, it's all led to, as Ms. Raworth and several other commenters have alluded to, rising inequality, people feeling like they have no future and increasing receptiveness to far-right populism.
When a conservative stalwart and leftist punching bag like Jonathan Kay writes about how he finds a lot of the ideas suggested by Linda McQuaig reasonable, and the International Monetary Fund is sounding the alarm on the dangers of rising inequality, there's clearly something very, very rotten in Denmark.
It's been a while coming but anyone with a brainette saw the probable results of that nonsense coming. I thought 30 years because that's how long things like this take to have their most effect on us. The first 2 decades are warning shots but no one seems inclined to pay attention. It's like knowing there's a tsunami coming but being surprised when you're washed out to sea while filming it.
Bravo. Please run for PM.
Can you point me to where Kay says anything about McQuaid recently. In the last few years maybe?
No problemo:
http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2010/12/the-rich-are-bad-for-your-health/
Kay flat-out says that his faith in laissez-faire norms was shaken by the 2008 crisis, and he was surprised at how reasonable he found the policy suggestions of McQuaig and her co-author Neil Brooks. He even criticizes his fellow conservatives for mostly not even trying to come up with a solution for inequality, or to reconcile their faith in capitalism with the market fuck-ups of '08, or for coming up with solutions of their own to it.
I suspect that Kay hates being proven right on this issue.
Yes, I read that. It's 12 years old. I thought you had something more up-to-date for both of them. Do their positions still align?
I'm of the belief that we've reached a Catch-22 for the government. They can't tell the truth and get elected, and they can't fix what's wrong without telling the truth.
Because of that, and a political class that now answered only to business (see subsidies and tax breaks) instead of the electorate, you have a very large group of very angry disenfranchised people. As a certain Austrian Corporal figured out, give people hope, and someone to blame their situation on and they will follow you to the ends of the earth. Add to that, there are a lot of people who aren't too bright (based on FB commentary...some of it is mine :) ) and that group gets larger and angrier as it absorbs misinformation by the handful paying no attention to whether it's real. When people start calling the act checkers liars because "they did their research", the problem grows fast.
The pressure is becoming explosive, and the leadership in the western world is lawn bowling rather than addressing it with reality.
Maybe they could try telling the truth and see what happens?
I would vote for the first one who does. But you don't usually win elections by telling people they have to give things up.
If Le Pen moves any further to the right she is going to meet herself coming the other way.
Edit: Please delete, had reading comprehension issues
Who is Kristin Raworth and where does she teach sociology?
This view will be verified or falsified by the fraction of the 22% that voted socialist that jump to the fascists, rather than the centrist.
If the LePen appeal is really "economic anxiety", she'll pick up a bunch of socialists. I'm skeptical, but unwilling to predict French voters!
Canadian voters, I can predict on one issue: anti-immigrant == electoral suicide.
The GOP appears to have taken over that role for 2022 and beyond. I suspect democracy in the US effectively dies in November. What will be the implications of that for us? There is still a healthy chunk of the prairie population that would happily join in with that.
It's been dead for decades and, maybe, never was a strong infant.
Le Pen learned her right-wing ways at her papa's knee. She's been spending that last few years softening her image, kicking daddy out of the party, immigrants...she luvs immigrants now tho she says they are responsible for the most barbaric crimes. She even changed the name of the party papa founded; the National Front is now the National Rally since '18. She is not a nicer softer Marine, she wants the top job. She and Macron just wrapped up a debate an hour ago. theguardian.com has it.
I don't know if Putin even bothered to salt. All he had to do was imply something nice to Trump and Trump would sing his praises. MAGAts were on board with all of that.
You should get on FB and tell the French people what is what.