Referencing 1930’s Germany – the usual question is “How could the German people allow this?!”
Well, we can watch “How” in real time. The United States. How does a democracy become a totalitarian state? Look at the U.S.! The current incarnation of the G.O.P. is the Nazi party. My god, their fearless leader believe Kim Joon Un is a great leader: Trump was asked whether Kim might someday visit the White House. Trump said it “could happen, “Hey, he’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. … [Kim] speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
And apparently, they are. Well, the right wingnuts are, at any rate.
In 2022, Trump, at a GOP fundraiser, expressed admiration for how Jong Un’s generals and aides “cowered” when he spoke to them. “Total control,” Trump said of the dictator’s authoritarian model.
And again, that’s what is happening in the U.S. The generals, the aides, the corporate and political power mongers are cowering.
The propaganda machine is in full swing. An internet “influencer” is being elevated to national hero. They’ve freaking given him a day. A misogynist, Xtian nationalist, bigot has been given a day of recognition, but a Senator, her husband and dog, murdered by one of Yam-Tits fans, receives nothing. Children shot down in their schools – nothing…Oops, wrong – that’s right “Thoughts and prayers.”
Television personalities being fired because they aren’t “nice” to the dictator or that “national hero”.
Media stifled. Entertainment corporations bowing and scraping because the $$ is far more important than the integrity of media and freedom of speech (you know, their 1st Amendment).
Armed ICE terrorists grabbing people off the street, from the jobs, from schools. Remind anyone of the Brown Shirts and Gestapo? Sure reminds me but then, I have had the benefit of a good education and none of my relatives were draft dodgers.
That whole Hyundai factory debacle.
Farmers facing potential bankruptcy in the face of the tax on the stupid – tariffs. Imagine not understanding how tariffs work. Mind blowing. Watch and see who buys up those bankrupt farms.
Alligator Alcatraz. People laughing and joking about feeding the ‘gators with the political prisoners housed within those walls.
Yam-Tits himself has, openly, admitted that “Smart people don’t like him.” But his followers, his minions, don’t seem to understand what he is saying…and so, here we are. The United States turning into 1930’s Germany, complete with a Gestapo-like police force.
Canada needs to take the threat to our south, seriously. He and his terrorists are no longer funny. His orange visage and dirty diapers. Look behind his marionette status. He is being used to achieve a total dictatorship where there is no constitution save the one they come up with, replete with concentration and re-education camps.
I have to confess, I have been anti-American government since the early 1970’s. As a Canadian and having a Dad who was a news junkie, I was exposed to American media and propaganda from an early age. I watched the Vietnam war, watched the riots, watched the National Guard shoot down innocent students, protesting a criminal war, Stonewall. The list goes one.
None of this is to say, Canada didn’t have its own share of civil unrest. FLQ and the Oka crisis come to mind.
I saw and actually made friends with young folks fleeing the draft. Leaving their homes, their families, their friends, in protest over risking their lives, in a foreign land that posed, absolutely, no threat to the U.S. Instead, it was a ruse to improve corporate profits.
The U.S. realized, during WWII, the Korean conflict, Vietnam that war was a great way to enrich that 1%. Easy money. Easy blood money, because you best believe few of the offspring of that 1% fought. Case in point: president Bon Spur.
I was so happy to see Barack Obama win in 2009. I truly thought that there was hope for the U.S. Then he was re-elected and I thought, for sure, this meant the U.S. was heading toward a successful future…I was sorely disappointed.
I knew, early on, that I did not want Canada to mirror the U.S. I wanted Canada to be better, to welcome diversity and inclusion. We have our own culture Nazis – most in Alberta and my own province of Québec. Behaving as if their own ancestors simply popped out of Canadian soil…Spoiler Alert! They didn’t.
I don’t buy “American” and rarely, ever did. Not a difficult thing, as most goods, thanks to American corporate greed, once again (cheap labour and materials), are not made in the U.S.
I don’t vacation in the States. For the past 30 years – since ’95, when we did vacation, it was here, in Canada or Cuba.
The U.S. is bound to implode, not due to diversity or inclusion. Not due to immigration but due to corporations that run that nation. People go bankrupt for the want of healthcare. Rights of workers to a balanced life. The overt racism. And again, the move of manufacturing from the U.S. to foreign lands where workers were cheap and would have no protection from exploitation, augured the demise of their economy. They are dependent on foreign lands yet, Dementia Donald felt it necessary to further tax the American people, through tariffs. Either he has no understanding of how they work or he is relying on the ignorance of his base supporters to further the nonsense that tariffs are paid by trading partners to the U.S. THAT. IS. NOT. HOW TARIFFS WORK!!The buyer pays the tariffs, not the importer, the costs are, then, passed down to the consumer.
Canada has long needed to move away from American dependence. We can import our own goods from the nations manufacturing those goods, instead of the American-Middleman economy.
As for national defense? Defense against whom? The only enemies to our sovereignty currently, is Putin and his sock puppet, Diaper Don. We will build our military, we will maintain and foster our alliance with Europe, with Asia.
They are not the global leaders they claim to be. It is propaganda. They are a nation in debt, a nation that has lost its identity and worse, the respect of the world. By the way? This song came out in 1970….
Canadians and indeed, the world as a whole, owes some backhanded thanks to that Orange Baboon and his co-president, Elonia. My family and my friends are in active “boycott” mode and this has taught me, at any rate, how dastardly an influence media advertisements truly have, in our daily lives.
Commercials on streaming apps, television, radio (Does anyone listen to radio anymore?) and social media have led us to believe their products are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to have a happy, fulfilled life, their products show our success to our peers, our society.
The boycott is showing me, in real time, how truly dangerous this mindset is proving to be.
No one NEEDS Starbucks; find a coffee blend you love, fill up a travel mug and we’ve saved yourself time and money. MacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, ask yourself if your end goal is to look like a beach ball with feet. If you must have a fast meal to go, A&W is Canadian, uses Canadian beef, or Harvey’s – also Canadian, let’s not forget LaFleur if you are in Québec or La Belle Province if you’re hankering after a steamie and poutine.
Walmart is a big old NO; Giant Tiger offers tons of choice and comparable good, they also offer home delivery from their web site. https://www.gianttiger.com/
Costco, now that’s a tricky one; Costco Canada buys most of their products from Canadian sources, the baked goods (YUMMERS!!) are made in Canada. Some of the produce is American, but easy enough to avoid.
You don’t need the latest iPhone/iPAD/Mac – there are plenty of higher quality and less proprietary brands out there, Samsung for example, LG is another one. And if you really want to do a personal F.U. to Diaper Don and his crew of Russian buddies, buy a Huawei.
Clothing – loads of Canadian options out there, https://madeinca.ca/ is a good resource.
Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson – American; look for Canadian options or in the case of cleaning products, make your own. The internet is full of helpful ways to wean yourself off American products.
Jamieson Vitamins are Canadian.
We’re not renewing our Prime membership, it will be a little inconvenient as we do live in a rural area, but inconvenience isn’t an excuse as far as we are concerned.
Can we avoid American products without too much grief? Yes. Getting out of the habit of believing ads and social media hype, buying what you need as opposed to what corporations WANT you to buy, is freeing, it is a boost to the Canadian economy and sovereignty
It’s an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends. To look back on the life I’ve had the privilege to lead. And to reflect on how much this country we all love so much has grown and changed over the course of the nine decades I’ve been on this Earth.
This year, I’ve also decided to give myself a birthday present. I’m going to do something in this article that I don’t do very often anymore, and sound off on a big issue affecting the state of the nation and profoundly bothering me and so many other Canadians: The totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our very sovereignty from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
I have two very clear and simple messages.
To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another: Give your head a shake! What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world – and make no mistake, that is what we are – to join the United States?
I can tell you Canadians prize our independence. We love our country. We have built something here that is the envy of the world – when it comes to compassion, understanding, tolerance and finding a way for people of different backgrounds and faiths to live together in harmony.
We’ve also built a strong social safety net – especially with public health care – that we are very proud of. It’s not perfect, but it’s based on the principle that the most vulnerable among us should be protected.
This may not be the “American Way” or “the Trump Way.” But it is the reality I have witnessed and lived my whole long life.
If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us. You don’t know that when it came to fighting in two world wars for freedom, we signed up – both times – years before your country did. We fought and we sacrificed well beyond our numbers.
We also had the guts to say no to your country when it tried to drag us into a completely unjustified and destabilizing war in Iraq.
We built a nation across the most rugged, challenging geography imaginable. And we did it against the odds.
We may look easy-going. Mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.
And that leads me to my second message, to all our leaders, federal and provincial, as well as those who are aspiring to lead our country: Start showing that spine and toughness. That’s what Canadians want to see – what they need to see. It’s called leadership. You need to lead. Canadians are ready to follow.
I know the spirit is there. Ever since Mr. Trump’s attacks, every political party is speaking out in favour of Canada. In fact, it is to my great satisfaction that even the Bloc Québécois is defending Canada.
But you don’t win a hockey game by only playing defence. We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail.
We need another approach – one that will break this cycle.
Mr. Trump has accomplished one thing: He has unified Canadians more than we have been ever before! All leaders across our country have united in resolve to defend Canadian interests.
When I came into office as prime minister, Canada faced a national unity crisis. The threat of Quebec separation was very real. We took action to deal with this existential threat in a manner that made Canadians, including Quebeckers, stronger, more united and even prouder of Canadian values.
Now there is another existential threat. And we once again need to reduce our vulnerability. That is the challenge for this generation of political leaders.
And you won’t accomplish it by using the same old approaches. Just like we did 30 years ago, we need a Plan B for 2025.
Yes, telling the Americans we are their best friends and closest trading partner is good. So is lobbying hard in Washington and the state capitals, pointing out that tariffs will hurt the American economy too. So are retaliatory tariffs – when you are attacked, you have to defend yourself.
But we also have to play offence. Let’s tell Mr. Trump that we too have border issues with the United States. Canada has tough gun control legislation, but illegal guns are pouring in from the U.S. We need to tell him that we expect the United States to act to reduce the number of guns crossing into Canada.
We also want to protect the Arctic. But the United States refuses to recognize the Northwest Passage, insisting that it is an international waterway, even though it flows through the Canadian Arctic as Canadian waters. We need the United States to recognize the Northwest Passage as being Canadian waters.
We also need to reduce Canada’s vulnerability in the first place. We need to be stronger. There are more trade barriers between provinces than between Canada and the United States. Let’s launch a national project to get rid of those barriers! And let’s strengthen the ties that bind this vast nation together through projects such as real national energy grid.
We also have to understand that Mr. Trump isn’t just threatening us; he’s also targeting a growing list of other countries, as well as the European Union itself, and he is just getting started. Canada should quickly convene a meeting of the leaders of Denmark, Panama, Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to formulate a plan for fighting back these threats.
Every time that Mr. Trump opens his mouth, he creates new allies for all of us. So let’s get organized! To fight back against a big, powerful bully, you need strength in numbers.
The whole point is not to wait in dread for Donald Trump’s next blow. It’s to build a country and an international community that can withstand those blows.
Canadians know me. They know I am an optimist. That I am practical. And that I always speak my mind. I made my share of mistakes over a long career, but I never for a moment doubted the decency of my fellow Canadians – or of my political opponents.
The current and future generations of political leaders should remember they are not each other’s enemies – they are opponents. Nobody ever loved the cut-and-thrust of politics more than me, but I always understood that each of us was trying to make a positive contribution to make our community or country a better place.
That spirit is more important now than ever, as we address this new challenge. Our leaders should keep that in mind.
I am 91 today and blessed with good health. I am ready at the ramparts to help defend the independence of our country as I have done all my life.
We’re back; we spent 2 weeks in Cuba. I am not going to discuss the socio-economic situation. I am still processing it.
We came back to a political shitshow. I am floored by the lack of action by the Democratic party; I know there are protests and the media, CNN – MSNBC – ABC are NOT covering them. Why? Because the current administration has made it clear that any anti-government reporting will have them barred from press conferences. Meanwhile, the Russian asset in charge, has permitted Russian media into the oval office. (The lack of capitalization is on purpose – the offices do not deserve respect anymore.)
Canadians understand what is going on. Putin is running out of money to fund his criminal action in Ukraine; required minerals, fossil fuels are depleted. The Putin asset pocket lint in charge of the country to our south, also wants our minerals and fuels; Elonia wants our lithium but Canadians understand our assignment. We are not going to cave.
The lack of comprehension of Canadians, within Washington, is astounding. The willingness of that government, in its entirety, to bend over to Russia is proof positive that the oval office has been infiltrated by Russian assets.
We will never be a “Friend” to the U.S. again. Canadians do not forget. We do, however, have to thank the puppet master in Moscow and his marionettes in Washington; they have ignited the flame of Canadian nationalism, pointed out that diversification of our trading partners is required. Showed us that our ports of import/export must be expanded, updated and ready for global trading.
Putin Pocket Lint president is already backing down on his ridiculous tariffs. Will those tariffs impact Canadians, absolutely but the real negative impact will be felt by the american public who don’t seem to grasp who pays for those tariffs. Ignorance isn’t bliss, it leads to bankruptcy and the annihilation of farming, ranching, manufacturing and commercial interests across the board.
Whatever, at least they can still buy their stupid hats (manufactured in China) and read their trump bibles as they stand in line at soup kitchens, in the dark, because financial relief has been withdrawn and Canada has added surtax to fuel and electricity. Слава Україні!
Wicked Emerald - Live From The Montérégie 