wampus

Should pivot into being Amazon like, with the current dept stores shrunk in number and converted into primarily distribution / fulfillment centres. Block/tax Amazon to allow local options to compete/enter the market.

Ride the pro Canada / anti American wave.

Again, the OPs posted video literally admits that its an issue on all sides of the political spectrum at present.

As for why I use American politics as a foil, its because people in Canada are clearly aware of what's going on down south. It's an easy reference point. Plus, we have discussion quelling hate speech laws that make even openly questioning certain topics potentially a crime.... a very 'egalitarian' and non authoritarian thing, yes? But people won't care as much if you reference foreign situations.

Like you want some Canadian ones? Sure. Trudeau's many ethics violations, which he was found guilty of and suffered basically no consequences because he's of a privileged class. Trudeau dancing around in brown-face, and everyone excusing it. Rules for thee, but not for me! Catherine McKenna's "If you repeat it, if you say it louder, that is your talking point, people will totally believe it" slip, which exposed the party's approach -- but she got clipped for saying the quiet part loud and on camera. How about the liberal's approach to 'consultations', wherein they invite groups to participate, only to ignore their findings -- causing many experts / climate scientists to quit things like pipeline reviews on moral grounds. They 'consult' for the optics, but still push ahead with authoritarian methods -- its just more insidious how they do it.

Trudeau and the Liberals enacting heavy handed hate speech laws, that result in moderate questioning of certain narratives a potential crime: can't discuss some topics openly, sounds a bit authoritarian. Reports/narratives requiring us to accept them as truth and enact recommendations without question, and without evidence, while being written by biased individuals and encouraging racial segregation / privileged systems. BC's conservatives kicked one of their MLAs out just recently for broaching that subject -- because her tone became increasingly disrespectful to the topic the more she was blasted for simply stating the facts. But to get back to the Liberals, that sort of 'narrative' is also how the Liberals suppressed the potential blow back about Harjit Sajjjan, a Sikh and then Minister of Defense, using Canadian Spec Ops to rescue non-Canadian Sikhs during the pullout from Kabul -- the only group he targeted for rescuing / streamlined immigration to Canada was his own. He defends this action by claiming there was an approved govt policy to help minority groups, though the Sikhs (his own) was the only he directed spec ops to aid. The Liberals effectively shut down further coverage of this, by declaring it Racist to call out a Sikh Minister using Govt resources to singularly help Sikhs -- because "you wouldn't think it an issue if he wasn't a Sikh". Well duh, but so what. That lame ass excuse would also then shield all white supremacists -- its an "acceptable" excuse for one, and not the other, by authoritarian decree. Continuing to report on it risked running afoul of hate speech laws, as our government decreed it racist to call minorities racist when they're acting like racists -- so the story disappeared from the cbc practically overnight. That was one where our intelligence agency had flagged it as a conflict/concern -- but Trudeau, just like Trump down south, 'knew better'.

The CBC also aligns very heavily with govt policy agendas -- there are numerous 'news' stories that are heavily biased, like only interviewing one party in a dispute. For example, there was an alleged anti-trans hate crime at a kids track meet in BC's interior, and the CBC only interviewed the parents of the victim -- parents who had a history of showing up whenever there was a clash on trans rights / are pretty clearly politically driven in their actions, if you dug into them at all. The CBC didn't bother to get any other witness reports from the event... as if there'd be no phone footage or objective third party witnesses, at an event with tons of parents recording their kids. They instead interviewed a bunch of government people, and university profs, who all went on about how trans rights are human rights, and people need to do better etc -- but none of these experts were privy to what had happened, and were just being used to push the govts talking points through a supposedly 'neutral' news agency. Such heavily biased pieces are essentially government policy masquerading as journalism, and is one reason there are calls to defund the CBC. A captured news media is another one of those "hmm, sorta authoritarian, eh?" things.

The NDP treatment of Erin Weir -- especially in comparison to their treatment of someone like Christine Moore (the leader's selective application of 'rules' so that it disadvantages people they don't like, and supports people they do, is pretty authoritarian). The provincial NDP here in BC, sending out letters that have tracking components, so that they can catch/punish leakers (one I saw, had replaced the character for "." with a tiny number). A previous mayor here in BC, Kennedy Stewart, a former federal NDP MP, using the federal NDP's database / private information to help target voters for his mayoral debut -- or more broadly, how all the political parties exempt themselves from having to follow the privacy regulations that the government makes the rest of us abide by. For both NDP and Liberal -- the maintenance of "equity employment group" privileges in almost all areas, despite data showing that white men (the only group that doesn't count as an equity employment group) are doing poorly in many areas (third bottom demo for education, like 30% off from the top groups, for example). Questioning the narrative on that front, is not allowed.... even though the current approach can lead to a severe backlash, as we're seeing in the states with DEI programs. My NDP MP has indicated that broad preferential treatment of women/minorities, must continue until there is equity in all areas, including the boardrooms -- doesn't matter if women've been the majority in the public service since 2000, nor that its now more skewed in women's favour than it was previously in favour of men when the legislation first came in, they still maintain anti-male policies draped in the verbiage of 'pro equity employment'. So they move the goal posts, and continue to maintain discriminatory practices, even if those policies are disproportionately impacting the 'poor/middle class' people in one demographic group, a group shown in stats to be near the bottom by many metrics.

A whole lot of the censorship tools on sites like Reddit, were built for 'left-leaning' censorship; now they're being used for 'right-leaning' censorship, so they're 'bad'. Both like censorship/authoritarian methods, they just disagree on who to target.

Tankies... what utterly moronic slang.

It isn't disingenuous to call out authoritarian practices, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they're on. What's disingenuous is the left/progressive failure to recognise/take action on their own failings in this regard, as failing to do so calls into question the legitimacy of their convictions and the validity of their arguments, and ultimately alienates some moderates. It makes it easier to poke holes and demonstrate that the left isn't serious about the issue being a 'problem', because the left engages in the same behaviour -- just to a lesser extent, or in a different format, arguably. Even in the clip linked by the Op -- it's all "BOO CONS SO BAD FOR THIS!" and then the admission "Yeah, everyone does this", subverts the message. How can people be annoyed at the cons for doing X, if the analysts openly admit (once you're past the click bait), that everyone does X?

In some ways, what the 'left' does is more insidious. They present themselves as the alternative to the republicans, but then people like Pelosi abuse the system to acquire giant fortunes, while maintaining laws and tax systems that benefit themselves / their rich benefactors. They pit the poors against one another by pushing demographic conflicts, to keep the commoners ire away from their bank accounts. Both sides of the political spectrum are moving increasingly towards authoritarian ideals -- turning a blind eye to the faults of the 'left', just because you feel the 'right' is more egregious, doesn't make it any better - it just green lights the moral decay on the left. The heavy-handed/forced tactics of the DNC in the states, would be hard to call anything other than a dangerous "authoritarian" trend, which arguably cost them two recent elections. Excusing that sort of 'trend towards authoritarianism' just because the right-wing is going harder towards the same steaming pile of feces, doesn't make things any better. So yes, I'll "both sides" things all I want in this context. The freedom for an individual to call out bs on both sides is egalitarian at its core, I'd argue: I can hate all politicians equally.

Trying to rail road me into a single, left/progressive approved, narrative... using the tired old cry of "both sidesing!", is a very authoritarian thing to do.

Not entirely opposed to it, though it needs transparency and some 'post implementation' checks imo. Emergency responses, especially to international things, are usually better organised at the federal level too... I'm not too keen on provincial leaders acting with an international scope. That sort of thing leads to situations like Alberta licking Republican taint, with people accepting it as normal for provincial leaders to do that sort of international "diplomatic" blowie.

In some ways, the more concerning bit is hearing that they get 50% of their electricity via the columbia river treaty. So BC isn't 'sovereign' in its power generation, despite generally presenting that image to the public for a long time. You're not really in control, if a ton of your stuff requires the Americans to follow through on paper agreements.

We likely ought to also diversify our power generation methods, given climate change can potentially hoop hydro. Nuclear power takes years to get built, so they ought to start talking to the prairies about gettin some reactors goin in BC -- I think it was like Ontario, Man and Sask that were working on mini reactor options, which'd make sense for us to position in areas further away from the border. There are also micro power generators that can be setup on smaller rivers fairly easily, with less impact than the current massive hydroelectric dams we've built -- those likely have a far shorter lead time to get built, and would be "Canada"-centric in nature, so also worth exploring.

So... at about 9m16s, he admits that it's not just the conservatives that do this sort of thing / have authoritarian undertones. And he's right... but it's a point that's downplayed. Most political parties are marching to an authoritarian drum at this point.

I disagree, especially when focusing on Public Sector Unions. Making arguments about the cost of a service compared to the wage, is nonsensical when discussing public sector employment -- 80-90% of the cost is the wage, and the 'value add' is nebulous and undefined, removed from regular market pressures. Trying to equate the job security provided by public sector unions to private sector business realities is also not convincing -- in private sector, if business is stagnant/declining due to a recession, you fire people -- doing so may allow you to increase wages for those who remain, though they may also need to increase efficiency/productivity. The OPs article is basically about unions wanting to ignore market realities... something that public sector unions do all the time, as they don't need to look at the 'cost' side from a market perspective. They just yell at the government to tax us private sector workers more.

Unions have a purpose and a function, yes. But in public sector they are detached from market realities, and have skewed public sector employees into a position where they are the subject of private sector anger. It sets the stage for Republican style/Musk style cuts to gain support amongst the voting electorate -- so regardless of whatever high horse pro-union people want to perch themselves on, its folly if they don't take this disparity as a serious risk.

Even the Ops article belies that unions are no longer about 'regular' working class people -- the letter is specifically saying that the unions are petitioning to provide better Employment Insurance options for "high earners". So these salaries, that are well above the Canadian average need our government to increase the payouts to help protect those unionized workers from potential job losses? If their high pay is justified by high demand, they should be able to get other employment quickly in their field.... but that whole letter sure isn't about protecting the 'regular' common workers, and its the sort of statement that's just going to antagonize private sector workers who earn "regular" wages. Why should even more of a waiters paycheque go to paying taxes, so that an Airplane Pilot can have an easier time if they lose their top 5% salary job?

pot -> kettle

That was the brits. People always say it was Canada, but it wasn't. The guys in charge of that raid were in Canada for less then a year, and died later on in the same year they burned the WH - the leaders had spent most of their time on campaigns in EU / northern africa. The troops were all trained in the uk. Canada wasn't even a 'country' for decades after that event -- there's no way we had our own trained army/generals involved. Hell, the (great?) granddaughter of one of the two generals who did it, is Olivia Wilde -- from her scottish roots (Cockburn). So not even the guys kids/descendants were Canadian -- they became US people in Hollywood.

Lotta Canadians like to take credit for it though, but realistically it wasn't us.

It's starting to seem like Canada should issue a travel advisory against going to the USA.

In some ways I hope it doesn't come to that. In others .... I mean, I'd win a friendly bet if it happened, so there's that.

Maybe the US should like.... return Guantanamo to Cuba, since as far as I know Cuba never agreed to the US setting it up on occupied land. The US just cuts cheques to pretend they're paying, but Cuba ain't accepting. The states even blocks trade with Cuba, so it seems really implausible that Cuba's cool with the US having a torture site in their back yard.

It's like the cops surround your house to prevent you from leaving / talking to your neighbours. Then they sometimes just break in and rape your wife, then leave $5 on the nightstand and claim she was a prostitute. Plus waterboarding.

The states has been moving towards authoritarian corporate control for a long time though. The freedom cities controlled by big tech, setup in whatever country they want, operating outside 'local' regulations, with services via satellite and protection via US military, very much fits with what Starlink has done. Techs push for 'rare earth' (uranium) is likely about powering these sorts of cities, without needing to rely on a 'countries' power grid -- to make them autonomous and impervious to local issues.

A few big military powers to allow for the "constant enemy" setup similar to 1984, with a corporate backend to prop up oligarchs that can act based on the whims of the oligarch without fear of repudiation.

Authoritarianism is on a big upswing lately, and egalitarian ideals are busy eating themselves alive -- mired in demographic politics. And the conspiracy gremlin in me says it's been intentional on the part of the democrats/progressive sorts, as they're just as beholden to 'rich' authoritarian leaning tech people as the right wing/republican sorts.

I'd agree to some extent, but I honestly think it's a bit more nuanced than a direct "He's doing what Putin wants" situation -- as it's also what the various groups backing Trump in the states want (the folks who were all in on Project 2025). I find it easier to understand as a conflict between an "egalitarian" world view, and an "authoritarian" one. Putin, and Trump's crowd, are clearly on the authoritarian side.

Someone recently pointed out to me that this view of it also aligns to the difference between the greek orthodox church and the roman catholics. In the latter, the translation of the bible into different languages meant individuals were encouraged to read the bible, and determine (in part on their own) how best to avoid hell; in the orthodox approach, it was entirely up to the priests to inform the masses what they had to do to avoid hell, as only the priests could read latin. Russia's still very much of the orthodox approach -- and in the US, many of those mega pastor sorts have pushed in this direction as well. So their interests line up.

That authoritarian mindset also lines up with big tech, and the whole Yarvin nonsense. It lines up with the blanket firing approach and terrorization of the federal work force, to make them more subserviant/compliant. And it generally lines up with the Russian view that the world should be cut up into like 4 blocks, with a 'strong man' leading each block. That division that was pushed forward by Dugin, generally "gives" north America to the US.