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wampus

@ wampus @lemmy.ca

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321
Joined
12 mo. ago

  • How would anarchism work?

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  • Anarchism is a bit of a fantasy once it encounters reality, like most political ideologies. The most viable attempt at an anarcho-government was in spain before Franco. It failed in terms of running a functional country, with the short lived experiment being unable to even decide whether to arm the few defenders against Franco's authoritarian capture of the country -- Durruti had to basically raid/steal weapons for his troops to mount any kind of resistance.

    So literature I'd recommend is basically spanish history.

  • Iranian Protesters Say They Were Betrayed By Trump

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  • I have an Iranian coworker, who was really optimistic that this time would be different. I tried my best to politely say that while there's a chance something could happen, the USA isn't really about freedom/liberty even on the surface anymore, and that even if the regime did get toppled it would potentially end really poorly for people given the tone of the international "western" community these days (Israel and the States would likely pillage the hell out of Iran if given a chance, and they wouldnt' give a damn about the people).

    Sad.

  • Trump tariffs: US president announces plan to hit UK, Denmark and other European countries with tariffs over Greenland

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  • they declared canada a threat due to miniscule amounts of fent going over the border in their direction. The US Supreme court, shortly before coming out with a ruling on whether the tariffs are legal or not, decided to just shelve that decision for an indefinite amount of time in the future. I don't think the USA gives a flying fuck about your implied rules / order. This administration will tariff whoever they want, and the courts will approve it because the supreme court is controlled by the administration. Just like how they'll let ICE shoot people, and then refuse to investigate it, stating their officers have immunity.

    They're likely intentionally targeting only 'some' EU members, because that'll help them drive wedges between EU members and break up that block. They won't give a fuck about any WTO shit, Trump and them actively want to see the EU broken apart and claim all this shit is in the interest of US national security.

    I mean, if you want to continue dreaming like the USA makes sense / is rational at this stage, go ahead. I just dont think its that practical.

  • OP-ED: Why I’m running to lead the NDP

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  • If someone comes forward as a leader of a movement, and gets quashed, and the organiser's of that movement's response is to then put forward the spouse as the candidate -- it's not a stretch to say many folks will be suspicious of the integrity, intentions and autonomy of the new person. Chances are she'll march to the drum of her husband/whatever group of people control that movements interests. It's also fairly clear that she wouldnt've run, if it weren't for her husbands disqualification -- which makes her commitment to the role a bit dubious.

    In theory, the NDP caucus / membership should be the ones unquestionably in control of the party's future and direction -- not a small subset of unknown people/groups controlling a candidate. It's not that different in scope to the issues on the right-wing -- where a smaller contingent of extreme right-wing nuts have essentially managed to assume authority over the whole party, and steer its direction to their whims. Like if PP were turfed from the cons leadership, and the hard right faction then just stuck in the wife as a candidate/leader, it'd raise questions as to who's actually leading that party/movement -- cause clearly the leader is totally disposable, and there's some more opaque group with significant sway / control. The voting process would help to eventually normalise/mitigate some of the optics, in that you could argue she has the support of most of the party if she does end up winning -- but there'd still be some questions about a smaller subset group of unelected folks influencing her decisions.

    And yes, I know, I've already been told recently that we shouldn't hold politicians to higher standards than normal folks. But I say fuck that, if someone wants me to follow them, they gotta actually lead/inspire. I'm way too lazy to deviate from my norm for more of the same old shit in politics.

  • OP-ED: Why I’m running to lead the NDP

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  • Her husband gets veto'd from the running, so the wife goes in as a candidate. Sorry, the optics on that alone looks really bad for neutral voters. She wasn't the movements first choice of leader, it was her husband, and it's reasonable to think that even if she's now in the running, she's overtly a puppet for other interests that are obscured. Add in a seemingly staunch adherence to what appears to be the tired old left-leaning minority demographic approach -- where they target different minority groups with perks/benefits/funding promises that benefit those minorities exclusively, while ignoring and throwing shit at the majority interests of the voters -- isn't a winning strategy overall. One of the keys to the appeal of a leader like Jack Layton, was that he appealed to the interests of most people.

    Just because Canadians rejected PP last time, doesn't mean they want to go to the complete opposite side of that spectrum. Electing this lady would likely end as tragically as the Green party electing Annamie Paul.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • Holding public officials to a higher standard is not in fashion these days I suppose.

  • Removed

    Rob Ashton, Longshoreman, vs. Canada’s Political Class

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  • The longshoremen are basically a borderline criminal organisation, especially given their alleged connection to all the smuggling in and out of the ports. But even beyond that, just the basic way you become part of the longshoremen is corrupt / enough to question anyone coming from that organisation. From what I've heard/seen, the way employment with them goes, each member is given a 'recommendation' that they can give to someone else, and that person gets preferential hiring -- these recommendations are basically how you get in. So current employees sell these things for >$10k. To my understanding, this practice is explicitly illegal in Canada, but the longshoremen get away with it because the law has a very hands-off approach to the port unions for some reason.

    There's no way I'd trust a person from that sort of setup in politics. Even just participating as a worker in such a sketchy setup, your ethical backbone would become highly questionable.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • Not sure you've read it properly then. "As a regular citizen" is a qualifier in that statement, with the point being that once you take an oath of office there's a different set of standards that apply. Once you take on a position of authority and power as an elected representative, you have an obligation to put the interests of your elected constituents before the interests of your ties to your foreign ancestral home.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • Yes, allies, sure. We're tepid trading partners, as of 2017, a time when Ms Freeland had authority in Canada's government - and which, given her current decision, it would be reasonable to question whether that trade arrangement was made because it was in Canada's best interests, or was it more out of loyalty to Ukraine, with too many concessions made on the Canadian side?

    We're not official military allies, as they're not in NATO. Preventing that alliance from being 'formalized' is/was a big part of russia's thin justification for their aggression.

    We're both, in theory, democratic nations. Though in Ukraine's case, that's a very recent development, given that previous leaders were largely considered russian puppets -- another theorized reason for russia's aggression being that they lost their puppet. We may show solidarity with their plight against a russian aggressor, but I don't think that inherently makes us allies.

    Ukraine is about as much an ally of Canada as any other neutral third party country on the other side of the world.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • If she couldn't represent Canada and Canada's interests without conflict of interests, she shouldn't have been an MP in the first place, nor should she have been given any authority over the Country's policies/direction.

    Nothing inherently wrong with continuing to be involved with / supporting the interests of your former/ancestral home (to some extent) as a regular citizen. But when you take an oath of office to represent a nation, you shouldn't have loyalties to other nations that undermine that oath. I don't think this is a very complicated take on the situation, nor one that warrants further explanation.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • When you're elected to represent your new home, you shouldn't be representing your old countries interests. Doesn't matter if she's of Ukrainian ancestry. Just take that line, and swap it to China -- we've a lot of elected reps who are of Chinese ancestry. "Clearly" people would take it as unacceptable if it came out that they were actually working for the interests of China, and/or if they reverted back to being members of the CCP mid-way through their term serving as Canadian representatives.

  • Canada's Chrystia Freeland to quit as MP and become adviser to Zelensky

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  • A Canadian MP, who theoretically swore some sort of oath of office to serve the Canadian people, bails mid-term to serve a foreign power. CSIS had a report a little while ago about a bunch of Federal MPs who's loyalties were with foreign interests, not with representing Canada and the Canadian people. I wonder if she was one of the ones on their list.

  • U.S. will ‘soon’ annex Greenland, wife of top Trump aide implies

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  • Yes, anything can happen, in theory. In practice, and based on what we've seen historically in the US as of late, no one will be held accountable. America is ok with Fascism, and they're OK with war crimes, especially against foreign nations. They're generally proud to be bullies and to be asserting dominance with their elected thug.

    These aren't slanderous accusations or anything, it's just the blunt assessment from a foreigner, given what's going on. There's a subset of Americans who go on social media and lament their country's actions, and those people tend to get either offended, or depressed/resigned, when you highlight America voted for, and are enthusiastic about, their fascist dictatorship. But that minority outlier does not change that Americans en masse still support their government, even when their government has become a pretty clear fascist dictatorship to the rest of the world. Most of the country is cheering on war crimes and crimes against humanity. It comes across fairly explicitly as such through multiple media sources, from multiple countries etc.

    Publicly, the rest of the world leaders are cagey about comments on Americas recent turn, because they're all worried that America will attack them next. That's not how your relationship with 'allies' should be, and many are moving to shore up militaries and cut ties with America as part of this shift. That sort of thing won't change, even if America manages to have another election and a more 'normal' democrat wins that time around -- because the world knows full well that America could flip flop the next time, back to even more hardcore fascist leanings.

  • U.S. will ‘soon’ annex Greenland, wife of top Trump aide implies

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  • Well, in America, war crimes usually make you a profit and get excused/vetod/protected by the govt. So there's that reason.

    It's not like Americans are going to hold any of these people accountable. They've already failed to do so after Trump's first term.

  • 'Disturbing' Canadian MP shoved multiple times by two Israeli officers, NDP MP witness recounts

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  • I think the bigger question mark from me, is just.... why are our taxes sending MP delegations of like 30 MPs + staff off to Israel?

    Feels like a waste of money to me. We can see with relative certainty the conditions there, based on reports from EU sources and the UN. At this point, they're not tending to 'pretend' its all good. Like these aren't even majority-party MPs, but minority parties with very little say in the house, who represent ridings that have almost nothing tying them to Israel. Businesses/the economy is sputtering back at home guys, maybe spend some more of your focus there.

  • Anyone in tech confirm?

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  • Yep. I've middle aged coworkers who are saying quite emphatically that they can't imagine retiring in tech -- they know they'll need to move to another industry well before retirement, in part because of AI reducing the need for certain skillsets. They also know they're too old to be considered a 'good hire' due to ageism in tech. Most seem to have made plans to try and move on to something relatively low skill for the last part of their working lives. I know one of their plans is to do a food truck.

  • Chinese company Tencent enlisting U.S. cloud hosting provider Vultr to enforce censorship well beyond the borders of China

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  • Yeah, China's bad for this sort of thing.

    Then again, the US is explicitly saying they're going to meddle in EU politics to break up that union, they provide bombs to genocide civilians in the middle east / prop up a government there, they're essentially trying to scavenge Ukraine while preventing Ukraine from using weapons against Russia, they're trying to annex Canada via economic warfare and applying tariffs to the same under false pretenses of Fent/drugs, they're overtly saying they'll take greenland one way or another (more hostile intentions overtly directed at historic allies) and they're blowing up fishing boats in Venezuela while calling for a regime change and stealing oil tankers. And that's not even an exhaustive list of the international shit that the US has done this year alone

    So idk. I know there's nothin sayin they can't both be shitty imperialist cunts. And yeah, China's bad for trying to extend their censorship. But in the grand scheme of things I can't really get all that angry about it given what we've seen from the self proclaimed "leaders of the free world" that most democracies still look to as a bellwether / guide and for military and technology dependence.

  • Alberta Lawmakers Pass Law to Restrict Trans Youths’ “Right to Life”—For Now

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  • Quebec's used it for decades. Provinces could use it to 'notwithstanding' PP anti-trans legislation at a federal level if the conservatives get in next time around.

    I don't think your issue is with the mechanism, you're just not in favour of how Alberta's using it on this particular social issue.

  • Freedom Mobile customers’ personal info accessed in data breach

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  • Not sure what you mean, can you elaborate? "In theory" you can contact the CB if there are erroneous entries under your name, though to see those you need to get periodic CB reports to see what all is listed there... which can be a pain in the arse to fetch. I admit I've never personally had to cancel/dispute anything though, so I'm not sure how easy that process is first hand.

    My personal pet peeve about credit scores in Canada, is that they're all maintained by companies with ties to US parent companies. Equifax is a good example, where tons of sensitive information gets submitted, and it's potentially within reach of the US govt. As an anecdote to clarify why this bothers me -- I recently worked for an org that submits regular data extracts to equifax for credit bureau purposes. There was an error on a submission that required fixing. They told us they were going to charge us ~$20k to correct the error (which is crazy, as the org was a small business). We pushed back, basically pointing to Canada's privacy legislation that states we as an org have an obligation to inform other orgs of issues/mistakes, and that they have an obligation to fix it. As part of that, we asked them to confirm they were in compliance with Canadian privacy legislation.

    Instead of answering, they dropped the $20k bill and fixed the mistake.