There is so much going on right now, its hard to keep track of all of it.
I check various opinion columns just about every day and usually I find some interesting ones.
Remembering, of course, this: things can always get stupider
View on Threads
First, here are some updates on today's events in what I am calling The War of 2025 -- basically, we continue to lurch along as Canada continues to search for heros.View on Threads
Unfortunately, the conclusion today is that Doug Ford isn't one:
Doug Ford has suckered everyone into thinking he's the best to handle Trump. He's not. In fact, he's dangerous.... Doug Ford has become the media poster boy for Canada’s defense against Trump. ...I’m going to spell out two core reasons you should reject it.First, Doug Ford’s record on ‘standing tall against US aggression’ so far actually shows a trait of his that matches Trump’s: he’s a weak flip-flopper. ...The second reason Ford is not the right person for the moment is much more important: if Ford got his way, and managed somehow to make nice-nice with Trump, he would seek to dive us into an even deeper relationship with the US. He’s on American TV saying it would be better if Canada was drawn even closer into American orbit, ‘Fortress Am-Can’, yada yada.This is the exact opposite of what Canada’s stance must be. We need our leaders to adopt a war-like footing to pivot us away from the US and towards democratic allies around the world. This requires sustained, massive, and unyielding long-term vision, something of which Doug Ford is simply incapable.The United States is no longer a trusted ally. This reality extends past whenever Trump leaves office. ...even if Americans eventually buck the Republicans out of power and bring in a ‘normal’ government, we can never trust them again. The willingness of half their population to support a criminal monster must never be forgotten...
...The reverberations from Doug Ford’s capitulation on the electricity “surcharge” was mostly met by mocking—Howard Lutnick mocking him on Fox, and Trump mocking him after his indignant “electricity affects people’s lives,” as if the tariffs don’t. Along the way, CNN fact-checked Trump’s claims that Canada is one of the highest-tariffing countries, when in fact we’re one of the lowest (Supply Management excepted).Lutnick makes fun of Doug Ford who has agreed to suspend tariffs on electricity coming Ontario to the U.S. Lutnick says Ford "thought he'd be the big man and tackle Donald Trump." https://t.co/5aTBRQEyPY
— David Pugliese (@davidpugliese) March 12, 2025...Closer to home, the Dominic LeBlanc announced the retaliatory tariffs to the steel and aluminium tariffs, but also clarified that the meeting with Lutnick today is about tariffs and not renegotiating NAFTA as Ford claimed. (When asked later, Ford insisted that tariffs are NAFTA, which is obvious bullshit after he got caught in a self-aggrandizing lie). Meanwhile, Danielle Smith and Ford appear to be butting heads as Smith continues to demand a diplomatic approach (as though Trump responds to diplomacy), while Scott Moe took to the microphones to demand capitulation to China on EV tariffs. Because of course he did.
On a broader note, Canada has a new Prime Minister, and a new chance to think some deep thoughts about Whither Canada???
Europe gets it. Does Canada?Canadian leaders still talk like it's 2017. It's time to get serious. Major sacrifices will be required if this country is to survive....Hard power matters. It always has but we Canadians, happily ensconced in the safest and most prosperous geography in the world, with a neighbour who had heaps of hard power and didn’t mind using it on our behalf, convinced ourselves it didn’t really matter. Not to us. We are righteous. And isn’t that a form of soft power? And isn’t soft power a substitute for hard power? Or even better than hard power? Let’s be honest: An awful lot of Canadians felt morally superior to Americans even as we were sponging off their hard power for decades.Like I said, delusional.But are today’s politicians really that clueless? I’m not so sure. Perhaps our politicians understand the danger of the trap we find ourselves in but they don’t speak plainly about it in public because they don’t think they can get Canadians behind what indisputably needs to be done — a foundations-up reconstruction, restoration, and expansion of the Canadian Armed Forces. Remember what the Danish prime minister said? “Three percent will not be enough. It’s simply not enough.” That is exactly right for Canada, too.And that would be a massive change.To do what we must do, Canada will have to more than double our defence spending as quickly as possible. Then grow the budget further. Then maintain it at that level. Permanently. If we do not, we risk finding ourselves alone in the world — and our very existence dependent on the whims of one impulsive, belligerent man — or his successor, as chosen by his slavishly obedient, impulsive, belligerent political movement.What would spending three to four percent of GDP on defence mean in practical terms? We wouldn’t turn into Prussia, much less North Korea. In 1960, Canada spent 4.2% of GDP on national defence. We were peaceful and relatively prosperous. And we had a top-tier military.But spending at anything close to that level would entail major sacrifice. Those tax cuts the Conservatives talk about endlessly? Forget it. The new social programs Liberals keep creating? Those days are over.Along with the hit we’re about to take economically thanks to Trump, and the already-perilous state of our finances, even maintaining the status quo will be hellishly difficult. We will have to take on a mountain of debt. But this is a war for existence, and that’s what a nation does in war.The bottom line is simple: We will have to make serious sacrifices. There’s no way around it. We either make serious sacrifices or we bend the knee to the fascist in the White House.That’s the choice we face....
Shorter deep thoughts:Canada: What Do We Want?With a new prime minister and a general election incoming, it's time to review some major stuff....For various reasons, some in our control, some not, we must now make big decisions that will shape national priorities and outcomes, and thus the lives of millions, for decades to come. We must do so while facing several crises, some of which are overlapping..... a review of our foreign policy will imply a review of our defence, trade, humanitarian, and environmental policies. It will also demand of us a rigorous focus and, one hopes, acceptance of the fact that the very nature of having a “priority” suggests that you can’t do everything and shouldn’t try to....... we may face upcoming years of austerity, and nothing is guaranteed. We must nonetheless fight for a country in which we commit to owing one another more, and the strong welfare state that accompanies this commitment. That welfare state must also be modern, built to understand what climate change, automation and artificial intelligence, pandemics, and trade wars have in store for us. ......The growing power of capital and the vulnerabilities of industry, so clearly exposed during the pandemic and, later, in the face of Trump’s trade threats, ought to get us talking about the role of state ownership in certain industries. Attacks against globalization and foreign threats ought to get us talking about risks from foreign, including American, ownership of key businesses and within strategically sensitive industries. Surging wealth inequality should have us taking socialized business models seriously, including co-ops and worker-owned and controlled enterprises....
View on Threads
And of course, Paul Krugman makes this point:
...The two most powerful men in America have gone stark raving mad....How did the highest levels of U.S. government become infected by madness? Well, this is what you get when you give flawed people — people prone to grandiosity, vindictiveness and paranoia — so much power that nobody dares tell them when they’re going too far. Cowed Republicans and timid Democrats have effectively given Trump and Musk the freedom to become the worst versions of themselves.And the whole world will pay the price.
Finally, Canadians continue making great patriotic videos:
And this one too:View on Threads
View on Threads
3 comments:
A few thoughts. On negotiation. There is no point in meeting with Lutnick, he's just the coffee boy. Negotiating with the US is federal jurisdiction and Ford, Smith, Moe, etc. need to be told to butt out. BTW, we put in tariffs on Chinese EVs at US request. Are those still in Canada's interest?
On military spending. Trump wants NATO countries to hike their spending because that'll benefit US weapons manufacturers. If we're going to increase ours, none of it should go south if possible. In the event of war, it'll be easy to cut us off from supplies. The European countries who fly F-35s are already worried about a software kill-switch that could disable the aircraft. Canada should cancel our order, and buy Gripens instead. We'd get a lot more planes for the buck, designed for Canadian conditions. And yes, as the war in Ukraine shows, we still need aircraft and missile systems to deny full air superiority. The F-35s with exclusive US software control won't do that and drones aren't enough.
Finally, why do we continue to subject ourselves to documented political manipulation through US social media? Do you think the successful mass manipulation we saw during Brexit between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook just went away? If the Biden administration can ban TikTok, shouldn't we do the same to X and Meta?
Doug seems to be enjoying this a little too much.
Getting full of yourself to this extent, getting out of your lane, and way out of your zone of expertise inevitably leads to failure.
Stay home Doug. J. W.
When it comes to military spending, would it really be too much to ask that we figure out what we need our military to be able to do, and then figure out how much that would cost, and then SPEND THAT MUCH, rather than just saying "Oh, we need a bigger number, has to be about THIS much bigger to look big!"
I'm definitely respecting Moscrop's article.
Post a Comment