This guy Hoosktra! This fucking guy!
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Here's an interesting article, by SarahBowman | Online4Democracy writing on the Canada and the New World Order substack page:
Caring vs Indifferent: The Fundamental Difference between Canadians and Americans
...Some differences that even the most obtuse American can see if they bother looking:
-Canadians value universal healthcare; Americans think universal healthcare is socialism and openly ridicule it. [The difference: value vs ridicule.]
-Americans fought a Revolutionary War to get their independence from Britain; Canadians negotiated their independence over the course of time as they saw fit. [The difference: War with guns and blood and death vs meetings and more meetings.]
-Canadians value education from kindergarten through advanced university degrees; Americans say, “My ignorance is just as good as your book learning.” [The difference: Much knowledge about the world in general; little knowledge beyond one’s hometown or state.]
Those differences make for a different kind of society. We may dress the same, live the same kind of lifestyle, speak the same language. But we value opposite things when it comes to things that matter....
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Carney is dancing as fast as he can - hopefully, it will be enough, and soon enough:
And WoodSnake2025 writes an interesting article about how Canada and Norway are reshaping the Arctic. Here is how it starts:View on Threads
Canada and Norway Reshape the Arctic, Without the U.S.The whole piece is worth reading.
Two mid-sized nations are quietly building a new Arctic order based on cooperation and sustainable development, challenging traditional great power dynamics.
The Arctic, once a distant, frozen frontier, is now a flashpoint for global competition. While major powers like Russia, China, and the United States race for resources and military dominance, two nations—Canada and Norway—are charting a different, more cooperative course. They are not focused on rivalry, but on building a stable, rules-based framework for the region's future. Their partnership, rooted in shared values and long-term vision, is proving that diplomacy and stewardship can be a more powerful force than military might...
Underestimate Canada, eh? Just read this great piece by Charlie Angus:View on Threads
The Spirit of the Jack Pine
...The Group of Seven had seen Canada's immense sacrifice firsthand in the First World War. They believed that the true spirit of the nation was in the wild north. And they believed that these lands shouldn't be painted through the traditional European and American pastoral landscape traditions.Finally, here's some more about how the Jimmy Kimmel firing is based on White House revenge fantasies. This is Ryan Broderick's brilliant summary on Friday of where we are at:
What was needed was bold and rough art that conveyed the power of the northern landscape — a Canadian approach.
Canada may be the only nation in the world whose original myth stories came from a palette and a paintbrush. In the years since the Group of Seven, Canada has become a multiracial, multinational country that is increasingly urban. Our diversity is also part of who we are as a nation.
But we are, at our core, still children of the wild north. The reality of life in such a land is so that we could never survive without our trust in each other....
Petty, powerful, and pathologically online
...Kimmel’s suspension has given us the clearest picture yet of how the Trump administration intends to deal with the pesky First Amendment. Put pressure on the massive companies that uphold the American media landscape and assume they’ll fall in line. And install political allies at the companies they can’t directly pressure. Like Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who is currently in position to take over the American version of TikTok. Which is why esports journalist Rod Breslau speculated on X this week, “Trump is about to put 10% tariffs on all Amazon products if Twitch doesn't ban Hasan and Destiny (again) by next week.”
There are very few American media institutions that President Donald Trump can’t put his thumb on currently. And he knows it! While queening out with reporters on Air Force One on Thursday, Trump floated the idea of revoking the license of any broadcaster that gives him “bad publicity.” And other Republicans are quickly falling in line, seemingly relieved they no longer have to care about free speech. Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis told Semafor this week, “I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore.”
If you’re feeling hopeless, don’t worry, all the historians I follow are crashing out too. But if you are looking for something proactive, The Onion’s Ben Collins wrote on Bluesky, “Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.”
The wave of indie media orgs that have emerged since the pandemic is a good start, but they are still no match for the gargantuan Trump-aligned corporate media machine. A journalist, pundit, or, as we’ve seen this week, even an entertainer that gets too loud will be targeted by this administration. They will investigate you, go after your livelihood, and pressure the platform you’re broadcasting from. These people are petty, powerful, and pathologically online. One Trump appointee recently told Semafor that they were “radicalized” by “being booted out of the Gawker comments section, way back in the day.” No one is off limits now and there is no limit to how dumb this will all get. We need to figure out how to get news and information to people without YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, broadcast TV, cable, or corporate streamers. Our government is being run by aggrieved elites who were thrown onto social platforms with everyone else in the 2010s, where they could finally read what we all think about them. And it caused them so much psychic damage that they have decided to destroy both the internet and democracy to make sure nothing like it will ever happen again.
1 comment:
Hey Pete. Canada, love it or leave it. Mind your business.
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