That story is absolutely heart-breaking. It's funny to me that reading that story, I can just tell I wouldn't like Jasmine Mooney. We wouldn't get along on a personal level. Her humour isn't my kind. Her view of things doesn't line up with how I perceive the world. We wouldn't be friends. And yet, I'm so incredibly moved by her story and I really respect the humility she shows in highlighting the stories of the other women she met in that system. I'm going to share this around, this feels really important.
Englishgrinn
I'm not sure we need to waste a lot of time on the lunatics that make up that 10%. You can't get 90% approval for fresh baked cookies, or friendly golden retriever puppies. While it would be nice for there to simply be no traitors within our borders, it's not really a realistic goal.
Instead, let's celebrate that by and large we're all on the same page. Elbows up. One way or the other, old age or a bullet, we die Canadians.
Despite every horrible thing they stand for - it is completely reasonable to me if the thing you're most pissed at them for is cultural appropriation of Norse Mythology. I know when people use my country's flag in their hate-fests, it angers me almost as much as the hate itself.
Sons of Odin are a Canadian white supremacist movement with Viking inspired iconography and a stated mission to "stop the spread of Shariah Law". They were started in 2018 and started with a very media-savvy push as a "service organization" doing park clean ups and handing out water and granola bars to homeless people. Their intent was to grow to spread their Xenophobia and anti-islamic rhetoric.
They aren't a large group, maybe 15k members coast to coast and that's spread pretty thinly. As for why I picked them? I dunno- memorable name and more "Canadian" than name dropping the Klan.
I started boycotting everything America like 5 weeks ago Mr. Reich, and that was before the US started disappearing dissidents, and deporting innocent people to prisons in El Salvador. I'm glad smart people seem to agree with me. I'm glad my countrymen agree with me.
And yeah, I did it because Trump insulted and threatened my home. But I won't necessarily stop when he's gone. Depends how he goes. America rises up, arrests him and his cronies and cleans house - then maybe we regain some trust.
In the more likely event he dies of a stroke later this year and his regime tears itself apart with infighting- then it isn't really "Donald Trump's America", I have a problem with. The US is, to put it mildly, an unreliable and volatile nation and we won't be trusting or dealing with them again any time soon.
I would like "Kills Nazis" to be a common, simple part of Canadian identity, like hockey and manners. Basically, I want this:
"Oh Bob? Yeah he's just a good old Canadian boy. Smooth wristshot, absolute sniper. Always helps his neighbour shovel the walk. There was a demonstration by a bunch of those "Sons of Odin" fuckers downtown last week and he stopped by to huck bricks at them and protect counterprotestors. You know, we should have him over for a beer and some steaks"
It's true - I can remember a year ago, maybe two? Back when he was still on Fox News Tucker Carlson was constantly on about how we were under a tyrannical dictatorship and how Americans should "free" us. This "not viable as a country" thing is just another attempt at justifying their aggression and it's just as hollow and stupid. The lies and fallacies just cycle through until something sticks, it's the goals that remain the same.
The truth is, they want us out of the way because our multiculturalism and socialism are threats to their siloed reality. We're too similar to them, too successful. We're a living repudiation of everything they believe, of all the lies they need to be true to justify their cruelty and bigotry.
We were never going to be allowed to live in peace, for no other reason than we are a constant reminder of the truth.
I doubt there was one, given ICE's recent behaviour, but did they give even the slightest reason why her student visa has been revoked? She was a fulbright scholar PhD student. Not exactly the supposedly "dangerous" immigrant the nazis always invent.
Maple MAGA didn't go anywhere, but they got a very harsh slap in the face when most Canadians "woke up" to politics. They were doing that thing American Conservatives do where they pretend that everyone secretly agrees with them and they are the "silent majority".
That's easier to do when most Canadians don't vote, don't follow politics and are generally checked out, as it has been for years.
But then, basically overnight, Canadians across the country all engaged. Boycotts, firearms training, tracking the news on a daily basis. Funny what a little thing like threats to our sovereignty will do. And Maple MAGA didn't suddenly change their tune. They're still out there, loving Trump, consuming Russian propaganda and thinking Canada is a fascist regime because we have the gall to fund social programs. But they're a lot less loud when they realize they're the minority in every room. Essentially, they're cowards and traitors and both those groups tend to keep their head down when a nation gets a surge of patriotism.
It's honestly a little reassuring to here that the reason for these tariffs is "We want to tax the ever-loving shit out of our citizens so we can give money to billionaires, but we don't want to call it a tax."
At least that means that it wasn't meant to be an act of betrayal and pre-text to war with Canada. I mean, it still was an act of betrayal creating massive hardship and permanently damaging our relationship. But the idea of a Russian/Ukraine remake happening along the 49th parallel seems less likely than it did.
I believe the way it worked was - the middle and lower class tax cuts had a built-in sunset and the upper class tax cuts were permanent. That way it looked like everyone got a cut, but really it was just a temporary relief for the poors and a real transfer of wealth to the upper echelons.
I don't believe they're engaging in such pageantry this time. But I'm not an American, maybe someone will correct me.
I have never known a man who needed to get punched in the face worse than Donald Trump. I am not a violent man. I detest "online tough guys" who treat every situation as an excuse to advocate for violence. And I'm not saying I endorse a bullet or a guillotine or something like that. I'm not even saying I'd punch him.
But this man has clearly never been punched in his shit-talking mouth, and if someone had done it 40 or 50 years ago, we wouldn't be here now.