The Great Awakening

[moose eater]

Did I find a jew that moose likes?

Remember the comments about the implications of 'loose associations' Rob? They're still relevant.

 

[RobFromTX]

Remember the comments about the implications of 'loose associations' Rob? They're still relevant.

Well then I suggest we put an expiration on the relevance of comments

Especially since most members here have atleast two distinct personalities

Just ask canna

 

[RobFromTX]

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

The GREAT AWAKENING?

A piece in the Globe by Thomas Homer Dixon, a Canadian global security expert:
If you want peace, prepare for war – an ancient lesson Canada must remember
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Special to The Globe and Mail
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
If you want peace, prepare for war. This ancient Roman aphorism is starkly relevant to Canada’s situation today, no matter how contrary it seems to our national culture.
U.S. President Donald Trump believes that the treaty that demarcates the Canada-U.S. border is invalid and that the boundary should be moved. Put simply, he wants to take our land. And the risk of that happening is higher if we pretend it doesn’t exist.
There are people who want to believe that Mr. Trump’s annexation talk is just a tactic to get us to make bigger trade concessions. The tariffs aren’t intended to make annexation easier, they say, but are instead part of a strategy to restructure the U.S. economy, reduce the country’s deficit and lower taxes.
Similarly, until a couple of weeks ago, any suggestion that the United States would use military force against Canada was derided as ridiculous. And anyway, commentators argued, Canada can’t be militarily defended, because our population is strung out in a thin line along America’s northern border.
But those perspectives are shifting fast.
Earlier this week, the renowned Yale historian Timothy Snyder (and visiting professor at the University of Toronto) wrote that “war with Canada is what Trump seems to have in mind.” He highlighted Mr. Trump’s “strangely Putinist” fiction that Canada isn’t real – that we’re not economically viable, that most of us want to join the U.S., and that the border is artificial. The assertion that Canada isn’t real is the kind of lie, Dr. Snyder said, that “imperialists tell themselves before beginning doomed wars of aggression.” It’s preparation “not just for trade war but for war itself.”
Other scholars are now seriously addressing the possibility of war. Aisha Ahmad, a Canadian specialist in failed states, recently argued that an invasion of Canada would “trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.” And last week the military historian Elliot Cohen published an assessment of past U.S. attempts to conquer Canada, with a reminder to the Trump administration that they produced “dismal results.”
You’re likely shaking your head by now. This can’t be possible! But Mr. Trump’s modus operandi is to turn craziness into reality. We need to stop shaking our heads at his craziness and see the new reality he’s creating.
Mr. Trump isn’t just “a quasi-fascist,” said Jonathan Leader Maynard of King’s College University in London in a message to me a few days ago, “but an absolute fantasist who treats things as true because he fantasizes about them. Canada as the 51st state, Gaza as a hotel resort, tariffs making the economy boom, splitting Russia off from China – all these ideas are fantasies. But given free rein, he might pursue any or all of them.”
If one observes Mr. Trump carefully, one can see his tell – an unintended hint of his subconscious fantasy about geopolitics. It’s there in the school-room map on a stand beside his desk in the Oval Office, emblazoned with “Gulf of America.” And it’s there again in his comments on March 13, when he talked about the “beautiful formation of Canada and the United States.”
“It would be one of the great states anywhere,” he said. “This would be the most incredible country visually.”
Mr. Trump is playing the board game Risk, and the main players are the U.S., Russia and China. A nation’s power equates to its visible expanse of territory across a cartoon-like world map. All countries are ineluctably locked into a planet-spanning winner-take-all conflict. And to prevail, the United States needs to absorb Canada (and to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal) not just to Make America Great, but to achieve “hemispheric control,” in Steve Bannon’s eager locution.
Mr. Trump’s board-game imaginings may be fantastic, but they’re creating, day by day, a stark, hard reality: The rules-based international order that originated with the 17th century jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius – and on which the principle of territorial sovereignty is based – is unravelling. Emerging in its place is something akin to Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature – a world governed by brute force and the will of the strongest.
The unravelling process will take time. An assault on Canadian territory won’t happen soon, not this year, nor likely the next. But if we choose to remain weak, here’s how things could go before the end of Mr. Trump’s term, especially if domestic unrest and dysfunction further radicalize his regime, encouraging it to try to distract attention by picking fights with outsiders.
Mr. Trump will steadily escalate his demands on Canada, tying them to progressively broader political and territorial grievances. He’ll also increasingly question our country’s basic legitimacy as a sovereign nation, as he’s already started to do. A flood of lies from his associates, cabinet members, and the MAGA-verse will paint us as, at best, an irresponsible neighbour that’s not protecting America’s northern flank, or, at worst, an outright security threat, because at any moment we can restrict access to the energy, potash, water and other critical resources the United States needs.
Once we’re framed as an enemy, intelligence and military co-operation (for instance, under NORAD) will end. And at that point – with the U.S. military’s senior ranks purged of resistance and Trump loyalists in place – demands for territorial concessions, explicitly backed by the threat of military force, will be a simple next step. They’ll likely start with something small – an adjustment to the border in the Great Lakes, for instance – as a test of our will. But they won’t end there.
What’s the probability of this kind of scenario? Ten per cent, 5 per cent, or 1 per cent? No one can say for sure. But it’s certainly not zero. And given the existential cost to Canada, we’d be stupid not to take it seriously. In game-theory terms, we need to pursue a strategy of “minimax regret” – to minimize, as best we can, the possibility of worst-case outcomes.
This means, first, recognizing that channelling Neville Chamberlain won’t work. Mr. Trump knows what he wants – our territory – and he’s out to get it. There’s no happy middle ground that can be reached through appeasement. He’ll take our concessions and demand more.
And it means, second, that we need to move to a wartime footing in all respects – economically, socially, politically and (perhaps hardest for us to accept) militarily.
The doubters who say Canada can’t be defended are wrong. Canada can indeed prepare effectively to resist U.S. military force. Scandinavian countries have developed elaborate and popular plans for homeland defence against a massive external threat. We can do the same, starting now by standing up a national civil defence corp, a capacity that would also equip us to better deal with all disasters, natural and human caused.
Already, Canadians in every walk of life are discussing privately how they’re prepared to protect our homeland. True, in any violent contest between Canada and the U.S., we can’t possibly win in a conventional sense. But we can ensure in advance that an authoritarian, imperialist U.S. regime knows the cost will be high enough to make it far less likely to attack in the first place.
The stronger we are, the lower the risks. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

The GREAT AWAKENING?

A piece in the Globe by Thomas Homer Dixon, a Canadian global security expert:
If you want peace, prepare for war – an ancient lesson Canada must remember
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Special to The Globe and Mail
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
If you want peace, prepare for war. This ancient Roman aphorism is starkly relevant to Canada’s situation today, no matter how contrary it seems to our national culture.
U.S. President Donald Trump believes that the treaty that demarcates the Canada-U.S. border is invalid and that the boundary should be moved. Put simply, he wants to take our land. And the risk of that happening is higher if we pretend it doesn’t exist.
There are people who want to believe that Mr. Trump’s annexation talk is just a tactic to get us to make bigger trade concessions. The tariffs aren’t intended to make annexation easier, they say, but are instead part of a strategy to restructure the U.S. economy, reduce the country’s deficit and lower taxes.
Similarly, until a couple of weeks ago, any suggestion that the United States would use military force against Canada was derided as ridiculous. And anyway, commentators argued, Canada can’t be militarily defended, because our population is strung out in a thin line along America’s northern border.
But those perspectives are shifting fast.
Earlier this week, the renowned Yale historian Timothy Snyder (and visiting professor at the University of Toronto) wrote that “war with Canada is what Trump seems to have in mind.” He highlighted Mr. Trump’s “strangely Putinist” fiction that Canada isn’t real – that we’re not economically viable, that most of us want to join the U.S., and that the border is artificial. The assertion that Canada isn’t real is the kind of lie, Dr. Snyder said, that “imperialists tell themselves before beginning doomed wars of aggression.” It’s preparation “not just for trade war but for war itself.”
Other scholars are now seriously addressing the possibility of war. Aisha Ahmad, a Canadian specialist in failed states, recently argued that an invasion of Canada would “trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.” And last week the military historian Elliot Cohen published an assessment of past U.S. attempts to conquer Canada, with a reminder to the Trump administration that they produced “dismal results.”
You’re likely shaking your head by now. This can’t be possible! But Mr. Trump’s modus operandi is to turn craziness into reality. We need to stop shaking our heads at his craziness and see the new reality he’s creating.
Mr. Trump isn’t just “a quasi-fascist,” said Jonathan Leader Maynard of King’s College University in London in a message to me a few days ago, “but an absolute fantasist who treats things as true because he fantasizes about them. Canada as the 51st state, Gaza as a hotel resort, tariffs making the economy boom, splitting Russia off from China – all these ideas are fantasies. But given free rein, he might pursue any or all of them.”
If one observes Mr. Trump carefully, one can see his tell – an unintended hint of his subconscious fantasy about geopolitics. It’s there in the school-room map on a stand beside his desk in the Oval Office, emblazoned with “Gulf of America.” And it’s there again in his comments on March 13, when he talked about the “beautiful formation of Canada and the United States.”
“It would be one of the great states anywhere,” he said. “This would be the most incredible country visually.”
Mr. Trump is playing the board game Risk, and the main players are the U.S., Russia and China. A nation’s power equates to its visible expanse of territory across a cartoon-like world map. All countries are ineluctably locked into a planet-spanning winner-take-all conflict. And to prevail, the United States needs to absorb Canada (and to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal) not just to Make America Great, but to achieve “hemispheric control,” in Steve Bannon’s eager locution.
Mr. Trump’s board-game imaginings may be fantastic, but they’re creating, day by day, a stark, hard reality: The rules-based international order that originated with the 17th century jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius – and on which the principle of territorial sovereignty is based – is unravelling. Emerging in its place is something akin to Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature – a world governed by brute force and the will of the strongest.
The unravelling process will take time. An assault on Canadian territory won’t happen soon, not this year, nor likely the next. But if we choose to remain weak, here’s how things could go before the end of Mr. Trump’s term, especially if domestic unrest and dysfunction further radicalize his regime, encouraging it to try to distract attention by picking fights with outsiders.
Mr. Trump will steadily escalate his demands on Canada, tying them to progressively broader political and territorial grievances. He’ll also increasingly question our country’s basic legitimacy as a sovereign nation, as he’s already started to do. A flood of lies from his associates, cabinet members, and the MAGA-verse will paint us as, at best, an irresponsible neighbour that’s not protecting America’s northern flank, or, at worst, an outright security threat, because at any moment we can restrict access to the energy, potash, water and other critical resources the United States needs.
Once we’re framed as an enemy, intelligence and military co-operation (for instance, under NORAD) will end. And at that point – with the U.S. military’s senior ranks purged of resistance and Trump loyalists in place – demands for territorial concessions, explicitly backed by the threat of military force, will be a simple next step. They’ll likely start with something small – an adjustment to the border in the Great Lakes, for instance – as a test of our will. But they won’t end there.
What’s the probability of this kind of scenario? Ten per cent, 5 per cent, or 1 per cent? No one can say for sure. But it’s certainly not zero. And given the existential cost to Canada, we’d be stupid not to take it seriously. In game-theory terms, we need to pursue a strategy of “minimax regret” – to minimize, as best we can, the possibility of worst-case outcomes.
This means, first, recognizing that channelling Neville Chamberlain won’t work. Mr. Trump knows what he wants – our territory – and he’s out to get it. There’s no happy middle ground that can be reached through appeasement. He’ll take our concessions and demand more.
And it means, second, that we need to move to a wartime footing in all respects – economically, socially, politically and (perhaps hardest for us to accept) militarily.
The doubters who say Canada can’t be defended are wrong. Canada can indeed prepare effectively to resist U.S. military force. Scandinavian countries have developed elaborate and popular plans for homeland defence against a massive external threat. We can do the same, starting now by standing up a national civil defence corp, a capacity that would also equip us to better deal with all disasters, natural and human caused.
Already, Canadians in every walk of life are discussing privately how they’re prepared to protect our homeland. True, in any violent contest between Canada and the U.S., we can’t possibly win in a conventional sense. But we can ensure in advance that an authoritarian, imperialist U.S. regime knows the cost will be high enough to make it far less likely to attack in the first place.
The stronger we are, the lower the risks. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

The "left" are all up in arms over this, saying things like, 'Trump is threatening war....' But, I think Trump has much better things in mind.

 

[Microbeman]

The "left" are all up in arms over this, saying things like, 'Trump is threatening war....' But, I think Trump has much better things in mind.

Do you believe the take Canada thing is real? - a hoax? - a ploy?

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

I doubt the accuracy and integrity in Amy Goodman's DN newscasts have changed a bit. I think it's more apt that her reports conflict with Hempy's adoration for the Orange Felonious Nuisance, and cause grief for the cult-like blinders involved.

Integrity and trump go together like romaine lettuce and motor oil..

Actually, I've been listening to her for decades now. She showed her true self when the Obama admin came into being.

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

View attachment 19175278

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Do you believe the take Canada thing is real? - a hoax? - a ploy?

I think it is plan B, but we wont have to 'take' it. Plan A is probably some sort of agreement related to the prevention of proxy wars in North America.

 

[moose eater]

Actually, I've been listening to her for decades now. She showed her true self when the Obama admin came into being.

Which has what to do with her (rated) 'very accurate' and credible news casting re. DJT's insanity?

For context, Hempy, you claim or imply that DJT has integrity and vision... as opposed to 'visons' (hallucinations).

 

[moose eater]

Do you believe the take Canada thing is real? - a hoax? - a ploy?

I listened to a comment by DJT today wherein, during one of his HEAVILY hyperbolic and theatrical moments of poor choice of wording and incessant bullshit, along with MAGA cult-pleasing distractions, he claimed that "Canada (was) one of the nastiest countries to deal with."

I wondered what kind of cone of silence and protected life one has to exist in for that experience to have any validity at all.

Otherwise, it was merely another snapshot in time of him trying to impress folks with his bizarre distortions in an effort to direct the gullible MAGA cult toward a new enemy for distraction's and justification's sake involving a maple syrup-covered, hockey-playing boogieman they didn't even know they had until he raised the fictional issue.

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

"Enjoy the show."
- Q

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

A document from the JFK files show that the CIA floated a plan to use biowarfare against Cuba by releasing biological agents on crops to destabilize the country and create an uprising against Castro, which included a media campaign to paint the cause as "of natural origin."

So, the CIA:
Uses biological warfare covertly.
Uses biological warfare covertly for political and economic reasons.
Uses biological warfare covertly for political and economic reasons with media and scientists (already in place) ready and willing to lie to the public as part of a conspiracy.

Enter: COVID-19

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

I listened to a comment by DJT today wherein, during one of his HEAVILY hyperbolic and theatrical moments of poor choice of wording and incessant bullshit, along with MAGA cult-pleasing distractions, he claimed that "Canada (was) one of the nastiest countries to deal with."

I wondered what kind of cone of silence and protected life one has to exist in for that experience to have any validity at all.

Otherwise, it was merely another snapshot in time of him trying to impress folks with his bizarre distortions in an effort to direct the gullible MAGA cult toward a new enemy for distraction's and justification's sake involving a maple syrup-covered, hockey-playing boogieman they didn't even know they had until he raised the fictional issue.

I here there is a delegation from Ottowa heading to DC. They have claimed independence and want to discuss becoming the 51st State.

 

[nepalnt21]

oooohhhh, shit

it looks like they were detained at the border and sent to a slave labor prison in venezuela, that really sux

 

[nepalnt21]

View attachment 19175278

lol nice try, the oligarchs... you'll have to do better than that...

seriously, anti- bernie memes are some of the weakest ever... if it weren't for the dnc handing trump both his wins, i'm pretty sure we coulda seen a real human (like bernie) in the presidency

 

[Captain Red Eye]

View attachment 19175278

 

[Captain Red Eye]

lol nice try, the oligarchs... you'll have to do better than that...

seriously, anti- bernie memes are some of the weakest ever... if it weren't for the dnc handing trump both his wins, i'm pretty sure we coulda seen a real human (like bernie) in the presidency

Bernie is not an abolitionist though and licked Hillary's behind clean when he was ordered to.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

A document from the JFK files show that the CIA floated a plan to use biowarfare against Cuba by releasing biological agents on crops to destabilize the country and create an uprising against Castro, which included a media campaign to paint the cause as "of natural origin."

So, the CIA:
Uses biological warfare covertly.
Uses biological warfare covertly for political and economic reasons.
Uses biological warfare covertly for political and economic reasons with media and scientists (already in place) ready and willing to lie to the public as part of a conspiracy.

Enter: COVID-19

The question this brings up is what else don't we know?

 

[RobFromTX]

i'm pretty sure we coulda seen a real human (like bernie) in the presidency

 

[RobFromTX]