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'The Red States, We're Going to Hit Hard': Canadian Politicians Vow to Make MAGA Pay for Trump's Trade War (www.commondreams.org)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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[–] 81 points 2 days ago (3 children)

American here. I love my country.

But they should absolutely turn the screws.

Canada has always been a good friend to the US, both in peace and in wartime. When we had wildfires Canada sent us aircraft, crews, supplies. When we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan Canada sent us some of the best sniper teams anywhere. Canada has always been a peacetime friend and trade partner and we exchange a lot of goods, services, and tourism in both directions.

And then we decide to fuck them over for no reason. We spent 3-4 decades offshoring every bit of American manufacturing and willingly, gleefully, built ourselves a giant trade imbalance because doing so increased shareholder value. Now we realize that might be a bad thing so what do we do? We fuck over our friends, one of the few countries that stood by us through thick and thin. Canada has done nothing to deserve this.

If I were a Canadian, I'd be right fucking pissed (politely of course) that our 100+ year friend is doing this. And quite frankly, I'd be right.

So yeah, while I want my country to succeed, in this instance we deserve to fail and we should fail. Canada deserves better than this.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    If I were a Canadian, I'd be right fucking pissed (politely of course) that our 100+ year friend is doing this. And quite frankly, I'd be right.

    I genuinely hope we cease all trade with you entirely. You as a nation can no longer be trusted, no matter what happens over the next few years. The fact this happened in the first place is an inexcusable failure on the part of every American.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    They are too chicken shit to actually make a strong move though. They will bluster a lot a lot stopping these things but will cave as soon as someone says hey want to try again to talk about this?

    Ford is a corrupt POS and Carney is about as predictable as every banker ever has been. We don't have strong leadership willing to actually make a commitment to Canadians.

    As as sad as depressing as that is, we are better off than the alternative that was Pierre Polievre

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  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago (1 child)

    We don’t have strong leadership willing to actually make a commitment to Canadians.

    As as sad as depressing as that is, we are better off than the alternative

    Sounds just like American politics in most cases.

    Sometimes we pick the 'better off' sometimes we don't.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    Sadly it's trending more and more like that, America has always had that kind of effect on Canada so not a new thing but a culmination and acceleration of it

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (1 child)

    Sadly I don't think it's intentional. Our education is increasingly focused on tests over critical thinking- and somewhere along the line we decided it's more harmful socially to hold an underperforming kid back than to put him in the next grade unprepared. We're now having problems with college professors having to rework the course material to account for the fact that some students can't read well if at all (I really wish I was kidding). Meanwhile our population too distracted trying to make ends meet, and so we are easy to exploit with extreme rhetoric. And our news is corporate focused on eyeballs over education so the problem gets worse.
    I'm sorry that kind of culture is spreading :( I would strongly encourage you focus on maintaining your educational systems to a high standard.

    I love my country but I'm concerned it may literally be too late to save us and stop an Idiocracy-like future, especially with the onset of AI. I really hope it's not. But I see my own colleagues basically offloading their own critical thinking to ChatGPT and I see how it makes them unable to think for themselves :\ And I worry a lot.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    What you have going for you is that your state's are much more individuals. By design. It well may be too late for your union, but individual states can still make good decisions if there's the will of the people.

    I won't be surprised if at some point soon{2028 possibly....)that other nations no longer recognize the US as a whole and starts recognizing states as independent. Probably won't happen I'm not holding my breath but it would make a lot of sense in a worst case scenario/pessimistic perspective

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  • [–] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    This is a good thing and a bad thing.
    I'd agree that there may well be less unity between states. I believe that's actually what our founders intended- individual states united, without local/state politics being an afterthought.
    Problem is our system in concept is based on the idea that the only good source of authority for how to govern is the people who are governed taking an active interest in their own government. Sadly that kind of engaged population hasn't been the case for a while. Sadly the ones who are pushing for this are more so our conservatives- not for any useful reason but because it gives them more ability to set discriminatory policies against gay people and enforce religion based socially conservative policy in primarily conservative states.

    IMHO the only thing that can save us is if the American people once again take active interest in the running of their government. This is easier said than done.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago

    Time and money. People have been losing those 2 things since whatever post ww2 economic upward mobility boom busted.

    People cannot be made to spend the entirety of their time on this planet fighting fights they didn't start. Even spending your entire life fighting one cause can be moot if there isn't enough will behind it

    It's not a surprise at all that the current status quo is undoing decades of progress and landing everyone right back into a pile of shit that's harder to get yourself out of without becoming exactly like the people who put others there. It's the only way to get out of that situation without getting lucky.

    Billionaires are born or had a lot of luck and support to get where they are. A trillionaire is such a fucking bad sign of things it's insane to think this is the moment in history we are witnesses to

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago

    I'm inclined to agree, because some of the major consequences that should happen need to go through Alberta's energy market and the bought and paid for traitor Danielle Smith, whom Carney still refuses to treat with anything other than kid gloves.

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