Zeitgeist

No, it’s just that now you have Israel and Hamas to worry about. Having bigger and more fish to fry doesn’t mean you get to stop frying fish. It just means the problems are getting overwhelming. LCBO’s crap service is easily lost in the mix.

I’d compare Canada to China but I know less about it.

I lived and worked there for a spell many years ago. The people were friendly and hospitable. Even then, early post-Soviet Union, the government had issues, but it was more democratic and striving to westernize its economy. You have to study the history to see why Russia is where it is today. It’s complicated. Our standard of living is higher and we’re generally more democratic except on the radical left ideology front, which is significantly damaging. Our governments, institutions, and large businesses have been captured by international metrics on ESG and DEI (look up the acronyms) that want to socially engineer us away from traditional family values and individual rights and economic opportunities. The national religion in Canada is gender ideology and fighting climate change. All other perspectives are cancelled.

Wrong. I have lived and worked there.

I was making the point that our service is getting lousy like Russia’s. It doesn’t matter. We’re not on the same wavelength.

So what’s your excuse for no longer providing biodegradable paper bags made from recycled paper?

You don’t seem to understand the post. The point is that we went from getting free bags to buying them (as is done in Russia) to not even being offered bags to buy, including biodegradable paper bags.

A group mass murders 1300 people, mostly civilians including women and children. The government of the country that was victim to this terrorist attack is blamed for attempting to defend its citizens and remove the terrorists. Of course it’s tragic when innocent people die. I hope Israel can be as careful as possible in its efforts. Of course the history in the region is complicated. Hamas knew how their evil acts wound play out. They have sold out the people they purport to represent. How can discussions of longer term political solutions take place in this context? Our mainstream media won’t describe what happened accurately because it’s mostly just an arm of a government that’s pandering to identity groups to win votes. The CBC has been inexcusably antisemitic in this regard, painting a picture of legitimate freedom fighting instead of a brutal terrorist attack. At least the US government isn’t playing this game. I pray for the safety of innocent people in Gaza and Israel. Obviously this mess of living under the boot of Hamas hasn’t worked and Israel and Gaza must find better political solutions. Israel is dealing with immediate threats. I feel sorry for innocent Gazans caught in the crossfire right now. I wish the majority of people didn’t elect Hamas. A political party that seeks to eliminate an ethnic group isn’t good for anyone.

The truth hurts. The biggest complaint about Soviet markets was the lack of products and services. The Russians have been buying plastic bags for a long time.

So you propose full segregation by race. I can’t believe how racist the left have become.

Ottawa seems mostly to have contempt for Canadians. The federal government is largely a subsidized university poly-sci project where MP’s get to pretend that they have influence internationally and conduct social experiments on Canadians. Reduce the size of the federal government by 80% and revert authority to the provinces, which should really be called nations, since the federal government has sold out Canada, labeling it colonial and genocidal. The country is run by equity pseudoscientists and climate zealots who want to make the cost of energy and other living expenses so high that humans are taxed and regulated out of existence.

I don’t really care anymore. Canada and Quebec are going in the wrong direction as far as I’m concerned. I would prefer to see Ontario become a red state than continue to live under this creepy quasi-totalitarian woke federal government. Quebec is probably more Marxist and totalitarian, so they can take a hike for all I care.

Does this mean that more tax and spend communist woke-green voters will no longer be part of Canada’s electorate? If so, I’m in support.

The elimination of biodegradable paper bags that can be made from recycled paper illustrates how stupid and gullible Canadians have become. The bottom line is that we have less convenience and less customer service that makes little difference environmentally. More Soviet-style services in Canukistan.

If Catholic values were at the heart of such a move I might support it, but some (many?) clergy think that the Catholic Church is itself laid waste by the cultural revolution. Basically the voice of Catholic teachings is absent from the public discourse unless the topics are climate change and inclusion. Essentially, the debate underway in the Church is whether the Church is simply now using the perceived authority of the Vatican to dismantle Catholic values and the Church itself. We have seen the degradation of our democracies. The erasure of faiths and moral frameworks that recognize the individual as sacrosanct with natural God-given rights seems to be the overarching theme. The idea is that the Club of Rome has nothing to do with spirituality but is part of the same social engineering problem of indoctrinating people to normalize dubious values, such as gender ideology, censorship of dissent, and cancel culture. I won’t say more on the topic in this thread because I recognize the thread drift.

Well there’s tremendous controversy and potentially a schism in the Catholic Church right now. The Synod on Synodality seems to reflect the cultural revolution we’ve discussed. I won’t bore you with minutiae, but you might find Archbishop Vigano’s summary interesting.

You think it’s that far gone, eh? I think you’re probably right. It feels like we’ve entered a dark age. 2019 may be remembered as the peak: few wars, lowest percentage of the world’s population in extreme poverty, the last assertions of moral authority and capitalist opportunity. It’s not that simple of course and there are phoenixes and echoes of greatness amid the cultural confusion still, but preservation and restoration seem more important now than anything the current cultural revolution has to offer. The challenge is to reverse the sense of decline.

I used to think the big conflict was Quebec versus the rest of Canada, but Quebec has been like a foreign country ever since I can remember. Nothing new there. The struggle is between the older Canada of farmers/natural resource workers/builders and the white collar upper managerial/executive class based in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and urban Canada. Toronto and Vancouver are international cities without much stake in Canadian culture apart from $200 NHL tickets. All the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion choose your gender ridiculousness has come from privileged students and been imported into the HR departments of medium and large businesses. These kids have been insulated from labour and don’t like blue collar workers. Singh and Trudeau exemplify these attitudes. They’re not really concerned with the challenges of working people because they’re not around these people. They don’t understand basic social goods like being able to keep most of what you earn and being able to start a business without red tape. Instead, the Laurentian elites want to take your money and control your behaviour through their spending programs, because they think they know better than you how you should live and what you deserve. Climate change is just the latest excuse for their social engineering.

No more forcing gender ideology and racist “equity” schemes on the public. The fake identity politics grandstanding should evaporate, going the way of vaccine mandates. Economic opportunity will lift homeless out of poverty and deregulation will make homes more affordable. Eliminating carbon taxes will lower inflation, interest rates, and the cost of living. As you should know, residential schools continue to operate under Indigenous leadership. Suicide and substance abuse persist sadly, but publicly funded education is still considered a social good. Most Indigenous want it to continue because they want their kids to be successful. Same as it ever was. What will also hopefully change is the anti-Canada narratives about the evil “colonist” settlers who brought us much of our prosperity. Ironically, Trudeau brought in the most settlers of any PM. Soft on the border, soft on the military, soft on hard drugs, but hard on political opponents (Emergencies Act), Trudeau leaves behind quite a legacy of discord and shame.

I agree.

I’m glad people are waking up to the fact that Canada’s once great way of life is under threat. Crowding our cities and forcing people into rented boxes in the sky through extortionate rents is compromising our society and lowering our living standards.

Russians are by majority for Putin. I agree it’s an unhealthy drive to have a strongman, a Tsar or Lenin. It’s a different sensibility to ours. It’s more deferential to authority.

I’m guessing your background is Chinese and you were disgusted by China’s totalitarianism and came to Canada? Look, Russia is barely a democracy and I’m against Purim’s invasion, but I don’t think he’s doing it because he’s a bloodthirsty Hitter. Characterizing the invasion that way detracts from our ability to discern why this is happening and finding a lasting solution. If China launched a coup against our government and facilitated a military alliance with Canada, I’m not sure the US wouldn’t invade Canada, though they’d probably be welcomed.

Crimea used to be part of Russia and was home of the Soviet Black Sea naval fleet. The Dombass is mostly Russian speaking and was once part of Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State James Baker assured Russia that NATO wouldn’t move an inch east, but of course they moved thousands of kilometres east throughout the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, etc. Ukraine was a bridge too far for Russia, which considers Ukraine within its direct sphere of influence much as the US considers Canada in its sphere of influence. Western powers undermined and removed the democratically elected Ukraine government of 2014 because of its Russia sympathies. The Ukraine has verified Neo-Nazi militias in its military ranks. When Putin talks about de-Nazifying Ukraine, he’s not wrong in his identification of Nazi elements. A deal was agreed upon by Ukraine and Russia to settle the conflict politically until the State Department under Biden and NATO dispatched PM Boris Johnson to scuttle these plans. While any loss of innocent life is tragic, the Ukraine situation isn’t as cut and try as you make it sound, though in general terms, yes, Russia invaded a sovereign country, much as the US invaded or infiltrated countries during the Cold War and in the first Golf War and aftermath of 9/11 in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are all different places with unique contexts, but don’t pretend that our Western hands are always clean. Hamas are clearly a terrorist organization who conducted a large terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. There was no declaration of war. Israel has a right to defend itself and destroy Hamas That doesn’t change the fact that Palestinians in Gaza will need humanitarian aid and assistance to forge a better future in their territory, but not under the control of a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy Israel and remove all Jews from Israeli territories.

I can’t agree with you here. While I think Putin is a de facto dictator and manipulates media, I also think that our major western media outlets leave out important historical information that explains, at least in part, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s interesting because the CBC and CityPulse are coming across as somewhat sympathetic to Hamas, whose barbaric surprise attack on civilians is quickly contextualized by our leftist media and federal government’s narratives about Israel’s “colonial occupation” of “Palestinian territory”. Media and university activists can’t wait to pounce on reasonable people who don’t agree with gender ideology and use “dead names”, yet they overlook the physical carnage caused by terrorists. I say all this while also worrying about Palestinian families and the ways they have been used and abused by Hamas. I worry that innocent people will be collateral damage in Israel’s attempt to destroy Hamas. We should be careful about finding moral equivalence where it doesn’t exist. Putin may be a sketchy person who has done bad things for political power, but he isn’t Hitler. Innocent people will be killed as Israel invades Gaza. However, Israel isn’t the moral equivalent of Hamas. If it was up to Hamas, all Jews would be removed from Israel or murdered.