Is Canada becoming a Communist state?

[Right To Left]

On 5/6/2021 at 7:58 PM, Army Guy said:

What was god thinking when he let Justin into power, Canadians must have pissed him off some how .

God must work at the CBC now then, judging by what they serve up as 'news'.

CBC has always tried to play it down the middle, but they were never this accommodating to Trudeau senior back in the 70's! They again, I can't recall CBC being so pro-war or forcing out military critics from their organization until the past 20-25 years.

[Nefarious Banana]

The CBC is Canada's expensive joke. Preoccupied with the 5% of the population FN issues combined with the Liberal bias makes it unlistenable to any thinking person.  'Canada's radio station' . . . ?  What a joke.

[Right To Left]

The CBC's cumbersome mandate is supposed to promote national unity, which can be maddening during the best of times. But the problem a lot of former liberals have now is that the CBC mandate has clearly become: get synched with US foreign policy, including trade and commerce, whether it's to our benefit or detriment. 

So, the CBC of decades past, which was as harsh a critic of the Vietnam War as anything out of Europe, rarely mentions the ongoing US-backed Saudi genocide in Yemen, and then there's Ukraine! Can't find anything on CBC's website where they've reported on or allowed one of their reporters to ask our Foreign Minister- Chrystia Freeland to comment about her Nazi collaborator grandfather, she claims to be proud of! 

Nor does a quick CBC search show much of anything about the never settled Ukraine civil war since the Orange Revolution kicked off festivities back in 2014. There's one blurb about "Russian-backed forces" in the east killing two Ukraine soldiers. No mention about what the Ukraine army....dependent on the US for weapons and funding is trying to do in the mostly Russian east where they are not wanted, and the majority either want to join Russia or form a separate Donbass nation. 

But, other sources...especially Jewish American and Israeli media haven't completely warmed up to the idea of allying with unrepentent Nazis in a war with Russia. Hundreds in Ukraine attend marches celebrating Nazi SS soldiers, including in Kyiv for the 1st time  May 4, 2021.

Nazi collaborator greeting becomes official Ukraine army salute

'Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! These words and this greeting will become Armed Forces of Ukraine official military greeting.'

 

And that's why being well informed requires having the time to collect news and information from a number of different sources around the world today, who have different often competing interests.

Hundreds in Ukraine attend marches celebrating Nazi SS soldiers, including in Kyiv for the 1st time

 

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Right To Left

[OftenWrong]

3 hours ago, dialamah said:

Old news.  

Here's something more recent ... https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trudeau-brownface-reaction-international-1.5289870

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeaus-popularity-has-slipped-since-we-charity-scandal-broke-poll/

Looks like it's you who needs to keep up.

Is that why the polls indicate a Liberal win if an election were to be held then? Because people don't like Justin.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

See how easy it is?
CBC.ca, can't be lying right? Right... sorry, nonsense. Garbage in, garbage out.

Complete...Vaste...of Time

 

[dialamah]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

Is that why the polls indicate a Liberal win if an election were to be held then? Because people don't like Justin.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

See how easy it is?
CBC.ca, can't be lying right? Right... sorry, nonsense. Garbage in, garbage out.

Complete...Vaste...of Time

 

Less support than he used to have; a counter to your claim that people think he's godlike - or some such nonsense claim you've made.

I suppose if Conservatives offered something Canadians want, JT would not have the support he has.  It's odd that Conservatives put forth their ideas and have them rejected by the majority, and then blame everybody else instead of considering that maybe they're the ones who've got it wrong.  If Conservatives have such good ideas, they'd present them and gain the support they want.  Instead they act all butthurt that their social/fiscal conservative/regressive ideas are rejected, and call non-conservatives lazy, greedy and communists.  But I suppose that all makes sense to you.

In the meantime, I'm considering either not voting at all, or voting NDP - not cause I love their ideas so much, but purely as a protest vote against both Liberal and Conservatives.  

Just like everybody, I'd like a government that considered more than just their own convenience and power.

[OftenWrong]

3 hours ago, dialamah said:

In the meantime, I'm considering either not voting at all, or voting NDP - not cause I love their ideas so much, but purely as a protest vote against both Liberal and Conservatives. 

Plus he has that “Lawrence of Arabia” kinda swagger, eh?

[blackbird]

Canada has been without a Governor General for four months now and without a head of the Canadian Forces for about three month.  This is not a good situation.  This is PM Trudeau's making.  He appointed Julie Payette and appointed the head of the Canadian forces.  Now we have the head of the Supreme Court acting as GG which has some conflict of interest aspects to it, since he now must sign off on laws that he could be required to rule on as to their constitutionality.  Also we could be facing an election very soon and if there is a hung parliament, the SC judge must work with the varies political parties to see if they can form a government.  This should not be done by SC judge, but should be done by a GG who is not involved with SC rulings.  The separation of powers is becoming blurred and could be a problem.  Why is PM Trudeau not appointing a new GG and head of the Canadian Forces?  Does he see a political advantage in putting these appointments off?

[Right To Left]

On 5/8/2021 at 5:37 PM, dialamah said:

Less support than he used to have; a counter to your claim that people think he's godlike - or some such nonsense claim you've made.

I suppose if Conservatives offered something Canadians want, JT would not have the support he has.  It's odd that Conservatives put forth their ideas and have them rejected by the majority, and then blame everybody else instead of considering that maybe they're the ones who've got it wrong.  If Conservatives have such good ideas, they'd present them and gain the support they want.  Instead they act all butthurt that their social/fiscal conservative/regressive ideas are rejected, and call non-conservatives lazy, greedy and communists.  But I suppose that all makes sense to you.

In the meantime, I'm considering either not voting at all, or voting NDP - not cause I love their ideas so much, but purely as a protest vote against both Liberal and Conservatives.  

Just like everybody, I'd like a government that considered more than just their own convenience and power.

Same here! Although I may vote Green Party if there's (as usual) no chance for the Tories taking my riding. I would be thrilled with the NDP if they would go back to actually standing clearly for workers, promoting/not attacking unions, and not acting like 'Liberal Lite.' Talking about tax cuts, pro-business policies etc..

It seems, at least ever since Ed Broadbent was NDP leader, whenever the Libs are down, the NDP will try to triangulate their way to the center, where the Liberal Party stakes out their turf. The old PC's already did it way too much, so that in typical elections in the 60's and 70's, the only issue separating Libs and Cons was on the unresolved terms of confederation: provincial vs federal powers. 

There may have once been a time when the majority of Canadians were feeling comfortable with their lives and the kind of government they had...and that benefits centrist Libs...especially like Justin, who can turn into the White Obama when he's answering questions at a news conference and talks out of both sides of his mouth! 

The only time anyone attempted to hold him to account in 2015, was when some natives who didn't want tarsands and other pipelines running through their territory, confronted him about which side he was on at the time the Government was proposing four new pipelines. And now it's because he's trying to perch on that sharp picket fence again and not take a stand on patent waivers. An issue where it is completely impossible to play rhetoric that will not infuriate either the global oligarchs or billions of people who want something done about a system that allows vaccine hoarding by the US and England, while many poor nations in Africa and Asia still have received nothing!  Yet the US is threatening every nation, enemies and allies alike, if they turn to their enemies (Russia, China, Cuba) for cheaper vaccines.

Imagine if a Canadian leader had the guts to say 'if you don't tell Pfizer and Moderna to follow through with the deliveries we ordered, we'll cancel them and call one of the nations on your banned list!'  I know, it can't happen considering who we're talking about, and the post-NAFTA world we live in now. But back when Trudeau Sr. was the PM, I could easily see it could have happened!

 

[GrittyLeftist]

Was astonished to see 6 pages of discussion about this question.  FWIW, this would be a very simple, easy and uncontroversial question if people only knew that "Communist" is a word that actually has a specific definition.  Unfortunately, it is rarely used correctly in mainstream media.

To avoid controversy, I googled "communism definition".  From Oxford languages:

a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

There actually is a Communist party active in Canada.  It is the second oldest active political party (after the Liberals).  If anyone is interested, Communist Party of Canada - Wikipedia.

[myata]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

Canada has been without a Governor General for four months now and without a head of the Canadian Forces for about three month.  This is not a good situation. 

I wonder if there was any situation in the history of the evolution, where one could just copy something from a million years back, turn off the eyes and the brain and sail off on autopilot in a random direction. But that seems to be the essence of this country's democratic institutions.

[blackbird]

6 hours ago, GrittyLeftist said:

Was astonished to see 6 pages of discussion about this question.  FWIW, this would be a very simple, easy and uncontroversial question if people only knew that "Communist" is a word that actually has a specific definition.  Unfortunately, it is rarely used correctly in mainstream media.

To avoid controversy, I googled "communism definition".  From Oxford languages:

a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

There actually is a Communist party active in Canada.  It is the second oldest active political party (after the Liberals).  If anyone is interested, Communist Party of Canada - Wikipedia.

Actually the question of Communism or Marxism is not a black and white question.  It is a grey issue with many aspects of Communism existing in various countries around the world.  Even China are not Communist in the strict definition you quoted.  People are not paid according to their abilities and needs in these countries and they have introduced government-controlled capitalism in order to advance economically and be competitive in the world.  But they still retain a brutal one-party totalitarian dictatorship with little or no human rights.  That is one aspect of Communism that they embrace.  The question I ask is Canada becoming or moving in that direction.  I think there is evidence the answer is yes, but not in the sense of the strict definition you quoted.  More in the sense of increasing government control, increasing globalist association with totalitarian and corrupt dictatorships, and increasing intrusion into everyone's life under the ideology that big brother knows what is best for you and you don't need all the freedoms you think you are entitled to. 

As for class warfare, liberal and left wing governments are skilled in creating division with their constant propaganda about alleged systemic racism, and harping about discrimination against minorities, and inequality they must conquer.  They love to portray themselves as the saviours of the underdog or minorities purely for partisan political purposes.

Edited May 11, 2021 by blackbird

[Michael Hardner]

Isn't it rich that someone posted that liberal governments are adept at sowing division, in a thread that equates them to Communists? 

 

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Isn't it rich that someone posted that liberal governments are adept at sowing division, in a thread that equates them to Communists? 

 

We see that every time you people descend on these forums. 

I understand you also have a private space where I and others are not welcome, presumably from which you plot your coordinated attacks...

[Michael Hardner]

21 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

1. We see that every time you people descend on these forums. 

2. I understand you also have a private space...

3. where I and others are not welcome,

4. presumably from which you plot your coordinated attacks...

1. What are 'you people' ?  Do you mean conservatives like me, who value institutions and our cultural traditions ?  Or do you mean anybody who dares question Culture Warriors who want to declare everything they don't like 'Communist' ?  Is it liberal to believe the dictionary these days ?

2.  I don't have any private space.

3. I am part of other forums and online groups like Facebook and presumably you are welcome there.  DM me your credentials and I will friend you, send an invite etc.

4. You really need to read this, but not as I read it.  You need to personalize it.  Take it in:
https://www.amazon.ca/Paranoid-Style-American-Politics/dp/0307388441

[OftenWrong]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. What are 'you people' ?  Do you mean conservatives like me, who value institutions and our cultural traditions ?  Or do you mean anybody who dares question Culture Warriors who want to declare everything they don't like 'Communist' ?  Is it liberal to believe the dictionary these days ?

2.  I don't have any private space.

3. I am part of other forums and online groups like Facebook and presumably you are welcome there.  DM me your credentials and I will friend you, send an invite etc.

4. You really need to read this, but not as I read it.  You need to personalize it.  Take it in:
https://www.amazon.ca/Paranoid-Style-American-Politics/dp/0307388441

This isn't a court of law, so I see no need to itemize every point as if they were mission statements. We all know what's going on here. Not talking about facebook, but in a very specific example of the incidents that occurred here in the past. It's a fascinating parody of the communication problem that exists in general, and expose of the character of people on "left and right".

Say hi to folks at the other forum, the private, Candian one.  

[Nefarious Banana]

Canada a Communist state?

We're getting there by degree/decree.

Have you ever seen a government of any stripe 'back-off' once a small majority of  brain-dead  citizens have accepted any of their policies that don't require any thought ?

Communist?  Not yet, but the ratchet is clicking away . . . . . . . 

Brain-dead voters . . . . . bobble-head PM. 

Embarrassing. 

[Michael Hardner]

31 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

1. This isn't a court of law, so I see no need to itemize every point as if they were mission statements.
2. We all know what's going on here.
3. Not talking about facebook, but in a very specific example of the incidents that occurred here in the past. It's a fascinating parody of the communication problem that exists in general, and expose of the character of people on "left and right".

4. Say hi to folks at the other forum, the private, Candian one.  

1. I'm sorry to offend you by asking you to contextualize/explain comments.
2. So "we all" know what "you people" are up to ?
3. Murky and intriguing.
4. Just join up and say it yourself.  Or would that crumble another favourite conspiracy theory ? ?

[OftenWrong]

1 minute ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. I'm sorry to offend you by asking you to contextualize/explain comments.
2. So "we all" know what "you people" are up to ?
3. Murky and intriguing.
4. Just join up and say it yourself.  Or would that crumble another favourite conspiracy theory ? ?

Sheer poppycock, my friend.

I know a poster who was banned within 30 seconds of joining.   

[Michael Hardner]

1 minute ago, OftenWrong said:

Sheer poppycock, my friend.

I know a poster who was banned within 30 seconds of joining.   

Maybe so... I am sure there is more to the story but, hey, I have volunteered to help you so I've done my part.  DM me if you want me to go forward with it.

[OftenWrong]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Maybe so... I am sure there is more to the story but, hey, I have volunteered to help you so I've done my part.  DM me if you want me to go forward with it.

Thanks but no need... the point was made. Commies win... again  

[myata]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Isn't it rich that someone posted that liberal governments are adept at sowing division, in a thread that equates them to Communists? 

 

We have to be able to distinguish the essence from a tag, label. What is a liberal government, for example? Is it a transparent, responsible, effective and efficient management by the citizens of their common wealth and affairs? Or is it strictly "liberal" government, with a liberal tag attached? No one has promised us that the two will be the same forever and no matter what (the government does and we as citizens, do not).

[Michael Hardner]

4 hours ago, myata said:

We have to be able to distinguish the essence from a tag, label. What is a liberal government, for example? Is it a transparent, responsible, effective and efficient management by the citizens of their common wealth and affairs? Or is it strictly "liberal" government, with a liberal tag attached? No one has promised us that the two will be the same forever and no matter what (the government does and we as citizens, do not).

Yes good point.

[GrittyLeftist]

18 hours ago, blackbird said:

Actually the question of Communism or Marxism is not a black and white question.  It is a grey issue with many aspects of Communism existing in various countries around the world.  Even China are not Communist in the strict definition you quoted.  People are not paid according to their abilities and needs in these countries and they have introduced government-controlled capitalism in order to advance economically and be competitive in the world.  But they still retain a brutal one-party totalitarian dictatorship with little or no human rights.  That is one aspect of Communism that they embrace.  The question I ask is Canada becoming or moving in that direction.  I think there is evidence the answer is yes, but not in the sense of the strict definition you quoted.  More in the sense of increasing government control, increasing globalist association with totalitarian and corrupt dictatorships, and increasing intrusion into everyone's life under the ideology that big brother knows what is best for you and you don't need all the freedoms you think you are entitled to. 

As for class warfare, liberal and left wing governments are skilled in creating division with their constant propaganda about alleged systemic racism, and harping about discrimination against minorities, and inequality they must conquer.  They love to portray themselves as the saviours of the underdog or minorities purely for partisan political purposes.

You make some solid points and I can tell you're speaking in good faith.  Sorry for the giant essay, I can't say this briefly.  I'm not trying to convince you that "Communism is good" (frankly, I'm not sure if it's even possible) or really anything else in particular, just trying to push back against generations of accumulated misinformation.  Finally, I am mostly self-taught, so there will be gaps in my knowledge, but I do not know where they are ? 

There is a lot of confusion about what is and isn't a Communist government.  This is caused by the fact that the two greatest (pre-24-hour-news) propaganda machines in history both referred to the Soviet Union as a "Communist" state (I'm referring here to America and Russia during the Cold War).  As a result, many reasonable adults believe that "Communism" is authoritarian, totalitarian, and rules through state-sponsored terror (secret police, political officers, gulags, etc) like the Soviet Union did or like China does.  Marx opposed such policies, and explicitly warned about the danger of a small group of intellectuals seizing power "on behalf of the worker" as happened in Russia under Lenin.  

Agreed that China is not, and never has been, a Communist state.  IMO the Soviet Union wasn't either, both are/were brutal, authoritarian, antidemocratic regimes that ruled through state terror.  FWIW Noam Chomsky agrees, as a general rule people either consider him nigh-infallible, total BS or they ask 'whodat?'  Your mileage may vary.  If you decide to check him out I'd recommend searching youtube as his writings can be very dense but his speeches are more accessible.

While some states have called themselves "Communist", I don't think there ever has been a Communist state - actual Communism would require democratic control of resources and the means of production.  I think Communism is basically a poorly defined utopian vision where people work as they please doing what they please when they please, society is democratic nearly to the point of absurdity, and citizens cooperate in better faith than any real-life citizenry I'm aware of.  Frankly, I doubt Communism is possible for humans as we exist now.

I don't think Canada is moving towards a more totalitarian state - IMO a totalitarian state would have seen COVID as a great opportunity to "temporarily" remove a bunch of freedoms such as freedom of the press, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly etc, whereas Canada has consistently placed great importance on the rights of the privileged few to infect the responsible many.  I'm aware there is a small but noisy minority complaining about not getting haircuts, eating at restaurants or various other inconveniences.  Mao killed 4 million people just for having degrees, Stalin executed almost 800k and 1.7 million died in the Gulag*.  Kinda hard for me to see any kind of equivalence.

Class warfare is happening, but is nearly one-sided in Canada.  Every year the super wealthy get richer and the rest of us get poorer.  We never use words like "class consciousness," "commodity fetishism" or "solidarity" - indeed, many of us don't even know what some or all of them mean.  Unions have been declining for decades (partly self-inflicted due to corruption).  Universities face great pressure to platform right wing speakers and, to the best of my knowledge, never platform actual leftists (defined here as people advocating for the abolishment of capitalism).  With the sole exception of the CBC, all of our media outlets are owned by billionaires, which gives them a great deal of leverage over which information is available to us, which pictures we see and which claims we find credible.  Capitalist-owned media empires are always pushing the narrative that the media (which they own), hollywood, universities and schools are "leftist" in spite of the fact that none of them are advocating for the abolishment of capitalism, and few of them are even advocating for using democracy to bring about more socialistic policies within the bounds of capitalism.  The idea that "government is bad and wasteful" has been pushed hard ever since the 70s - when the power of government is reduced, the power vacuum is filled by oligarchs.  Class warfare is happening, and if you aren't worth millions, you're on the losing side  

Canada does not, and never has had, an actual left-wing government anywhere, although we have had many left-of-centre provincial governments.  Keep in mind that Liberals (the ideology, not the party) are centrist, and all of Canada's federal governments have fallen under the ideology of Liberal, Conservative or Neoliberal, including the current Liberal government which talks like a Social Democrat but walks like a Neoliberal.  Left wingers want to replace capitalism.  They include socialists, communists and anarchists, and the farther left you go the more they fragment and waste their time and effort infighting, which is part of why so few people are aware of them.  The leftest electable party Canada has is the NDP, which until Mulcair was Social Democrat, which means that they want to work within the bounds of capitalism using democracy to bring in specific socialist policies, such as socialized health care.  Contrast that with advocating for class warfare to seize control of the means of production.  

Right now there is great confusion as to where the NDP and the Liberals are because the NDP betrayed their principles when they ran under Mulcair basically trying to eat the Liberals' lunch and the Liberals then ran on an NDP platform, then welched on the promises they were "just kidding" about.  This has blurred their positions on the spectrum in the eyes of many reasonable adults.  FWIW Liberals tend to campaign from the left and govern from the right - we can expect JT to *sound* lefter than he actually *acts*, again, your mileage may vary.  It's worth pointing out that the "Canadian left" (Social Democrats) are not very happy with JT or the Liberals.

In the interest of providing context, here is the (oversimplified) International political spectrum to the best of my knowledge:
anarchist->communist->socialist->social democrat->liberal->conservative->neoliberal->fascist
here is the Canadian political spectrum:
social democrat->liberal->conservative->neoliberal
and the American political spectrum:
liberal->conservative->neoliberal->fascist

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin

[OftenWrong]

18 minutes ago, GrittyLeftist said:

Marx opposed such policies, and explicitly warned about the danger of a small group of intellectuals seizing power "on behalf of the worker" as happened in Russia under Lenin.  

It doesn't matter what Marx opposed or warned. History shows that it lends itself to being overtaken and run by the entirely by the government. Because communism can only be sustained by authoritarianism, because it goes against basic human nature. Marx's solution to this problem was even more extreme - complete elimination and overthrow of the existing bureaucracy by continual revolution.

Sure... sounds goof to me.  

 

I'll stick to tolerating moderate criminality, while still having a reasonably good life, steak dinner and a bottle of beer in the fridge. Revolution, you say? No thanks...

 

 

[GrittyLeftist]

8 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

It doesn't matter what Marx opposed or warned. History shows that it lends itself to being overtaken and run by the entirely by the government. Because communism can only be sustained by authoritarianism, because it goes against basic human nature. Marx's solution to this problem was even more extreme - complete elimination and overthrow of the existing bureaucracy by continual revolution.

Sure... sounds goof to me.  

 

I'll stick to tolerating moderate criminality, while still having a reasonably good life, steak dinner and a bottle of beer in the fridge. Revolution, you say? No thanks...

 

 

I don't think history really shows anything about actual Communism, because I don't think there has been a Communistic government, only those that claim to be Communist while ignoring those principles of Communism that they find inconvenient.

I wasn't trying to sell you a revolution, as I said I really don't think Communism is workable at this point in humanity's evolution.  Was just trying to explain why I think the only reason anyone would ask "is Canada becoming Communist" is because of misinformation about what "Communism" entails.  I am curious, though, about "continual revolution."  I've never heard that phrase used to describe any society or ideology before and would be interested in knowing more about it.

Ran some googles, found this Permanent revolution - Wikipedia (Trotsky) and this Continuous revolution theory - Wikipedia (Mao), is one of those what you meant or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?