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Global Affairs Canada antiracism programming and propaganda


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Global Affairs Canada and presumably other agencies of the Canadian federal government have seized the day for anti-racism training and re-programming in a remarkable virtue signaling campaign...on steroids.    Importing and doubling down on U.S. based academics' critical race theory, the movement is underway to normalize Marxist groups like Black Lives Matter with momentum and inertia from the American experience (e.g. Derek Chauvin/George Floyd), while curiously downplaying the actual Canadian narrative.

Why would any Canadian federal agency or ministry adopt such overt training rhetoric and narrative from a foreign experience for application in Canada to the exclusion of actual Canadian history and experience ?

 

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As stated above, critical race theory holds fast to an idea of an enforced system of race hierarchy that places Black people at the bottom. This is apparent in the Global Affairs literature, even to the exclusion of inequity problems that are more unique to Canada. There is little mention of what is arguably Canada’s greatest act of oppression: Indian Residential Schools. The century-long assimilation of Indigenous children is mostly mentioned in passing as a government policy of “forcefully removing Indigenous children from their homes.” There is no mention whatsoever of Japanese-Canadian internment during the Second World War. The materials stress that they “are not a history course,” but aside from the letter by Quan-Watson, the longstanding history of anti-Asian racism in Canada appears only in a course chart that includes the 1885 Chinese Immigration Act as an example of “overt white supremacy.”

Slavery, by contrast, is mentioned more than a half-dozen times. While chattel slavery did indeed exist for more than two centuries in colonial Canada, with about 3,000 estimated slaves in pre-Confederation Canada, Black historians have argued that it was never the defining institution that it became in the United States, which had four million enslaved Africans on the eve of emancipation.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/only-white-people-can-be-racist-inside-global-affairs-anti-racism-course-materials

Excerpt from Global Affairs Canada’s anti-racism training materials.

 

Edited by bush_cheney2004
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Global Affairs has always been a bastion of far left liberal ideology. This is the group which cheered Trudeau's arrival like groupies at a rock concert, so ecstatic were they to have someone 'like us'. There are few if any conservative types at that department. They wouldn't be hired, and if they were, accidentally, they wouldn't be promoted and would be frozen out.

 

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Even taken at face value, this Global Affairs Canada critical race theory training seems to be at odds with their mission statement and actions, which help to perpetuate the very "white privilege" framework that this training is reported to address:

 

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Global Affairs Canada

We define, shape and advance Canada’s interests and values in a complex global environment. We manage diplomatic relations, promote international trade and provide consular support. We lead international development, humanitarian, and peace and security assistance efforts. We also contribute to national security and the development of international law.

 

 

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How can the federal government abuse public funds to the tune of $300 million to support the divisive and inflammatory "critical race theory" that most Canadians would never support?  How did the Liberals become so compromised that they'll ignore the oppressive incarceration of Uighurs in China yet promulgate a controversial perspective from the U.S. context?  This government is pathetic.  They can't acquire vaccines, but they have no shortage of attention and public money for dubious causes.

https://apple.news/AqH6OFAGsSwqJSklupc76Rg

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Respectfully, I think we are too far apart to agree on very much, so instead of disputing your conclusions I will try to address your premises and share some neat things I've learned in the past few years.

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Marxists are supporters of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

BLM is a decentralized movement that opposes the extralegal murder of black people by police officers and all other forms of racially motivated violence against black people.  

In order to make Marxists happy you would need to get rid of capitalism.  In order to make BLM happy you would need to make it illegal to use violence against black people for being black (and actually enforce those laws).  Different grievances.  They are related only in that both advocate for different types of equality - Marxists want economic and social equality, BLM wants racial equality.

There are some Marxists in the BLM crowd, much as there are some white people in the BLM crowd.  Calling BLM, as a whole, "Marxist," is about as accurate as calling it "white."

____

The Liberal party of Canada is not "far left", although they are "farther left than they were 20 years ago."  Classical Liberals (the ideology that claims government requires the consent of the governed, sees society as composed of individuals, believes strongly in individual rights, etc) are not either.  They are, at most, left-of-centre.  If you look farther left of them you will see Social Democrats, who believe that we should work within the bounds of capitalism using democracy to advocate for more socialistic policies such as universal health care.  If you look even further left you will find your Socialists, Communists and Anarchists of varying stripes.  The farther left you look, the more people fragment, and extreme leftists do far too much bickering amongst themselves to be able to promote their ideologies, which is part of why most people don't really know anything about them.

Someone who actually WAS far left would be advocating to violently overthrow capitalism so that the working class could assume control of the means of production, or they would be claiming that governments are illegitimate because they use violence in ways that cannot be justified, or they would be saying things like, "eat your landlord," and "the only thing billionaires should be running for is their lives."

___

There are two ways to use the phrases "left" and "right".  One of them is to use them to locate ideologies on the political spectrum, for example, "Fascism is a far right ideology".  The other way is to describe ideologies relative to your position.  For example, if I worked for Fox News I would regularly describe CNN as being "far-left", because compared to me, they are far-left.  However, CNN is, in reality, right-of-centre.  They are a privately owned, for-profit multinational corporation - they are clearly not trying to create a classless and/or stateless society.  

It has been argued that the real reason Fox News uses the phrase "far-left" to describe CNN is as a sneaky trick.  If the ideas on CNN are radical, dangerous, and subversive, then anyone who has ideas that are even farther left than the ones on CNN must just be a raving nutcase whose opinions can be dismissed out of hand.  It has be argued that this serves to artificially limit the scope of acceptable political debate.

____

Anyways, hope this is helpful.  My goal is to share knowledge, not to be a troll.  Thanks for reading!

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12 minutes ago, GrittyLeftist said:

Respectfully, I think we are too far apart to agree on very much, so instead of disputing your conclusions I will try to address your premises and share some neat things I've learned in the past few years.

Lol. I guess you could say 'learned', much in the same way that you could learn 3 + 3 = 2.

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Marxists are supporters of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Sure, but we all know how well those theories play out in real life, for reasons that we don't need to get into here.

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BLM is a decentralized movement that opposes the extralegal murder of black people by police officers and all other forms of racially motivated violence against black people.  

BLM is not at all what you just described there.

For starters, their platform included ridiculous things like getting rid of the nuclear family, which has absolutely nothing to do with policing.

Secondly, and most importantly, BLM is not really in the business of "opposing extralegal murders", they are in the business of fear mongering the police and creating racial division within the country on behalf of their marxist leader and domestic terrorist supporters/communists like Susan Rosenberg. 

They're into editing videos to make the police look bad, and they figure that once they get people riled up and convince them to do stupid things (rioting, looting, arson and racial assaults), they'll ignore evidence which eventually surfaces, making them look completely stupid. That's one of the main reasons why they oppose the use of bodycams. Bodycams destroy BLM's false narratives, just like the one that came out about G Floyd's arrest which took all the wind out of the rioters' sails. 

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In order to make Marxists happy you would need to get rid of capitalism. 

History has shown us that using genocide is the most effective way of doing that. 

Interesting that BLM are by definition a bunch of fear mongering 'marxists'.

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In order to make BLM happy you would need to make it illegal to use violence against black people for being black (and actually enforce those laws).  Different grievances.  They are related only in that both advocate for different types of equality - Marxists want economic and social equality, BLM wants racial equality.

This is straight up propaganda, and no one with your command of the language believes a word that you just said.

What's lacking in everything that BLM has made a big fuss about over the last 6 years is evidence of racism. For example: if the murder of G. Floyd was racism, then so was the murder of Tony Timpa, but Tony Timpa was white.

Only racists and morons believe that Floyd's murder was any different from Timpa's murder. Those two are brothers, you have nothing in common with either of them or you'd be writing this posthumously, which is exceedingly rare.

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There are some Marxists in the BLM crowd, much as there are some white people in the BLM crowd.  Calling BLM, as a whole, "Marxist," is about as accurate as calling it "white."

 

The leaders define the movement. Supporting BLM's cause is supporting the cause of communism, their followers just don't understand it. They're 'useful idiots', as it were.

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The Liberal party of Canada is not "far left", although they are "farther left than they were 20 years ago."  Classical Liberals (the ideology that claims government requires the consent of the governed, sees society as composed of individuals, believes strongly in individual rights, etc) are not either.  They are, at most, left-of-centre.  If you look farther left of them you will see Social Democrats, who believe that we should work within the bounds of capitalism using democracy to advocate for more socialistic policies such as universal health care.  If you look even further left you will find your Socialists, Communists and Anarchists of varying stripes.  The farther left you look, the more people fragment, and extreme leftists do far too much bickering amongst themselves to be able to promote their ideologies, which is part of why most people don't really know anything about them.

____

Anyways, hope this is helpful.  My goal is to share knowledge, not to be a troll.  Thanks for reading!

The liberals are 'liberal' in name only. They carry the pom-poms, but the reality of the matter is that they are a bit more sinister. IE, when the PM takes control of the judiciary and the media, that's not 'liberal'.  

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Someone who actually WAS far left would be advocating to violently overthrow capitalism so that the working class could assume control of the means of production, or they would be claiming that governments are illegitimate because they use violence in ways that cannot be justified, or they would be saying things like, "eat your landlord," and "the only thing billionaires should be running for is their lives."

Trudeau won't go that far because he comes from money himself: his people eat caviar, not KD. He just wants to be the Maduro type, in a country where almost all of the money flows through sticky government fingers and croneyism is law.

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There are two ways to use the phrases "left" and "right".  One of them is to use them to locate ideologies on the political spectrum, for example, "Fascism is a far right ideology".  The other way is to describe ideologies relative to your position.  For example, if I worked for Fox News I would regularly describe CNN as being "far-left", because compared to me, they are far-left.  However, CNN is, in reality, right-of-centre.  They are a privately owned, for-profit multinational corporation - they are clearly not trying to create a classless and/or stateless society.  

TBH your use of the words 'left' and 'right' is just smoke and mirrors.

In reality there's an x-axis with democracy at one end and authoritarianism at the other, but the word liberal and conservative don't fit where naive dreamers think they do along that axis. The whole concept of 'giving almost everything that you earn to the government and then you have a true democracy' is outrageous because governments that have that level of power end up being anything but democratic. Our 'rah-rah' government in Canada is selling virtue-signalling, but Trudeau is a total crook just like Maduro, Stalin, Mao and every other commie that ever blabbed about this or that nirvana while lusting for complete power. 

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It has been argued that the real reason Fox News uses the phrase "far-left" to describe CNN is as a sneaky trick.  If the ideas on CNN are radical, dangerous, and subversive, then anyone who has ideas that are even farther left than the ones on CNN must just be a raving nutcase whose opinions can be dismissed out of hand.  It has be argued that this serves to artificially limit the scope of acceptable political debate.

CNN is basically what you just described (I'd use words like twisted, repugnant and sick), for reasons that have already been reiterated ad nauseam on this forum. 

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It has be argued that this serves to artificially limit the scope of acceptable political debate.

1) The fact that it's true makes it a great conversation starter

2) A perfect example of pre-empting acceptable political debate is CNN's position that "everyone who voted for Trump is a racist and a domestic terrorist". You must understand that there's no way to have an acceptable political debate with the Devil, am I right?

3) It's kind of ironic that you talked about 'acceptable political debate' while at the same time touting BLM as a unifier and a protector of human rights. I'll grant that you were polite enough about it, and you used the Queen's English, but that level of deceit has no place in an 'acceptable debate' either. It's like trying to have an "acceptable political debate" about the grace and humanity of Nazis. It's just a non-starter

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1 hour ago, GrittyLeftist said:

 

1. The Liberal party of Canada is not "far left", although they are "farther left than they were 20 years ago."   

2. My goal is to share knowledge, not to be a troll.  Thanks for reading!

1. Ok, but right of 40 years ago when they nationalized an oil company, owned airlines, a truck company, a hotel chain and so on.  But ok.
2. Then... beware the trolls.  People who describe the Liberals as "far left" don't live in reality.

Most of your post makes sense.  Actual Marxism seems to be on the rise, btw.  And a lot of the nutty right seems to think that rightist policy opposes billionaires... specifically the only five who exist: Soros, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and that Twitter hermit guy.

 

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3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

a lot of the nutty right seems to think that rightist policy opposes billionaires... specifically the only five who exist: Soros, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and that Twitter hermit guy.

No one thinks that 'rightist policy opposes billionaires'. Rightist policy just means that the possibility of becoming a billionaire exists without winning an election (or without being friends with someone who won an election). 

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4 hours ago, GrittyLeftist said:

...BLM is a decentralized movement that opposes the extralegal murder of black people by police officers and all other forms of racially motivated violence against black people.  

In order to make Marxists happy you would need to get rid of capitalism.  In order to make BLM happy you would need to make it illegal to use violence against black people for being black (and actually enforce those laws).  Different grievances.  They are related only in that both advocate for different types of equality - Marxists want economic and social equality, BLM wants racial equality.

 

The United States already has a well defined experience with civil rights groups, activism, and black power organizations going back over 100 years.   BLM is just the current iteration of this American narrative that last rose to wide national prominence in the 1960's & '70's (Black Panther Party for Self Defense & Operation Rainbow/Push).    Instead of cop watching with loaded firearms, BLM uses modern technology and social media networks to advocate and seek support across demographic groups for "police reform", protests, civil unrest (riots), etc., something the Black Panther Party failed to do.

The underlying grievances are the same, and include various elements of socialism, Marxism, and anarchy to destroy existing class and economic power structures, which are fundamental to perceived and real systemic racism.

Either way, the American experience and narrative does not accurately inform history and conditions in Canada, yet the U.S. dynamic is widely adopted in lieu of the domestic realities.   CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and other U.S. broadcast/news/social media all program and compete for audience share in American culture with far less if any concern about how much Canadians readily consume of their own volition, which they surely do.

Accordingly, it is easy to understand why Global Affairs Canada would adopt the American narrative for "critical race theory"....as there are far less political consequences for doing so compared to a deep dive into actual Canadian history and current experience, and the Canadian public has already been conditioned to engage such issues using the American framework and distance, to the detriment of digging in more deeply back home.

 

 

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14 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Lol. I guess you could say 'learned', much in the same way that you could learn 3 + 3 = 2.

I haven't figured out how to get all of those individual quote boxes like you did so I'll respond in italics.  We all have to grapple with the fact that some things we believe to be true, are false.  One reason I've come here is because talking to people who already agree with me isn't going to show me where I'm wrong, it's going to reinforce where I'm wrong.  If you are willing to make a good faith effort to talk, I'll make a good faith effort to listen and respond.

Sure, but we all know how well those theories play out in real life, for reasons that we don't need to get into here.

FWIW Marx lived after Capitalism but before there were any regulations on Capitalism.  He lived through a Charles Dickens novel and saw Capitalists becoming insanely wealthy by doing things that can only be described as evil.  I would invite you to consider that Capitalism was imposed using violence, both legal through the police and/or army (depending on the country) and extralegal using agencies such as the Pinkertons.  Our ancestors did not want Capitalism, they fought against it, but they lost, and the media and government both took the side of the oligarchy, and now today, there is us.  If you are not familiar with them, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Depression by Pierre Berton are great places to start.  I totally get that you have a busy life and don't blame you for not wanting to spend 10 hours reading because somebody on the internet said something so here's a synopsis:  The Grapes of Wrath - Wikipedia 

Marx did not really describe what Communism would look like.  He was like a doctor who was the first to diagnose a disease, but did not come up with a cure.

BLM is not at all what you just described there.

For starters, their platform included ridiculous things like getting rid of the nuclear family, which has absolutely nothing to do with policing.

I haven't been able to find their platform, if you can I would appreciate it.  As near as I can find, they are not a single, united group.  From what I can gather BLM has been criticized in good faith for many things, from being disrespectful, disruptive and ineffective, to attempting to suppress academic free speech, to being a form of identity politics, to being anti-police, to failing to address issues relevant to black women, to being disconnected from the communities they claim to represent.

Secondly, and most importantly, BLM is not really in the business of "opposing extralegal murders", they are in the business of fear mongering the police and creating racial division within the country on behalf of their marxist leader and domestic terrorist supporters/communists like Susan Rosenberg. 

When you say "marxist" "terrorist" and "communist", what do you mean?  Who do you think BLMs leader is?  Susan Rosenberg - Wikipedia  I didn't see any explicit connection to BLM there, maybe I'm not looking in the right place? 

They're into editing videos to make the police look bad, and they figure that once they get people riled up and convince them to do stupid things (rioting, looting, arson and racial assaults), they'll ignore evidence which eventually surfaces, making them look completely stupid. That's one of the main reasons why they oppose the use of bodycams. Bodycams destroy BLM's false narratives, just like the one that came out about G Floyd's arrest which took all the wind out of the rioters' sails. 

If you have evidence to support your claim that the videos we see on the news of white male Police officers murdering unarmed people are edited, I would be very interested in seeing it.  If bodycams will prove them wrong, that's fantastic, because we can demand that our politicians give police officers body cams and then we won't have to worry about fake videos.  The vast majority of people who come out for BLM protests leave well before the riots start.  I've noticed that some news programs carry lots of footage of cops doing bad things, and other news programs carry lots of footage of rioters doing bad things.  Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?

History has shown us that using genocide is the most effective way of doing that. 

I'm genuinely curious - can you give me one instance of genocide being used to overthrow capitalism to install communism?

Interesting that BLM are by definition a bunch of fear mongering 'marxists'.

By definition?  What definition?  Marxist is a real word that has a definition, you can google it if you want to.

This is straight up propaganda, and no one with your command of the language believes a word that you just said.

Sadly, being able to make words is not the same as having a thorough grasp of history, political science, current events and philosophy.  I am mostly self taught in all areas.

What's lacking in everything that BLM has made a big fuss about over the last 6 years is evidence of racism. For example: if the murder of G. Floyd was racism, then so was the murder of Tony Timpa, but Tony Timpa was white.

I hadn't heard of Tony Timpa, just googled him.  I would say he was murdered by Police, who were clearly discriminatory towards the mentally ill and/or drug users.  I would say that if we know that Police can murder white people and get away with it, and BLM knows that Police can murder black people and get away with it, maybe we should be trying to cooperate with BLM on the issue of bringing Police officers to justice when they commit murder, no matter what the race of the victim is.

However, it's tough to know how to respond when someone asks for evidence of racism in America - a person who doesn't see racism in America probably doesn't see racism anywhere.

Only racists and morons believe that Floyd's murder was any different from Timpa's murder. Those two are brothers, you have nothing in common with either of them or you'd be writing this posthumously, which is exceedingly rare.

We should seek equality in freedom, not oppression.  Compare "Police get away with murdering white people, therefore, they should be able to get away with murdering black people," with "Police should not be allowed to commit murder."

The leaders define the movement. Supporting BLM's cause is supporting the cause of communism, their followers just don't understand it. They're 'useful idiots', as it were.

What leaders?  Who are they?  Once again, "Communism" is a word that has a meaning.  It refers to a system where the means of production are controlled by the working class.  If you have evidence to support your claim that BLM has leaders, and their leaders are Communists, I am interested in hearing it.

The liberals are 'liberal' in name only. They carry the pom-poms, but the reality of the matter is that they are a bit more sinister. IE, when the PM takes control of the judiciary and the media, that's not 'liberal'.  

Why do you think the PM controls the judiciary?  Is it because of Trudeau Sr. and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?  Why do you think the PM is in control of the media?  Is it because of the CBC?

Trudeau won't go that far because he comes from money himself: his people eat caviar, not KD. He just wants to be the Maduro type, in a country where almost all of the money flows through sticky government fingers and croneyism is law.

Right.  It's ok to criticize people but we should try to keep our criticisms accurate or they become meaningless jingoism.  A spoiled rich kid who inherited millions is probably not going to advocate for a system that would take his wealth and privilege away.

TBH your use of the words 'left' and 'right' is just smoke and mirrors.

In reality there's an x-axis with democracy at one end and authoritarianism at the other, but the word liberal and conservative don't fit where naive dreamers think they do along that axis. The whole concept of 'giving almost everything that you earn to the government and then you have a true democracy' is outrageous because governments that have that level of power end up being anything but democratic. Our 'rah-rah' government in Canada is selling virtue-signalling, but Trudeau is a total crook just like Maduro, Stalin, Mao and every other commie that ever blabbed about this or that nirvana while lusting for complete power. 

This is a common misconception.  Democracy is not located anywhere on the political axis.  You can have democratic Fascists, like the Nazis, and you can, in theory, have a Communist democracy (I am unaware of a real world example) or an Anarchist democracy.  Democracy is a means of deciding who gets power.  Right-left is more about what they try to do with that power.  Also, Trudeau is a rich kid who likes living the high life on inherited wealth, it is not reasonable to call him a "Commie".  I could criticize the guy for an hour without repeating myself but I would not use that word.

Here is my best description of the international political left/right axis, from left to right:  Anarchism, Communism, Socialism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, Conservativism, Neoliberalism, Fascism.  I feel like there should be one or two more to the right of Liberalism but was unable to find them, would welcome more information.  This is not the same as, say, Canada's political spectrum, which goes Socialism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, Conservativism, Neoliberalism.  Contrast with America's spectrum, which goes Social Democracy, Liberalism, Conservativism, Neoliberalism, Fascism.  To the best of my understanding, anyway.

CNN is basically what you just described (I'd use words like twisted, repugnant and sick), for reasons that have already been reiterated ad nauseam on this forum. 

Haha I loathe CNN but, from my perspective, I see them as a privately owned propaganda machine with a strong right wing bias.

1) The fact that it's true makes it a great conversation starter

2) A perfect example of pre-empting acceptable political debate is CNN's position that "everyone who voted for Trump is a racist and a domestic terrorist". You must understand that there's no way to have an acceptable political debate with the Devil, am I right?

Fair point that Fox is not the only news organization that tries to narrow the bounds of acceptable political debate.

3) It's kind of ironic that you talked about 'acceptable political debate' while at the same time touting BLM as a unifier and a protector of human rights. I'll grant that you were polite enough about it, and you used the Queen's English, but that level of deceit has no place in an 'acceptable debate' either. It's like trying to have an "acceptable political debate" about the grace and humanity of Nazis. It's just a non-starter

I must have misspoken - I was not trying to evaluate BLM morally, only to describe them accurately.  I did not come here to deceive anyone, I came here to share and learn.

Thanks for engaging.  If you could let me know how you get a bunch of discrete quote boxes instead of one big one I'd appreciate it.

 

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16 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Ok, but right of 40 years ago when they nationalized an oil company, owned airlines, a truck company, a hotel chain and so on.  But ok.

Solid point.  Neoliberalism became the dominant ideology in Canada starting in the early 80s, so the center of the political spectrum shifted to the right to reflect this.  Lots of things that seemed reasonable to adults between, say, 1950-1970 seemed outrageous or radical to adults between, say, 2000-2020.
2. Then... beware the trolls.  People who describe the Liberals as "far left" don't live in reality.

Some people genuinely believe they are.  I believe we are at a crisis point in democracy - too many voters lack the political literacy necessary to be able to make sense of these issues.  Even if I mistakenly waste a bunch of time engaging with a troll, other people will come along and (hopefully) read the discussions, and maybe gain from them.  It's the online version of casting bread upon the water.


Most of your post makes sense.  Actual Marxism seems to be on the rise, btw.  And a lot of the nutty right seems to think that rightist policy opposes billionaires... specifically the only five who exist: Soros, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and that Twitter hermit guy.

Thanks!  I do think Socialism/Marxism/whatever (honestly it is tough to get agreed-upon distinctions between these words nowadays among educated citizens) is on the rise.  I think it is an unintended side effect of far right politicians using words like "commie" and "marxist" to describe anything they don't like.  The older generations associate those words with the Soviet union.  The younger generation does not, so when they hear someone like, say, Bernie Sanders raise an idea that sounds good to them, and then they hear some Republican say "we can't do that because it's socialism!" some of those younger folks will think, "I guess I must be a socialist then because that sounds like a good idea to me."

A lot of the right wing discourse is dominated by a few gigantic, privately owned propaganda machines, such as Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.  I totally understand that lots of reasonable adults don't see those all as right wing.  They are privately owned multibillion dollar propaganda empires - calling them "leftist" exposes our lack of political literacy.  JMO
 

 

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13 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

The United States already has a well defined experience with civil rights groups, activism, and black power organizations going back over 100 years.   BLM is just the current iteration of this American narrative that last rose to wide national prominence in the 1960's & '70's (Black Panther Party for Self Defense & Operation Rainbow/Push).    Instead of cop watching with loaded firearms, BLM uses modern technology and social media networks to advocate and seek support across demographic groups for "police reform", protests, civil unrest (riots), etc., something the Black Panther Party failed to do.

Very interesting take, I can totally get behind this.  My only quibble would be to point out that at least some of the people in BLM are actively trying to avoid riots because they are aware that they hurt the movement.

The underlying grievances are the same, and include various elements of socialism, Marxism, and anarchy to destroy existing class and economic power structures, which are fundamental to perceived and real systemic racism.

I have definitely heard people make reasonable arguments that Capitalism is part of the cause of racial inequality.  FWIW I think some form of economic inequality is desirable because we don't all want the same things out of life, therefore, we do not all have equal NEED for money because some things cost more than others.  

Either way, the American experience and narrative does not accurately inform history and conditions in Canada, yet the U.S. dynamic is widely adopted in lieu of the domestic realities.   CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and other U.S. broadcast/news/social media all program and compete for audience share in American culture with far less if any concern about how much Canadians readily consume of their own volition, which they surely do.

Also a fair take - those Canadians who rail against the CBC often seem unaware of the role it attempts to serve as a cultural and ideological bailey.  I would add that I think many Canadians are aware that America's treatment of black folks is morally comparable to Canada's treatment of indigenous folks.  

Accordingly, it is easy to understand why Global Affairs Canada would adopt the American narrative for "critical race theory"....as there are far less political consequences for doing so compared to a deep dive into actual Canadian history and current experience, and the Canadian public has already been conditioned to engage such issues using the American framework and distance, to the detriment of digging in more deeply back home.

I see where you're coming from and don't really disagree with this, but I would add a bit of context if I could:

Canada was founded by people who didn't have a word for "racism" because they sincerely believed that white Christian people were obviously intellectually, morally and spiritually superior to all others, and they didn't think they were doing anything wrong.  The people who created Canadian institutions, such as the RCMP, sincerely desired the extermination of indigenous identity.  They believed it was for their own good, because if their souls were not saved they would go to hell (or purgatory depending on your theological bent).  They believed they were carrying out God's will, they were proud of their actions, and we know this because they wrote down their ideas and actions.

My best current understanding is that the problem of racism among institutions such as the RCMP is that the problem is not a few bad apples, the problem is bad barrels.  We can keep putting more apples in those barrels, and they will keep doing more or less the same things.  The reason the barrels are "bad" is because the barrel makers intended the barrels to accomplish things that they thought were good, but we claim we do not think are good.  Please let me know if I explained that clearly, the only people I've shared this idea with are people who already believed it, and there's a lot to be said for getting outside of one's echo chamber sometimes.

 

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16 minutes ago, GrittyLeftist said:

Very interesting take, I can totally get behind this.  My only quibble would be to point out that at least some of the people in BLM are actively trying to avoid riots because they are aware that they hurt the movement.

 

Some people may very well believe in non-violent protest, if only to garner more support from a wider American demographic (e.g. "white people"), but there are others who firmly believe in "burn, baby, burn" to destroy existing structures (physical and systemic) and to solicit far more media attention for their cause(s).

 

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I have definitely heard people make reasonable arguments that Capitalism is part of the cause of racial inequality.  FWIW I think some form of economic inequality is desirable because we don't all want the same things out of life, therefore, we do not all have equal NEED for money because some things cost more than others.  

 

Economic power is the foundation for real and perceived racial dynamics in the United States and many other nations.   Attacks on such economic systems have often taken the form of socialism, Marxism, communism, and several other isms.  This also attracts wider support from non-"racialized" groups that also experience economic disparities for various reasons.  

 

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Also a fair take - those Canadians who rail against the CBC often seem unaware of the role it attempts to serve as a cultural and ideological bailey.  I would add that I think many Canadians are aware that America's treatment of black folks is morally comparable to Canada's treatment of indigenous folks.  

 

Okay, but there are social and historical differences, and the point of this thread is that Global Affairs Canada chose to adopt the American narrative instead of Canada's.   Americans do not typically consume as much Canadian news media or derive positions in such an obvious manner.   One curious example for me was Canadian media's description of Viola Desmond for a new ten dollar note in terms of the American Rosa Parks' experience several years after Desmond's.   Canadians have been conditioned to define some things using foreign (American) frameworks....this is very safe socially and politically.

 

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Please let me know if I explained that clearly, the only people I've shared this idea with are people who already believed it, and there's a lot to be said for getting outside of one's echo chamber sometimes.

 

I would concur in the general sense that governments at every level sanction and fund police/military organizations to maintain peace, order, and prevailing social/economic systems.   Such organizations attract people (apples) from the larger society who may or may not already have formed biases, and are programmed to preserve the existing biases/actions of the organization (barrel).

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38 minutes ago, GrittyLeftist said:

totally get that you have a busy life and don't blame you for not wanting to spend 10 hours reading because somebody on the internet said something so here's a synopsis:  The Grapes of Wrath - Wikipedia 

Thank you kindly, I will look at that.

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Marx did not really describe what Communism would look like.  He was like a doctor who was the first to diagnose a disease, but did not come up with a cure.

No argument there.

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I haven't been able to find their platform, if you can I would appreciate it.  As near as I can find, they are not a single, united group.  From what I can gather BLM has been criticized in good faith for many things, from being disrespectful, disruptive and ineffective, to attempting to suppress academic free speech, to being a form of identity politics, to being anti-police, to failing to address issues relevant to black women, to being disconnected from the communities they claim to represent.

Their platform is on the web, so it changes with the tide.

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When you say "marxist" "terrorist" and "communist", what do you mean?  Who do you think BLMs leader is?  Susan Rosenberg - Wikipedia  I didn't see any explicit connection to BLM there, maybe I'm not looking in the right place? 

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/

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If you have evidence to support your claim that the videos we see on the news of white male Police officers murdering unarmed people are edited, I would be very interested in seeing it.  If bodycams will prove them wrong, that's fantastic, because we can demand that our politicians give police officers body cams and then we won't have to worry about fake videos.  The vast majority of people who come out for BLM protests leave well before the riots start.  I've noticed that some news programs carry lots of footage of cops doing bad things, and other news programs carry lots of footage of rioters doing bad things.  Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?

Every video that's pimped by BLM always starts after there's a problem. "Oh look at what the cops are doing to this winner!" When the whole story finally comes out it's nothing like they said. 

They use stories like Brionna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Michael Brown, George Floyd etc which are all textbook examples of what not to do when the cops come. They also lie and say that race was a determining factor in those cases. Fact is that the police kill almost 2 times as many white people, they kill almost 2x as many unarmed white people. 

Sure, blacks are overrepresented in those stats, but white people do not teach their kids to hate/fear/fight police. The BLM narrative grooms the next generation of black 'victims'.

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I'm genuinely curious - can you give me one instance of genocide being used to overthrow capitalism to install communism?

China, Cuba. That's two.

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By definition?  What definition?  Marxist is a real word that has a definition, you can google it if you want to.

The leaders are marixsts, so the followers are....?

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Sadly, being able to make words is not the same as having a thorough grasp of history, political science, current events and philosophy.  I am mostly self taught in all areas.

That's not a bad way to go, just beware the huge lies coming from CNN and CTV.

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I hadn't heard of Tony Timpa, just googled him. 

Don't you find that odd? The whole world knows about G Floyd, and they both died the exact same way. 

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I would say he was murdered by Police, who were clearly discriminatory towards the mentally ill and/or drug users.  I would say that if we know that Police can murder white people and get away with it, and BLM knows that Police can murder black people and get away with it, maybe we should be trying to cooperate with BLM on the issue of bringing Police officers to justice when they commit murder, no matter what the race of the victim is.

BLM isn't 'working on the issue of bringing police to justice' at all, they're fear-mongering racists.

It's verboten to say 'all lives matter', 'blue lives matter' or to talk about white victims of police brutality. 

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However, it's tough to know how to respond when someone asks for evidence of racism in America - a person who doesn't see racism in America probably doesn't see racism anywhere.

I'm asking you for evidence of racism "in the killings of those black people by police". 

There is none. 

There are lies about what happened, why it happened, etc, all from the people who say that race was the determining factor. 

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We should seek equality in freedom, not oppression.  Compare "Police get away with murdering white people, therefore, they should be able to get away with murdering black people," with "Police should not be allowed to commit murder."

Your interpretation is insane. 

What I said means: "What happened to those black people is in no way proof of racism, because police have done the exact same things to white people". I didn't say that killing white people gave them a license to kill blacks. 

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What leaders?  Who are they?  Once again, "Communism" is a word that has a meaning.  It refers to a system where the means of production are controlled by the working class.  If you have evidence to support your claim that BLM has leaders, and their leaders are Communists, I am interested in hearing it.

If you don't already know this then you don't know as much about BLM as you think. 

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Why do you think the PM controls the judiciary?  Is it because of Trudeau Sr. and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?  Why do you think the PM is in control of the media?  Is it because of the CBC?

Because Trudeau forced the AG to use the DPA for SNC, a company that's got a court-documented history of bribing Canadian politicians, then he blocked the investigation, and the media doesn't mention SNC's history of bribes or the blocked investigation. 

Can you name someone that SNC bribed? I bet that you know who Dr Ford is, and lots of other Americans who are insignificant to us in Canada. 

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Haha I loathe CNN but, from my perspective, I see them as a privately owned propaganda machine with a strong right wing bias.

Their bias is in favour of the Dems, so it's 'evil'. 

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I must have misspoken - I was not trying to evaluate BLM morally, only to describe them accurately.  I did not come here to deceive anyone, I came here to share and learn.

My bad, sorry if I was a bit testy. I consider BLM to be a huge problem, not a solution - at all. 

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Thanks for engaging.  If you could let me know how you get a bunch of discrete quote boxes instead of one big one I'd appreciate it.

I cut (cmmd x on Mac, or ctrl x on PC) everything below the part that I'm responding to, and then click on the quotation mark on the format bar, and paste the block of text into the box that appears.  

Cheers GL!

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3 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Cite? Do you have a date when this happened? 

 

This is getting off topic....but if you want:

Redlining and racial covenants were widespread in the U.S. (don't know about Canada) throughout much of the 20th century, and my main reason for choosing that among several other examples is the long term economic and social impact on American cities.   Housing projects, interstate highway locations, zoning, schools, etc. were all part of systemic planning.

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu/what-are-covenants/

Several U.S. jurisdictions still have racial covenants that have not been removed from the books.

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58 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

This is getting off topic....but if you want:

Redlining and racial covenants were widespread in the U.S. (don't know about Canada) throughout much of the 20th century, and my main reason for choosing that among several other examples is the long term economic and social impact on American cities.   Housing projects, interstate highway locations, zoning, schools, etc. were all part of systemic planning.

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu/what-are-covenants/

Several U.S. jurisdictions still have racial covenants that have not been removed from the books.

Even your link says "A forgotten history". The thread is about addressing current issues. 

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19 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Even your link says "A forgotten history". The thread is about addressing current issues. 

 

The history is not forgotton because of the legacy impact on American cities and society.   Other elements of systemic racism endure to the point of Global Affairs Canada jumping on board for its own political purposes in Canada.

Going down the U.S. rabbit hole for issues in Canada just continues the trend.   Odd....

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3 hours ago, GrittyLeftist said:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Depression by Pierre Berton are great places to start.  I totally get that you have a busy life and don't blame you for not wanting to spend 10 hours reading because somebody on the internet said something so here's a synopsis:  The Grapes of Wrath - Wikipedia 

People who lived the experience that Steinbeck wrote about had this to say:

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 the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'".

Can you imagine what CNN's favourite author would write about Trump, Republicans, Brett Kavanaugh or the Georgia election laws right now?

I wouldn't take that book as an historical account of anything. The fact that it got some traction among those with Marxist leanings is duly noted.

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2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Some people may very well believe in non-violent protest, if only to garner more support from a wider American demographic (e.g. "white people"), but there are others who firmly believe in "burn, baby, burn" to destroy existing structures (physical and systemic) and to solicit far more media attention for their cause(s).

I'm reminded of the guy who was photographed at the 2011 riot in Vancouver wearing a shirt that said, "I'm just here for the riot."  For sure there are going to be people showing up hoping to instigate bad behaviour.  

Economic power is the foundation for real and perceived racial dynamics in the United States and many other nations.   Attacks on such economic systems have often taken the form of socialism, Marxism, communism, and several other isms.  This also attracts wider support from non-"racialized" groups that also experience economic disparities for various reasons.  

You're definitely not wrong.  I would also add political power matters, but I get that many would consider that to be part and parcel to "economic power".  One of the problems with attacking Capitalism is that a reasonable adult might say, "ok, but what alternative are you proposing?"  IMO Marx did a fantastic job describing the problems with Capitalism but did not have an adequate solution.  Before Capitalism we had Feudalism, and I do not want to go back to that.  It's worth pointing out that Socialism can, and does, exist alongside Capitalism.  Canada is Capitalistic, but also has socialized health care, for example.  Even in America, the fire department is socialized, and I don't think anyone is trying to change that. 

Okay, but there are social and historical differences, and the point of this thread is that Global Affairs Canada chose to adopt the American narrative instead of Canada's.   Americans do not typically consume as much Canadian news media or derive positions in such an obvious manner.   One curious example for me was Canadian media's description of Viola Desmond for a new ten dollar note in terms of the American Rosa Parks' experience several years after Desmond's.   Canadians have been conditioned to define some things using foreign (American) frameworks....this is very safe socially and politically.

Yeah, America casts a vast cultural shadow and we are right next door.  It is a problem.  Most Canadians are unaware of things like, for instance, the difference between 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of expression.' I think that one reason our government has chosen to "import" America's racial narrative is because it keeps the conversation AWAY from "who owns the land."  According to Canadian law, most of BC, Quebec, and the Territories are not part of Canada, they are the sovereign territory of whatever indigenous group was there first.  All nations break their own laws sometimes, but Canada has literally never followed its own laws for a single minute of its existence.  The "numbered treaties" are currently being challenged in court as allegedly being bad-faith and/or coercive, and if the court agrees, those will not legally be part of Canada either, according to Canadian law.  In America they are having a moral argument about racism, and I think Liberals and Conservatives alike find that argument preferable to the legal argument about unceded territory.

I would concur in the general sense that governments at every level sanction and fund police/military organizations to maintain peace, order, and prevailing social/economic systems.   Such organizations attract people (apples) from the larger society who may or may not already have formed biases, and are programmed to preserve the existing biases/actions of the organization (barrel).

Right, I'm not saying that the people who set up the RCMP were wicked evil villains.  They were rational people who accepted several truths that modern society does not, and as a result of those "truths" they took a bunch of actions that seemed reasonable and appropriate.  Today almost no one will stand up in public and say "Colonialism was a good thing," yet the institutions that were created to carry out Colonialism still exist.  The most moral solution I can imagine would be (again using the RCMP as an example) tell the country that in 20 years the RCMP will be dissolved and replaced with whatever the citizenry of Canada can agree on.  I agree this would be massively problematic, difficult and is very unrealistic.  The things that are morally satisfactory are politically impossible, and the things that are politically possible are morally unsatisfactory.  I believe that if we can educate normal Canadians to the point that they can have reasonable, civil conversations about this, those Canadians will surprise us with how clever and innovative they are.  At least I really hope so cause I don't know what else to do :( maybe I'll find a magic wand in my next box of cereal.

 

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55 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

People who lived the experience that Steinbeck wrote about had this to say:

Can you imagine what CNN's favourite author would write about Trump, Republicans, Brett Kavanaugh or the Georgia election laws right now?

I wouldn't take that book as an historical account of anything. The fact that it got some traction among those with Marxist leanings is duly noted.

Thanks for reading the link :) keep in mind that was one group out of many.  Much like today, there were many competing voices with many competing opinions and many different agendas.  Much like today, it takes a lot of background education to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

I avoid all 24 hour "news" stations as much as possible, I consider them to be privately owned propaganda empires.  I don't know who CNN's favourite author is, but I can think of many reasonable adults who would say some pretty uncomplimentary things about Trump, Republicans, Brett Kavanaugh and the Georgia election laws.

The more "historical" piece offered was Pierre Berton's The Great Depression (granted he considered himself a journalist not a historian).  I mentioned the other because it was so culturally influential, and because I personally found reading it to be very affecting.  I had hoped to give you the chance to consider the context that Marxism evolved out of, and perhaps also the needless cruelties inherent in Capitalism, rather than to convince you of a particular fact.  Regardless, thanks for your time, it says something that you took the time to read it.

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