Category: Ideologies

How Neoliberalism Leads to Libertarianism to Mad Max

Economics / Ideologies / Politics3 Comments

Despite its misleading name, neoliberalism is not a liberal, progressive, woke, or left-wing ideology. It is a deeply far-right economic policy that aims to benefit the rich, the businesses, and the corporations at the expense of working people. And it has done so wherever it has been implemented, which is in most Western democracies today. The word liberal itself comes from the Latin liber, meaning free. The “liberal” in neoliberal means freedom from the things that restrict business and greed: from unions, from government regulations, from taxes, from public oversight, from restrictive legislation, from responsibility and from obligation, and it … click below for more ↓

WTF Canada? We Needed to do Better!

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap6 Comments

The Canadian federal election is over and the counting has finally finished. The Liberals under Mark Carney got 168 seats, four short of a majority. That’s disappointing because it weakens our government’s ability to cohesively manage the Canadian response to the assault from the fascist dictator Trump and his administrative cabal. A strong majority would have sent a better message about Canadian resistance to the MAGA cult. We should have showed MAGA we are strong, we are united, we won’t be bullied. Instead, CONservatives showed Trump that a large number of us share his MAGA views. It’s disappointing and somewhat … click below for more ↓

Can Mark Carney Save Canada From Trump? Let’s Hope So.

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap9 Comments

Mark Carney, our new Liberal leader, is campaigning to be Prime Minister of Canada. His main opponent, the rage-farming, grievance-mining Trump mimic Pierre PoiLIEvre, is campaigning to be governor of a 51st state. Canadians generally think PoiLIEvre is the candidate most likely to cave in and do whatever is necessary to appease Trump. That includes giving away our country just for a pat on the head from the US dictator. PoiLIEvre’s party caucus all know this, they know how their leader has aligned himself with Trump, and has mimicked Trump’s words, behaviour, and disinformation campaigns. Canadian media knows it too. … click below for more ↓

Trump Mimic PoiLIEvre Voted The Most Likely to Roll Over to Trump

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap6 Comments

The grievance-mining, rage-farming, puerile Trump mimic Pierre PoiLIEre was voted by Canadians the political leader most likely to cave in to Donald Trump rather than stand up for Canada against the fascist bully. That’s not surprising, given the piffleswipe PoiLIEvre has been using Trump’s playbook since Trump started his own campaign some years back: lie, deflect, gaslight, accuse, lie again, insult, never take responsibility, attack, lie some more, and blame everyone else. PoiLIEvre’s own corrosive mix of far-right bombast and bumper-sticker slogans gained him a solid following among the gullible grievance magnets in his Maple MAGA and convoy insurrectionist followers. … click below for more ↓

How Did Democracy Come To This Sorry State?

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / MAGA cultists / Musings / US Politics5 Comments

My wife and I are members of the Boomer generation. That means our parents, their families, and their friends, their neighbours and their communities were impacted by World War II. In our family, our parents  — British and Canadian — fought against the Nazis, fought against fascism, fought to keep the world safe for democracy. They endured six years of hell and deprivation so Susan and I could live a normal life. Many millions who fought for our freedoms died, often in horrible, lonely, and painful situations. In my family alone, I lost an uncle and stepbrother; victims of the … click below for more ↓

On the Bay’s Libertarian Piffle

Collingwood / Ideologies / Local media / Politics / Rightwing claptrap5 Comments

Less (sic) taxes is, for On the Bay‘s publisher David Loopstra, a “solution” for the problems of inflation. It’s certainly not the solution for correct grammar, where he should have written fewer taxes or the phrase “less in taxes.” You can only get away with saying less if the noun is singular (tax). Perhaps I expected too much of a former newspaper reporter and editor. But regardless of his foray into the bad vernacular, his opinion piece in the magazine is merely poorly-informed libertarian piffle. And, given that the magazine receives the “Special Measures for Journalism” federal grant money, he’s … click below for more ↓

Have Conservatives Finally Become Irredeemable?

Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap13 Comments

In the past, whenever I read news about any conservative leader, party or government — small-c conservative, including the Canadian federal and provincial Conservative parties, the American Repugnicans, and the British Tories — I always have to ask myself, “Can they get any more corrupt than this?” Then I ask, “Can they be any more dishonest?” And then “Can they be any more batshit crazy?” And every time I look further, they surprise me by scraping the metaphorical barrel deeper, diving to new depths of ignorance, unethical behaviour, corruption, cronyism, pathological lying, and incompetence. Nowadays when I venture into the … click below for more ↓

Barbie: A Review for Conservatives

Culture / Film & Reviews / Ideologies / Pop Culture2 Comments

Hey there, conservatives (especially you conservative males!), let’s talk about the Barbie movie. Yes, I know nothing makes you want to take your AR-15 to the local Toys ‘R Us for a well-deserved shoot-up than a film about a girl’s toy (please don’t do it!). I mean, how dare anyone make a movie without guns, car chases, explosions, bullet storms, babes in skimpy outfits, and a beefy male action hero like Jason Statham or Daniel Craig to deal mayhem and death to all and sundry? A girlie movie that stars women who aren’t there just as eye candy, sending a … click below for more ↓

The Social Contract

Ethics & morality / Ideologies / Philosophy / Political philosophy / Politics / Rightwing claptrapLeave a comment

How shall we be governed? Philosophers have debated that issue since Plato and the question is more important today than ever, given the rise of right-wing extremism everywhere, especially in liberal democracies where there is an ongoing, concerted effort by several current political parties and non-government organizations (NGOs) like the IDU to subvert or overthrow Western democracies and replace them with authoritarian dictatorships; American Repugnicans and Canadian CONservatives among them*. Let’s look at the history, first. It was Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) who first tried to systematically explore the intersection of governance, morality, and ethics. However, because the Catholic church gave … click below for more ↓

Right v. Left in Modern Politics

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Musings / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics3 Comments

There’s a lot of palaver on social media about right v. left (or left v. right if you are so inclined), with webs of comments about the differences between these opposing political wings. And, at least among the comments I’ve read from Americans, there’s also a lot of misinformation and disinformation in play, especially about what constitutes the left (usually coupled with invectives and name-calling from the right). While many Canadians and Europeans (as socialist and culturally pluralist states) have a fair appreciation of what those political terms (left and right) mean, Americans —a nation of highly polarized, confrontational politics … click below for more ↓

Debunking Poilievre’s Tweets, Part 2

Canadian Politics / Censorship / Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap3 Comments

This is a continuation of my debunking of a small sample of Pierre Poilievre’s (aka Skippy’s) 2022 tweets. His tweets are presented in italics; my responses follow in roman text. See if you can spot in his words 1) His lack of knowledge about the subject; 2) Blatant lies; 3) Disinformation; 4) Vapid libertarian piffle; 5) Hubris. Please read Part 1 for an introduction and previous comments. Apr. 13: Let’s put an end to #JustinFlation so we can give Albertans, and all Canadians, back control of their lives. Sigh. He keeps whipping that dreary MAGA-hat slogan, without saying what control … click below for more ↓

Debunking Poilievre’s Tweets Part 1

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Political philosophy / Politics / Provincial Politics / Rightwing claptrap2 Comments

Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — tweets a lot. A lot. Not quite in the Donald-Trump-tweeting-on-the-toilet range, but close. And he often repeat-tweets his angry, bumper-sticker slogans that are little more than libertarian micro rages. They are big on emotion but empty on substance. no details, facts, or anything even vaguely resembling a coherent platform that would benefit Canadians. His Twitter profile lists him as “Member of Parliament for Carleton and candidate for Prime Minister of Canada” which is pretty arrogant, given that he’s not even been elected as party leader yet. And even if he is, he won’t get … click below for more ↓

Poilievre’s Wacky, Quacky Economics

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Politics / Rightwing claptrap7 Comments

Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — loves cryptocurrency and wants to make Canada the world’s crypto capital. Crypto is a computing process, not a product, it’s well outside the capabilities of individual computer systems to “mine” so it is controlled by large crypto-mining farms owned by corporate interests, using vast amounts of energy to produce numbers (one estimate suggests crypto miners spend more than $1 billion monthly on energy costs). In other words, crypto is a corporate service that produces no products or benefits, but has been determined by its investors to have value. Back in February, Skippy was interviewed … click below for more ↓

Debunking Poilievre’s Freedom Myth

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Political fads / Political philosophy / Politics / Rightwing claptrapOne Comment

If you listen to Pierre Poilievre, the leading — and rightmost — candidate for the Conservative Party’s leadership, Canada is a dictatorship suffering under the thumb of the tyrant, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. To escape from the authoritarian rule of the Liberals, Poilievre (aka Skippy) promises to make us “the freest place in the world.” In a recent interview published in Macleans, Poilievre used the words freedom or freedoms 24 times. In one answer to the interviewer, Skippy said, I believe in freedom of speech on the internet, so governments shouldn’t control what we see and say online. Which exposes his … click below for more ↓

This Says It All

Canadian Politics / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Ideologies / Political fads17 Comments

The clearest, most concise statement about the alt-right protests and demonstrations comes from Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada. This protest was never about freedom: it was always about pushing a virulently rightwing agenda, endorsed by the treasonous Donald Trump, to hold the lawful government hostage. Source: Globe & Mail post on Facebook. Click the image to see the full column by Carney in today’s G&M (subscription required). See the comments below my previous post for links to other, related articles and analyses. And also on FB, Tony Veltri (of New … click below for more ↓

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