Off the cuff news reactions

[sabotabby]

 I don't post about the news much because it's overwhelming and there are smarter people saying smart things that I reblog elsewhere. Anyway.

Here in Canada we have a new Prime Minister, which is cool. It's not like I'm a big fan of Mark Carney but he's the person polls suggest can beat Poilievre, so this is good news. Poilievre is an outright fascist who has to go down and go down hard if we're going to survive the endless assaults on democracy and sovereignty coming from the US. Also, there is a delicious irony in the idea of the sensible banker who kept us from the worst of the 2008 economic crash defeating the guy who wants to replace our economy with bitcoin. Ultimately Canada is a fake colonialist country but the left is not really in a position to change that so we must make do. As I said in the other place, I would much rather protest Carney than have my right to protest banned under Poilievre.

Speaking of protesting, the Americans have recently disappeared a German tourist, a UK children's book publisher, and a pro-Palestinian graduate student with an American wife who's 8 months pregnant. The latter case is the most disturbing, as it's a direct result of Trump ordering the rounding up and deporting of Palestine solidarity activists. I know a lot of Jews who even now are more concerned about seeing a keffiyeh than the fact that literal seig-heiling Nazis are in charge of the US government, so I will draw everyone's attention to this article in the Forward that describes where the law that they're using to disappear people like Mahmoud Khalil came from. I think at the moment the majority of Jews in the diaspora are, by and large, misreading the point in the Niemöller poem that we're at, and if this isn't a wakeup call, I'm not sure what is.

Meanwhile Israel has just cut off Gaza's electricity. All reporting I can find is remarkably anodyne. "Trims" is one word I saw, which is a strange term for things like "now there's no potable water" or "life support in the shattered ruins of hospitals cut off again." 

And Ukraine. Fuck. I want to slap some of my fellow leftists stupidposting on Facebook but that's not the real enemy, is it? Little exposes the raw truth that international law is more of a polite suggestion more than the ability of one country to stroll into another and just take it, and the world's biggest economy handing it over on a silver platter to their fellow fascists.

I enjoy reading JD Vance's absolutely fake story about running into pro-Ukraine protestors who scared the 3-year-old human shield he was walking. Obviously people like that don't spend time with their offspring, or walking among the common man, so it is made up, but it just drives home the irony that exists at every level of reaction, this belief that "our" children must be insulated from learning uncomfortable truths while other people's children cower in makeshift shelters while the bombs go off.

It's hard to tell how much any of the horrors are penetrating people's consciousness. I mean, everyone I know is shit-scared all the time, but a significant number of "everyone I know" is queer and trans folks who've been sounding the alarm bells for years. I don't come off as shit-scared because my existence is one of perpetual anxiety and existential horror so I don't expect anything good to ever happen anyway. I was like that with covid until people stopped being afraid of covid and then—as now—I remain baffled as to what is wrong with people and why they can walk into a crowded room unmasked as if they're not risking permanent brain damage every single time.* I don't really have a barometer for how normal Americans react to things anymore, if there are even any normal Americans left.

What am I going to be doing, just blogging through the death throes of Western civilization? 

*And yet, I've done that a few times. Normalization is a powerful force, which is why our first priority needs to be to resist it.

Comments

[kore]

Yeah, it's a combination of public schools being destroyed for decades, in terms of both money and curriculum, and the news being either total clickbait or very siloed.

Then people go "I did the research!" on the modern Facebook-Twitter-Tumblr internet and it's really hard to bring them back to earth after that.

[lynnenne]

If you're in the Reserves, your employer must give you unpaid leave for military operations and training. (Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/ombudsman-national-defence-forces/education-information/caf-members/reservist-information/leave-reservists.html)

[lynnenne]

I would much rather protest Carney than have my right to protest banned under Poilievre.
100 percent.

Re: Americans, I work almost exclusively with USians who are all Democrats, well educated, and despise everything Trump is doing. But I haven't heard anything, from any of them, about any sort of political activism. :(

[smhwpf]

It is seriously terrifying. At least a court has forbidden ICE from deporting him without a court order, though whether the regime will pay any attention to the courts is another matter. And there does seem to be some significant resistance building at least, but God it is bloody terrifying.

As you know, I've been contemplating a trip to the US this year, but I'm seriously wondering if it's too dangerous. I'm a US citizen, but going through an airport or other border is somewhere they can do all sorts of shit to you even if you are a citizen, and for all we know they might be rounding up citizens by then. I am not high profile, but my pro-Palestinian activities are not concealable, I've been on Al Jazeera spouting my views. Plus the deportation from Israel. I mean for now it still seems unlikely that I'd have serious problems, but unlikely is not impossible.

But don't worry, Canada is still on the agenda! Unless Trump has invaded already.

[sovay]

What am I going to be doing, just blogging through the death throes of Western civilization?

There are worse things to be than a zamler. In the shorter view, I am glad to read you.

Speaking of, I read this review of the Ukrainian Museum's Tatlin: Kyiv and thought at once of you.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, it's getting like that here too. I didn't realize until I was in a news story that was reported irresponsibly and wildly inaccurately exactly how fucked it is.

[sabotabby]

And yet Canadian governments and media look to the US and are like. This is fine. Let's be more like that.

Re: Here in Canada we have a new Prime Minister, which is cool.

[sabotabby]

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about that. Though he may be among the least-bad Tories.

[sabotabby]

Huh. Go figure. It does seem inconvenient with cat care, though. And also the fact that I cannot honestly say I've never been part of an organization that advocates the overthrow of the Canadian government.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I don't trust her. She's in theory for Ukraine but that seized airplane and frozen oligarch assets were sitting there a long time when Ukraine really could have used them. Also, she's for Ukrainian Nazis.

The Niemöller poem is the "first they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist" one that everyone misquotes. (And is not necessarily accurate, as iirc first they came for the disabled kids, depending on what you consider "came for.")

[sabotabby]

God that's depressing.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I mean. Am I a threat? No. Am I more of a threat than a nice British children's book publisher? Yes.

[sabotabby]

Oooooh I wanna gooooo. New York is not even far. And yet.

[yhlee]

anecdata not data and admittedly as a usan i am socially in a wildly liberal bubble but almost every usan i know who is able to-has- been doing activism, exceptions are either medical limitations or in a couple places federal workers who have additional security limitations (edit: specific to their roles) on what they can do legally (i'm aware of federal workers chaos but it's complicated)

apologies for typing i am on mobile recovering from morning surgery

[sovay]

Oooooh I wanna gooooo. New York is not even far. And yet.

In other circumstances, I would offer to come down to New York and meet you and we could eat takeout from Veselka in Washington Squre Park or something and as the circumstances stand, I wish I could ship this exhibit to a museum near you.

[historicalmuse]

JD Vance is a fucking bastard, and Pollievre is much the same. I weep for Ukraine. (I have family there!!)

[sabotabby]

Oof, I'm sorry. It's really beyond belief.

[historicalmuse]

Дякую, друже.

[lynnenne]

That’s somewhat encouraging. My coworkers make good money so I suspect they’re insulated from all the pain Trump is causing. They probably won’t do activism until it affects them directly.

[rachelmanija]

I'm doing activism but I'm not sure I'd discuss it in the workplace, especially now.

[sabotabby]

I understand the need for privacy and secrecy but this is at war with my need for there to be mass movements. It's in part why I don't delete my social media or stop saying shit that can get me in trouble. I don't know what the right balance is.

[rachelmanija]

Well, yeah, but I just meant that just because people aren't publicly discussing it in their workplace doesn't mean they're not doing anything.

[sabotabby]

Absolutely.

[dewline]

*facepalming again...*

[dewline]

On a related note: looks like we don't have a civil defence corps right now...

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/03/05/Canada-Needs-New-Civil-Defence-Corps/