So, reading various Americans who think annexing Canada would be a good idea, it’s clear most of them know nothing about Canada. Let’s educate them. The basic principles here are “Canadians are not Americans and Canada is not just America with fewer people.”
Canada Has Universal Healthcare
If you’re American you don’t know what this really means. Let me start with myself: if I had been born in America, I’d be dead the past thirty-one years. I needed millions of dollars of healthcare in my 20s at a time when I would have had no insurance if American. Since then I’ve needed serious care twice, in both cases when I’d have no insurance as an American.
I am not alone. There are a lot of Canadians who know they’d be dead, or unable to get healthcare if they were American. So, irrespective of any resistance, American annexing Canada means a lot of people will die.
I imagine some of them will decide that if they’re going to die anyway, strapping on a vest and saying an explosive hello to unwelcome American guests would be a good way to go.
Income Numbers are Deceptive
If you’re American you probably make more money than the equivalent Canadian. Great. Now subtract all hospital and doctor costs from that. I’ve never seen a hospital bill. I walked out after 3 months and no one asked me for one red cent. Your drugs cost way more than ours do, so subtract half the cost of any drugs your taking from your income. Americans have to pay for a lot of things that people in other countries get from government or for lower cost because government allows less gouging.
Canada’s History Is Based On the Idea “We Don’t Want to Be American”
America had its revolution. The people who lost and were most bitter about it? They were called the “United Empire Loyalists” and they fled to what was then called “Upper Canada”. When our founding fathers drew up our constitution, they looked at the US Constitution and said “they made some big mistakes.” They created a very different constitution. As one example, though it’s almost never used, the Federal government has the ability to override ANY decision made by the States. (Our founders were around during your civil war. They took a lesson.)
We raced West so that America wouldn’t claim all of North America. We stretched as far as we could to establish our borders opposition to, and in a race with America.
Canada’s founding principle is “We Are Not Americans.”
Canadian Identity
Not American. That’s what we all agree on. Americans see Canadians as more polite and wimpier Americans, and think everyone wants to be American, because gosh, America is the best. Canada always compares itself to American and asks “are we doing better?” I think that’s often a bad thing, the American bar is on the ground, trying to be better than America is often choosing a very low standard. Still, that’s how it is.
Canadians don’t bluster, but we have more wilderness and rural area than America. Canadians have a lot of guns, and rural and wilderness Canadians are tough and used to roughing it. There are places in Canada where there’s no one, no one, around for fifty miles. You take care of your own problems, or you die. The idea that Canadians are wimps is based on America being a superpower and Canadians being polite. It has little basis in reality outside the major cities, and Canadians in cities aren’t any more effete than Americans in cities (and while fat, less fat than Americans.)
Canada is BIG
Canada has more land than any country but Russia. Most of that land is sparsely inhabited. But, and this is important, so pay attention at the back of the class, almost everything America would want from Canada is out in the boons: oil, minerals, timber, etc…
People say Afghanistan was made for guerilla warfare but those people never thought what it’d be like to fight an insurgency in Canada. Thousands and thousands of miles of roads, railways and pipelines. Widely spread mines and farms and oil wells. Absolutely impossible to defend against some guy with an IED.
Canadians Don’t Want to Be Americans
There won’t be a voluntary annexation. A poll found 82% of Canadians opposed to joining the US and 13% for. If there’s a violent one America will conquer the cities in a couple weeks, then spend thirty years fighting a guerilla war which makes Afghanistan look like the picnic it was because, again, it’s a big country, often very rough and everything worth having is out in the country.
Canadians often like Americans, but most of us don’t want to be Americans and those who do simply emigrate to the US. And, in truth, just as many Americans look down on Canadians, Canadians think Americans are barbarians. Understand that when Canadians were polled on who the greatest Canadian is, the number one choice was Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian Universal Healthcare.
We aren’t nearly as nice as we like to think we are, and we have plenty of flaws. But one thing the majority of us agree on, “Thank God We’re Not Americans.”
This is perfectly natural. For our entire history and even before Confederation the number one fact of Canadian political life has been the four hundred pound gorilla on the southern border. We’ve always been aware that many Americans wanted to take over Canada or take a big chunk of it. Fifty-four fourty was the slogan. The Canadian border is at the 49th parallel, but many Americans wanted it up at 54.4. Canada is the “not America” nation.
So, once again, for the slow folks:
Canada is not America. Canadians are not embarrassed Americans. Most Canadians don’t want to be Americans and like folks pretty much everywhere, figure that our country, whatever its flaws, is better than our neighbour’s country and that being us is better than being someone else.
NR
My theory is that Trump is just blustering about stuff like this so people will pay less attention to the more mundane awful things he’s going to do in office.
Either that or he’s suffering from dementia and doesn’t know what he’s saying.
But who knows.
mago
Tippacanoe and Tyler, too.
Forty four forty or fight.
Could be a 19th century political slogan.
Yeah, then before that was the French Indian war.
So many wars and factions, hatreds and distractions.
Take a little trip, take a little trip
from Halifax to Vancouver and fly over those québécois and those Calgary oil sumps and tarry slums
I knew some player’s spouses and heard some stories
So close to the Arctic Circle, so far from god. . .
Swamp Yankee
It’s interesting to see certain commentators — not here — who, while historically having been on the Left, find themselves with two competing impulses regarding Trump’s annexationist nonsense:
a) on the one hand, these commentators have expressed opposition to American empire, esp. when it is in the Middle East or Eurasia; b) on the other hand, in order to “altruistically punish” the Democrats for not being left enough (and they aren’t, they’re awful), everything Trump does or says must be construed in the light most favorable to him for these commentators.
Whether they are more strongly committed to anti-imperialism or to Trump apologiae is still to be seen, but thus far, it’s looking like the latter.
Swamp Yankee
It’s interesting to see certain commentators — not here — who, while historically having been on the Left, find themselves with two competing impulses regarding Trump’s annexationist nonsense:
a) on the one hand, these commentators have expressed opposition to American empire, esp. when it is in the Middle East or Eurasia; b) on the other hand, in order to “altruistically punish” the Democrats for not being left enough (and they aren’t, they’re awful), everything Trump does or says must be construed in the light most favorable to him for these commentators.
Whether they are more strongly committed to anti-imperialism or to Trump apologiae is still to be seen, but thus far, it’s looking like the latter.
Curt Kastens
Canada 201:
1.) Huge numbers of People who live in the United States ar e no longer real Americans.
They are Confederate Counterfit Americans. i can certianly understand why someone living in Canada wouild not want to be tied to the CSA. But it is pretty clear that if the CSA wants to formally absorb Canada it will do so and it will be easy. Those Canadians who refuse to be absorbed will either quickly die or they will immigrate to either Australia or South Africa or New Zealand.
2.) Canada might be big. Average Canadians might be a bit less wimpy than than the average white Trump supporter. But these true statements are not at all relevent. There are many more vastly more relevent factors.
3.) We have entered the age of capitalistic cannablism. The United States will cannablisze everything that it can to keep BAU running in the USA for as long as possible. Will this require the formal annexation of Canada? I do not know. The story that Trump is spreading could just be entertainment. But if it is not Canadians will not be a able to successfully resist. Although if they do resist from my pro Cuban perspective that is a huge win for Cuba, reguardless of the eventual out come.
4.) Canada might be big but other than the areas with in about 50 kilometers from the US border it is really not suited for argriculture.
5.) Canada has no navy.
6.) Canada will not be able to control its own airspace.
7.) Canada is filled with millions of recent immigrants who came to Canada to live a comfortable life not to fight a war for a socialist revolution.
8.) The United States does not need to use Trump supporters to fight the war on the ground it can simply subcontract that out to Mexican Drug Cartels. Or it can hire Mercinaries from the 3rd world.
9.) We live in an Orwellian age. there will be no where in the cities to hide to be able to carry out urban guerrillia warfare. There will be no medical care available for those that attemot such heroics, except maybe from vetrenarians.
10.) We live in an orwellian age. Canada might be big. But in an age of thermo imgaging everything will be seen.
11.) With no way to be resupplied from the outside those that attempt heroics in the wilderness will soon run out of the supplies neccesarry to attempt heroics.
12.) Those that attempt to live peacefully off the grid will die off more slowly due to desease, injury and starvation. The guns that those who retreat in to the countryside to resist or live peacefully will quickly run out of bullets.
13.) Some Canadians will actually be better off, for a short time anyways, if they collaborate with the invaders.
14. The only potential strategy for resistence to the invansion from the south is outlined in the book The Iron Heel written more than 100 years ago. The chances of success using this strategy is very low. But it is greater than 0, if there is the time neccessary to implement such a strategy. Unfortunately or fortunately for humanity due to the rapidly changing climate thta time does not exist.
15.) If the time to implement the strategy did it exist in the end Canada would not exist anyways. In it place there would be a Union of Socalist Republics of North America replacing the Confederate Empire of America.
16.) There are only 40 million Canadians, many of whom are recent immigrants. There are 320 plus people living in the CSA, many of whom are recent immigrants. In theory the resources of the continent should be shared by all those on the continent. In reality the resources will not be shared no matter who has formal control of Canada.
17.) If the CSA is busy absorbing Canada the CSA will be distracted from absorbing somewhere else. That is a at least a short term win for the somewhere else. Due to climate change and resource deplition there is certianly no such thing as a long term for humanity. There is probably not even a medium term depending on who one defines medium term.
18:) 17 is a prime number.
Curt Kastens
And if it happens I bet the chances are more likely than not that Canada will not be the 51st state. Ontario will be the 51st state with each of the other provences being another state with the exception of PIE.
Adam Eran
Ian neglected to mention that Canada has (per capita) about one seventh the prisoners the US has….and a lower crime rate than the US to boot. I’d suggest Canada’s healthcare might be at least partly responsible. Treat people better and they are less likely to resort to crime. There’s actually a Netflix series (Breaking Bad) where a chemistry teacher who can’t pay his medical bills resorts to cooking meth.
“Americans are a primitive people disguised by the latest inventions” – George Santayana
Carborundum
What on earth would lead one to believe that any military conflict would centre in Canada? As an example, I speak the language, I understand the culture, I have access to significant monetary, material and social resources in the United States. The border’s completely porous to anyone who’s walked the terrain at all – the balloon looks to be going up, I’ll have been well into the American heartland for months, if not years, helping build networks and prepare concepts of operation targeting nodes of influence, major MSRs and key infrastructure and I don’t think I’d be alone in that endeavour.
Irregular warfare in a heavily armed and bitterly sectarian country with ample terrain features to make big green chase its tail, with the added frisson of a set of powerful competing government apparatuses prone to over-reaction and alienating their heavily armed, well resourced and enthusiastically negative populace? It’s been a fair while since I humped a ruck with intent, but this is very much in the category of threatening me with a good time.
Strategically, the point of the Trumpist musings is to exploit the cross-border rhetorical associations with the soi-disant Canadian political “right” to put them on the back foot and make them less effective in forthcoming negotiations, while astutely capitalizing on regional differences. Witness the recent fervent statements of national fealty from Harper, Poilievre and Ford and contrast them with Smith’s more measured response. It only works if public discourse rises to the bait, but given that the most reliable resource on both sides of the border these days seems to be internet amplified know-nothings, I’d say that’s a pretty good strategy.
Joan
I had a Canadian online friend in undergrad and talking with her on the regular had me convinced that I wanted to immigrate to Canada as soon as I could. I got the chance to visit Vancouver for a week in grad school and loved it. Ultimately the high cost of rent prevented it. I was able to get jobs in the US from age 16 onward but I didn’t think I’d be able to get a visa-sponsoring job in Canada. Ultimately I traveled the world a bit more and am now trying to immigrate to somewhere else.
Revelo
One theory is Trump is using bluster about Greenland, Canada and Panama to distract from plans to deescalate in Ukraine, Taiwan and Iran and also cover up the continuing Gaza genocide.
My guess is that Panama will be forced to give reduced rates to certain USA registered ships, but the ships covered will not be numerous, however Trump can blow up to appear like a huge concession and thus huge victory.
Canada will likely ultimately spend more on defense, including weapons made in USA, and Greenland might initiate independence process. Squabbling about and with Canada and Denmark/Greenland can be magnified by the media to drown out everything else related to foreign affairs, and then dragged on indefinitely.
Feral Finster
The whole thing would be a logistical mess. Stuff like auto safety standards, debt denomination, etc., etc, etc.. And I haven’t even mentioned Quebec, yet.
But “Annex Canada!” is just Trump shooting off his fool mouth, like the loudmouth at the corner bar with big opinions.
Trump will drop the idea as soon as he is distracted by some other shiny object. He may revisit it at some point, commentators will get the vapors, but the entire project will require more follow through than Trump’s attention span is capable of.
edwin
Someone’s got to post it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7jlFZhprU4
someofparts
You know, along with everything else, there just have to be so many people in both countries who have personal connections with the other nation through friends and relatives. I went to high school with a Canadian, although she was an American when we were school chums. Her young husband fled to Canada to avoid being drafted to serve in Vietnam. Their children and grandchildren are native born citizens of course and I think they live in Toronto. Their first years in Canada as a young married couple were spent on PEI living in a ramshackle dome built by my friend’s husband while they were having babies and starting their family. The last contact I had with that friend, she confessed that those early years weathering the winters in PEI were very rugged indeed.
These days, I can’t say enough about how deep and widespread the love for Luigi Mangione is among Americans everywhere. People here who disagree about a lot of other things all cheer for Saint Luigi. If the powers that be in America ever do try to take over Canada, they won’t just be contending with the tough folks in the Canadian provinces, because there will be massive support for Canada from the American side. So besides whatever intractable resistance they get from Canadians, they will also have the mother of all rearguard problems keeping a lid on domestic resistance.
Mary Bennet
So far, I have seen two more or less believable theories about Trump’s expansionist blather–this cannot yet be called policy. One is that it is all bluster, intended to outrage his political opponents and distract from his “real” agenda, whatever that might be–which, whatever it is, will not be pleasant for those whom he and following are pleased to designate as “losers”. The other is that it is a necessary part of a far-seeing policy of continental defense. You can believe that if you want to. I might believe it if I had heard one word from Trump about cutting back on overseas bases. The Real Estate Guy in Chief is not about to give up actual territory. The continental defense notion reminds me of Obama “playing multidimensional chess”. I will say, about the Obama admin., that at that time Netanyahoo didn’t dare attempt the kind of games he is playing now.
Or maybe the wild and wooly notions about British malign influence throughout the world which the La Rouchite faction have been pushing, most recently through one Matthew Ehret, who is quite intelligent when not riding his Anglophone hobby horse, are true after all. Quien sabe?
I think I can confidently assert that most American citizens have no interest in becoming part of a revived British Commonwealth, however decrepit that organization is claimed to be. Nor would most of us care to have the Windsors for titular heads of state.
Curt, the CSA may have elected a president, but their standard bearer had almost no coattails. Republicans in the House have a razor thin majority and cannot govern. The Senate is not much better, especially with long serving Republican senators remembering that they will have to face voters long after Trump has departed the scene.
While I have no doubt that Trump would like to end his career with a ginormous real estate deal from which he and associates could benefit bigly, I am inclined to think the expansionist blather is opening markers being laid down for negotiations with China. Here is what we expect in return for us not defending Taiwan. You respect our sphere of influence and oh, by the way, suppressing piracy in the South Chine Sea is going to be your job now. (I think any deal with China needs to include stop gaming our immigration laws. If we want to deport Chinese, you need to take them back.)
Curt, admission of Canada to the Union would be province by province, with each becoming a state. Remind me how many provinces does Canada have? That number times two would be how many new senators NOT inclined to support Trump? He has already made those calculations, which why the 51st. state nonsense. House membership is limited by law to a certain number, and the Republicans will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. That alone might prevent passage of a unification bill.
As for an outright invasion, our navy could conceivably blockade Canadian ports, but a ground invasion across the border would be incredibly expensive, and most of our diminishing resources are already spoken for. Israel comes first, dontcha know.
Ian, the fundamental difference between Americans and Canadians, as I see it, is that you Canadians still think you are part of Europe, and we know we are not.
Purple Library Guy
So Curt Kastens’ post is moronic, and not really worth engaging in general.
But he mentions thermal imaging. I would like to note one thing about thermal imaging, for possible future reference in case of invasion by Americans: It can be defeated by an umbrella. The thing about an umbrella is, the umbrella part is cold, and IT’S NOT TOUCHING YOU because you’re only touching the handle, so it doesn’t warm up. I’ve seen a clip of someone glowing in infrared, putting up an umbrella, crouching down behind it and disappearing. I actually wrote an SF book in which the good guys used that trick and was tickled pink when a friend sent me the clip showing it actually works. My umbrellas were special ones with heat-reflective foil on the underside and camouflage on top and generally a bit oversized and extra-sturdy, but the clip I saw shows it works with just a normal umbrella.
I live in Vancouver. We have LOTS of umbrellas.
david lamy
Fervent nationalism strikes me as misguided. None of us choose where we are born.
I am a native of the USA, but as an elderly man who was a single child with a Canadian wife my family is her Canadian one.
Thirty years ago, when visiting with family I could see clearly how different Canada was from the United States. People were healthier, better educated, and clearly better informed about American politics than most of my fellow Americans. My wife’s friend and high school class valedictorian became a Nobel laureate in physics. That Canadian (Guelph, Ontario) public high school was easily the equal to the expensive elite college preparatory academy my parents enrolled me in. (Due to Canadian Medicare, Guelph is a college town on steroids compared to those located in the US.)
That sadly was then. Slowly and inevitably, the greed and onslaught of rapacious corporate capitalism is tearing down Canadian society. Medicare is being assaulted for one. Neoliberalism is going on a tear.
I hope that Trump’s outrageous pondering reinvigorates the Canadian sense of fair play and social responsibility. We in the States need that template to copy.
Curt Kastens
Many commentators and for that matter much of the world tries to evaluate what is going on under the assumption that the President of the CSA is in the drivers seat as far as policy decisions in the CSA go. Only the best take the position that the President is a puppet of the deep state.
Therefore the analysis of most of the world’s commentators is wrong from the start. Much to my rabid disappointment recent history makes it pretty darned clear that a large part of the leadership of the established political parties of Europe, Japan, Canada, Austalia, New Zealand are also puppets of the US deep state. These leaders no doubt have some autonomy but they will not cross lines that the US draws in the sand for them.
If that deep state wants to change the type of relationship that it has with Canada it will be easy for the deep state to change that relationship. It will not be expensive for the deep state to do it. 90% of Canadians live with in 50 miles of the US Border that stretches over thousands of milies. 12.3% of Americans drive 60 miles one way to work and back. Oh I foergot Canadians use kilometers like the rest of the world. Well 60 miles is almost 100ks.
Umbrellas alone will not be able to protect Canadians, oops I mean northerly Americans, oops I mean potential Minnesotans. Unless Canadians can organize an underground resistance movement a few Canadians carrying out uncorridinated attacks in the CSA is not going to change anything except get people killed without any chance of success. Unless one considers it as part of the greater stuggle between the west and the rest, especially China and Russia. Then uncoordinated attacks inside the CSA may have a small role to play in that greater struggle.
But I do not think that the potential Minnesotans will be able to develope a coordinated resistence. They do not even speak a seperate language.
Let us go back to the beginning of the story. Let us go back to the early 17th century to see the roots of this continuing Saga.
If you think that this link is not relevent then you are not paying attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c08fB1A4fao
marku52
Just watch out for the color revolution after the NED sets up shop. They won’t even have to translate the protest posters into English, like they do in Romania and Georgia.
Politicians are for sale in Canada just like everywhere else. Polls may not matter much
different clue
@Swamp Yankee,
I agree. The worse the Musk (trump) Administration becomes, the more cognitive dissonance the cognitive punishers over at Naked Capitalism will suffer and the more fetid MAGAsbara will start oozing up through the floorboards over there. The ” don’t blame me, I voted for Harris” community will not want to spam every thread, but they may want to be prepared to rub the Tankies-for-Trumps’ faces in it from time to time.
Also, Lambert Strether has announced he will be retiring soon. Unless he can train someone else up there to his level and ability of conducting Covid Watch, that feature will degrade in his absence. Also, there will be less links, posts, etc. about soils/permaculture/gardening/etc.
Starting within a few months after his retirement, Yves Smith will start lecturing and then banning more people. My sense, based on mere impressions and intuition, is that Lambert Strether was a restraining force on banning people over there and when he is gone and Yves Smith is unbound, the bannings will go up.
different clue
( ” cognitive punishers” up above? I meant “altruistic punishers”).
Curt Kastens
i just thought about this subject a bit more. If Most Northern Minnesota, previously known as Canada, is conquored by the CSA then Canada will lose its own dollar. If that happens the people who live in this area will no longer be able to run a budget deficit for an indefinate amount of time. A nation with its own currency can never go formally bankrupt because it can always add more money to the system. (Not that adding money to the system is always a wise thing to do). But without its own currency the new really large counties of Most Northerly Minnesota will have to more or less run at least close to a balanced budget. That would have a really huge negative economic impact on the area. That would lead to the residents of the area being forced in to an economic contraction. Well if the potential Minnesotans have less money they will be consuming fewer resources. That will mean that more resources will be available outside of Most Notherly Minnesota reducing the rage of inflation in those outside areas.
This negative economic impact might be offset by decreasing home prices to purchase or rent a home as all of the recent immingrants from China, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, and Ukraine move south of the former border which is where they really wanted to be in the first place. They ended up in Canada only because it was much easier to end up in Canada.
Then there is the old agreement that forbid the NFL from putting teams in the CFL protected area. That agreement will then be null and void. Once that happens a high paying alternative to playing pro hockey will develope just in time. After all with the speed that global waring has hit it will not get cold enough in Canada in a few years for ice to form even in January.
Mark Level
So Bernhardt at MoA earlier today claimed that Trump when inaugurated will avoid “big” wars & instead go for the low-hanging fruit, like Greenland, maybe Panama, etc. I dunno if I buy this– obviously he is very unstable, & many report that his actions are determined by who he spoke to last (that stroked his ego). One podcast I saw recently showed a NYT piece trying to goad him into something the “backyard” Hawks have long wanted, an attack on Mexico. They ginned up a bizarre, racist piece claiming to report from “inside” a Fentanyl Lab there, the guy was stirring stuff on a stove top with only a bandanna around his face for protection. Many immediately pointed out that this is impossible given the toxicity of fentanyl, air-borne it would knock out anyone doing such a thing within seconds . . . but it was a racist projection thing, like the LA cops who thought Rodney King was a “Super-N*****r” who, hopped up on amphetamines, kicking the asses of 70+ of them to take him in, was a danger to be beaten down.
Trump’s top skill is insult comedy, blustering & verbally beating down the targets of Right-wing resentment, plus he really psychologically needs attention very badly.
Truthfully if the Greenlanders, I was told by one source with a total population of 5,700 let the US in, they will be subsumed demographically and crushed. I’m sure they got a somewhat raw deal from Denmark, but I would hope that people living in such a severe, barren environment have enough Survival Skills and sense not to bet on Uncle Shmuely. They’d get the same treatment that the Caribs got from the Spaniards, either theft of their resources and slow starvation once subsumed, if not something worse. It does seem that Trump may let the failed Ukraine War die (partly out of admiration for Putin, accd. to Chris Hedges and others) and because it is a Genocide Joe failure with everything his ghoulish crew ever touched.
I mentioned a couple years ago on here a solid Sci-Fi graphic novel called We Stand On Guard, set about a century in the future in which the bloated US Empire, having sucked all of Lake Superior dry due to overdevelopment, creates a false flag for an attack on Canada to grab its water resources. Vaughan is a solid writer, not only writes for the Comics world, but apparently worked in film, including “Lost” before it became incoherent.
MAGA-world is already coming apart at the seams before DJT even enters office: Vivek is whipping up the poor white base by shitting on poor White culture in favor of East Indian racial superiority. I don’t think that will end well. And Elon is reportedly getting on his nerves badly bunking at Mar a Lardo and constantly pestering him.
IF Trump goes bigly into foreign wars it will go very badly, US Empire is badly overextended already, & the “heroic troops” are violent, drugged-up and insane. Look at what was happening at Fort Bragg accd. to many reports before the 2 FB Vets (allegedly) killed many in New Orleans and the other one built a shitty low-tech bomb that killed only him and did minor damage to the facade of the Las Vegas Trump Tower. Reportedly they were involved in lots of child abuse, violent sexual trafficking of kids, etc.
Truly the Empire doesn’t treat its footsoldiers well, talked to a woman on a flight a couple years back, her son was stationed in Pisa, Italy and she described mold on the walls, bad food and air, people getting sick, etc.
Meantime “America” is falling apart. All the people made hotel-denizens in N. Carolina after the Climate flooding there are now fully homeless, FEMA just shut down their funding and kicked them out onto the streets in the middle of bitter cold across the Eastern Seaboard. Many elders who will die. Meantime, massive fires across L.A., which were predicted by National Weather authorities a week prior (high winds foreseen), the dumbass mayor, Karen Bass, was in Africa for a Biden assignment seeing in a new gov’t. When she came back she was asked about slashing the Fire Dept. budget, took zero responsibility, utterly clueless. She told people they could get relief from losing their homes by going online to “url”!! Brilliant (non)-performance art.
I won’t give a spoiler (which I did last time) on how the US v. Canada War is resolved in the Graphic Novel. Buy the book or get it at your local library if interested. (A hint though– Vaughan is Canadian.)
Oh, in closing, Due Dissidence gave me the best laugh of the day. Brain-bleed Joe was doing a News Conference with Newsom & other dignitaries in California and closed by saying (paraphrasing) “So many people are homeless & in danger and things are very bad. . . But I have some good news to share: I became a great-grandfather today, a beautiful baby girl”, Blah blah! Newsom & the other dignitaries clapped after a brief WTF moment of confusion. Gotta love the level of Narcissism & Entitlement of the entire Political Class.
Ian Welsh
Honestly, the only invasion I think is likely is Panama. Greenland is unlikely, but not impossible and would be the best thing for Europe since it would force them to leave NATO and grow the fuck up.
Oakchair
(invasion of) Greenland is unlikely… would be the best thing for Europe since it would force them to leave NATO and grow the fuck up.
——-
What are the odds it would end up as the Nord Stream Pipeline 2.0?
The whole Greenland and Canada 51 state episode epitomizing our shallow marketing culture. Everything is less and less about substance and more and more about entertainment and cosplaying.
California is turning to ashes in mid-winter, disability and chronic illness is still skyrocketing, and what is the political topic of the new year? Trump trolling Canada. Might as well rename the news media WrestleMania and the government WWE.