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Showing posts from February, 2020

Teck withdraws application for $20B Frontier oilsands mine, citing debate around climate policy

CBC News There's probably lots not being shared here. When I first learned of this project, I couldn't help wondering, "Why?" From everything I've read about the Tar Sands, I've come to conclude there's probably not a whole lot of money left to be made there. The Canadian government's been subsidizing Alberta for tens of billions of dollars for the past decade now. Not a whole will probably change in the near future, except for the continual inflation of costs to keep Alberta going. When it's all said and done, the Tar Sands will probably have drained 100's of billions of dollars out of Canadian taxpayers' hands, and there'll be nothing to show for it in government treasuries. I thought for certain this development was one last ditch effort to drain some more free capital out of the Albertan and Canadian treasuries, but for the company to wind down the project at this point speaks that Canada and Alberta both wanted the other to ba

Reagonites will have to reorient their politics

The Overton Window has shifted. The UK may lament the demise of Corbyn's campaign, but the end result of that election saw the so-called Centrists fall out of power in Labour. The same is happening in the USA. What these so-called Centrists have for so long disguised has been revealed to be meaningless. Mere Triangulation to carry-on with Reagonite-style politics of the dismantling of government, and hence democracy. However, their hollowing out of government also saw them hollowing out their mechanisms for interacting with people outside their comfort zone. These people, these elites, and their sycophants, they lost complete touch with a great majority of people. The Occupy Movement was not a one-off movement. It was a bellwether, a harbinger. And as this movement grows—and it'll grow exponentially from now one—people who do not adjust are going to be run down. The momentum of this movement has been building for 40 years. Like a flood. It'll carry off everyone, even

The Demise of Triangulation

With the results of the Nevada Caucus, it may be premature, but it also may be safe to state: Triangulation is dead as a political tool. I'd been commenting here and there that there would be a wave overcoming Reaganism, that it would come in all of a sudden rather than forecast itself. In hindsight, it probably did forecast itself, but as with all tsunami's, the signs one were coming were only recognizable to those who have been waiting on it.

The Prospect of Bloomberg Presidency is Terrifying

Personally speaking, Trump's always been a bit of a joke presidency. He's terrible. Awful. A throwback to the days of Jim Crow, but there's an insincerity in his manner that suggests he's only doing it because the people around him want it done. He doesn't care, much like the two prior presidents, whose policies opened up the opportunity for a huckster to even consider running for the presidency. I'm not even going to get into the racialized border politics of Trump. ICE, and all that. It's awful, but it was resultant of the presidents who came before. Obama, and Bush were also bad. Not as bad as Trump, but many of the in-place policies were likely to lead to this point in time. Trump's brutal border policies could not have happened if not for Obama out-doing Bush, and Bush out-policing Clinton, and Clinton... Well, illegal border crossings weren't regular back in the 80's when Mexico was still independent of the Canada-US FTA. Well, to be fa

The Impeachment is Over

Thank goodness. Stupid political theatre. From day one, it was obvious from the start this would be the result. It was just a stupid political ploy that ended utterly anti-climatically. All it was really good for was dividing Democrats. Dividing the neo-liberals and the insurgent populists. Well, those two camps were divided from the beginning, but the impeachment mess was an opportunity for the neo-liberals to beat up on the upstarts. But, the upstarts have grown more in numbers, so this neo-liberal ploy wasn't a major success. It looks like either the coming election cycle or the following one, and the upstarts should begin taking full control of the Democratic Party's election machines. If Sanders doesn't manage to take control of the party finances this go around, I presume the next primary cycle, a populist will win out.