Eye of the storm
September is my favorite month of the year. I am spending much time in my favorite park in my beautiful neighborhood in the wonderful city of Toronto. Life is very tranquil for me.
I do like Toronto and my little piece of it. I feel like I arrived at a safe haven thirty years ago, after a stormy earlier life. I can live out my life here securely and comfortably.
Being secure is important to me because I am fairly vulnerable due to my disabilities. So Toronto the Good has been a good place for me. I can now sit a little above things and live a life of contemplation.
Okay, Toronto is not as good as it used to be. The neighborhood is having its problems as well. But the whole world is in an age of turmoil and here is a good place to ride it out.
As I have frequently blogged about, Toronto’s biggest problem is it is too good. The people do not get angry when they really should. Toronto needs to get bad when corrupt local and provincial governments start wrecking things.
Conditions should soon start to improve somewhat. We have a relatively ‘left’ mayor. She is starting to do some of the right things.
The Ontario public is finally getting stirred up about Doug the Thug at Queen’s park. For those unfamiliar, that is the site of the Ontario legislature. Cabinet ministers are quitting politics with three years yet before the next election. Doug Ford is backing away from some of his more egregious actions while delivering unapologetic apologies.
Ukraine war moment
In the greater world, history continues to roll on. There is an old saying, history happens quickly when you read it, and slowly when you live it. History is rolling along pretty slowly from my perspective.
There is not much new to say about the most important thing happening right now; the Ukraine war. The bad guys are losing; slow, bloody, and ugly. If you do not know who the bad guys are, you are really not paying attention.
So the Ukraine war is at a ‘Kubrick moment’. Things have come to an inflection point but nothing is happening yet. Things could go in almost any direction.
Many strange rumors are flying around, most of them plausible. The most interesting is that Russia and Poland are secretly discussing dividing Ukraine between them. The Russian speaking areas would go into Russia, the Galician speaking areas would go under Polish occupation.
The Polish government is out of patience with the entire NATO proxy war project. They will send no more equipment or soldiers to aid Ukraine. They will not allow any more Ukrainian wheat to pass through their territory as it drives down the price and hurts their own farmers.
The Poles are now on a crash program to build up their army. However, their own general staff is warning its government not to even think about a war with Russia. The strength of the Russian army has been, and is continuing to be, seriously underestimated.
The Ukie army has apparently run out of steam. It is being said that if they are ordered to attack any further they will mutiny. It seems some sort of power change is imminent in Kiev.
Thus the Polish president has called the Ukrainian president a ‘drowning man.’ He is dangerous, grabbing at anything around him, and would pull his rescuers down with him.
The Russians are developing the strongest army, not just in Europe, but the world. They know they are likely going to have to use it and they want it to be fully ready. To them, the Ukraine war is just training.
The Russians have identified deficiencies in their army which they are correcting. There were too many ‘operatta generals’. They lacked some things like counter battery radar, for warning their troops of incoming fire. Their combat aircraft lacked adequate defense against ground fire.
It seems the Russians are still not ready for a full on attack. They are doing limited attacks to test themselves and their enemy. Their focus is on minimizing casualties.
The casualty rate among Russian soldiers has been steadily declining. They will try to cause minimum harm to civilians and to infrastructure because they are going to have to govern that territory after this is over. They will bear the cost of rebuilding everything.
I get into some blog discussions about the Ukraine war in which people call me naive, or just getting all this stuff out of Russian blogs. These are not trolls but people I interact with on other topics, so it stays fairly civil. I do not get many real trolls and I do not respond to them.
I do not read Russian. I do not merely follow Russian official positions or Russian media. There is China Global Television, Iranian Press TV, and Telesur in the world, too.
There are plenty of good independent reporters. These are people who support themselves solely on their writing and videology, and who go to the places they report about. I have gradually focused my reading, on matters Ukrainian and warlike, on a few bloggers who I have found to be very good and credible on the topic.
But I do watch a lot of “Russian State” media. What I like is that they have no reason to slant things and they know it. They are winning. The truth is on their side.
What I flatly refuse to watch anymore about world affairs is western media. They are having an ever harder time hiding the truth. I do not know how these dipshits live with themselves.
From Ukraine to Canada
Yes, I and my cyber friends and informants can talk about Ukraine, and all the other conflict torn lands on earth, all we want. Ultimately, I am over here and they are somewhere else, and not in the places we are talking about.
But a little piece of these foreign hells does come to my happy little neighborhood in peaceful Canada. There is a social housing building down the street which is run by the Catholic Church, but is part of the refugee settlement system in this country. It specializes in families and has a high turnover.
I know where the trouble is in the world by what kind of people are living in that building; the languages they speak. A few years ago they were Syrian. Before that they were Central American. Now they are Ukrainian.
They are mostly young married couples, often with kids. The women wheel prams or lug kangaroo carriers. These Ukraine women dress weirder than any women I have ever seen.
I do not believe these people are a hazard to Canada. They are not a new wave of the Banderist maniacs who arrived after the world war and have caused so much trouble. The fact that they are here now means that they are fleeing away from all that.
They seem a little apprehensive about Canada as they walk around the neighborhood. I can understand that.
St.Lawrence is clearly a very well planned and well built district. It is also clear that recently it has not been very well maintained. We now have drug addicts hanging around everywhere because of the new hostel.
This is all due to the right wing austerity governments we have had in the city for over a decade. We have a new mayor now who everyone hopes will turn all this around.
What would really give these Ukrainians pause, if they have ideas of settling in Canada, is if they went up to Allen Gardens. There, ‘tent city’ has become established. The city has given up on trying to tear all these encampments down.
When I was last up there, I counted eighty tents. But what would really concern prospective new immigrants is what some aboriginals have done in one corner.
They sawed down a large tree, cut it up for firewood, stacked the firewood to create a wall around themselves, put up two teepees, and are flying the Mohawk warrior flag over it.
But, come to Canada, Ukrainians, as long as you are not Bandera Nazi types and want to live in peace with those different than yourselves. Unlike your home country, Canada has a future, despite its current problems.
About hate in Canada
Below is something I put in the comments box of a fellow blogger’s article about the rise of right wing hate groups in Canada. Much of my best writing starts out that way.
Some people believe that all the right wing culture wars is a recent phenomenon imported from the USA. Much of it is indeed being mimicked from the American super patriot groups. Yet a lot of it is Canadian ideas which have been around for a long time.
Regional resentments are a very Canadian thing. Alberta screw heads are the masters at it. Every province, every location in a province, is supposed to be putting more in than they are getting back, and being treated unfairly.
All over the country, screw heads are engaging in mass protest in order to harass public institutions. Hospitals cannot give out health care directed at the Pandemic. Schools cannot protect the rights of children with sexual identity problems.
One thing in particular disturbs me about these demonstrations around schools in Ontario. That is the idea these people seem to have that their children are their property. Children are individuals with rights and the parent does not have rights over them, only obligations to them.
It is good that these people are being challenged by even bigger counter demonstrations. However, the anti hate people do need to look at their own rhetoric. Much of it is also unsupportable.
While the anger of working people in Canada is being channeled in destructive ways, there is a sound and just basis for it. They do have cause to be angry. The problem is the collapse of a real left wing in the country, which should be framing their issues in a better way, and championing them.
The libertarian, anti government right wing is always there. They are created by elements of the industrial capitalist class, who think they should be in control of everything and see government as a threat to their privilege. The present disorder, caused by the breakdown of the financial capitalist faction, is giving them scope.
There are grounds for suspicion of government and experts. Government is increasingly being used against people and no longer delivering anything good. People are being abused by phony experts who are mere gaslighters and disinformation agents.
People do not know who to trust. Really, there is no one for them to trust. But this is a pattern which recurs over and over in history; that when a population is under stress from misgovernment, and they find no leadership from the left, they then turn to the right wing, which will pretend to deal with their issues, but will always betray them.
The present left parties are completely taken over by the phony left, who promote ideas which the people are very right to be angry about. Often these are legitimate issues which most people would support, until they are taken to ridiculous extremes which discredit them and create backlash. However, at the core of working class fear and anger is the truly loathsome ‘climate’ agenda, which is really just the same old ‘deindustrialization’ and ‘depopulation’ agendas.
Behind the suspicion about vaccinations and other health measures has been the utter mismanagement of the pandemic response. Government failed its basic duty to protect the population. It was bullied into submission by the small minority of loudmouths inspired by the ‘Great Barrington’ nonsense.
Examples of sound issues, which the great majority of people support until they are hijacked by obnoxious fanatics and taken to an irrational extreme, are gay rights, immigrant rights, and anti racism.
Most people oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation. People rightly become concerned when identity politicians try to invent 50 different genders.
Most people would support gender reassignment surgery if the subjects are sure that is really what they want. When people begin to be pressured into these procedures, and they start being performed on children, people are rightly concerned.
Few Canadian people resent immigrants. There is, however, an understanding that immigration must meet the country’s needs. It cannot be driven beyond our capacity to absorb them just because someone wants more cheap labor, more political supporters, or whatever.
Most people do not subscribe to racist ideas. However, racism is always there because it is stirred up so as to divide people. This includes forcing a style of antiracist education which seems designed to create resentment and backlash.
The way it is going, the right wing will seize power in Canada. There is no effective counter to them. However, they will be unable to govern or to establish themselves as a political order.
They will cause huge damage until an effective left alternative finally emerges. The job then will be to reestablish government services on a sound basis. But also, fanatics from the left and the right will have to be shut down and shut up.
Why do I call my Blog “Adults in Charge”?
I have recently been asked this. It is a somewhat problematic title, but I cannot think of anything better to call it. If I named the blog what I would really like to call it, I think it would get blocked immediately.
Right wing groups often use this theme as a name and justification for their actions and rhetoric. In the whacked out public sphere of the internet age, plenty of dorks want to call themselves the adults, the grownups, in the room. They appropriate the terms which would properly describe their opposites.
I mean the title in a very sardonic sense. I refer to the small proportion of the population which escapes the dumbing down of society by oligarchic ‘herd masters’ and have fully developed their intellects and character. These are the kind of people who must finally take power, eliminate the pathocracy, and create the conditions where a democracy can start taking root.
Nazigate
Hold the presses. Before I send this out I should say something about the controversy just brewed up about the superannuated Nazi in the Canadian Parliament two days back. The #Nazigate hashtag is pretty active on Twitter. Oh, ex Twitter.
The key points are this; it was not a mistake. This was clearly planned to test the reaction to it. This in turn says much about who has control of government in Ottawa these days.
Prince Justin’s speech yesterday delivered one of these unapologetic apologies. He concluded by directing discussion back to “Russian disinformation.” This was a warning to media to stop covering this story.
As predicted, the speaker of the house took the fall for it. He obviously had nothing to do with it and was as off guard as anyone in the house.
The most nauseating thing about this is the hypocrisy of the opposition parties. They are now ranting against the government about it. We are supposed to forget that they all applauded the bastard.
No one is asking how he got into the country in the first place. This was because they were eagerly sought out by the forces of darkness, who were worried at that time about the rise of ‘communism’. That is, anything socially progressive.
They were let in so as to attack the ‘reds’ and they have gradually taken over. This seems to the general pattern with Nazis, right back to the original ones in 1933 Germany. I refer this back to my full blog post on the topic, here.