It’s easy dismiss this as more BS coming out of his mouth. However, the US kidnapped Venezuela’s head of state in January, now controls Venezuela’s oil (a huge source of income and oil), and only gives a little bit to Venezuela.

More recently, the US is trying to directly destabilize Europe. US congress voted to support Morocco in taking back the currently Spanish enclave, Ceuta. It is beginning to look like the US launched a social media disinformation campaign that caused 50,0000 migrants to try to cross the border into Ceuta in a single day (a highly irregular number). Migrants say they saw online that if they made it in they would be granted EU residency (or whatever). When Spain expressed support for the migrants, pretty much every EU head of State turned on Spain.

Chump is full of shit. But at the same time, he’s clearly fascist and spreading it globally, which MSM is under-reporting and normalizing, ofc

This article’s about health insurance. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about pensions to provide an ELI5; in fact, I could use one myself ;P

Imagine having nothing significant to say, and spending your time making work for good-hearted people who volunteer their time to create a rare positive space online. If you’re going to behave like this, you don’t deserve to be here

To drastically reduce fossil fuel use, I don’t think the average person needs to do that much.

We need the uber-rich, who have the largest carbon footprints, to rein in their fossil fuel use. More than anything, we need governments and other decision-makers to say “no” to the FF lobbyists and commit to transitioning to clean energy through policy.

But the mega-rich don’t want to make their concessions. So they spend billions trying to convince average persons like you and me that the transition will be too burdensome FOR US, so we should be opposed to it. For example, the villainification of “carbon tax”.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how failure to pivot to renewables (and the associated propaganda I outlined above) predominantly affects ‘the West’ (ie, US, Canada, UK, Australia). In contrast, China still burns a lot of coal but they’re pivoting to renewables faster than anyone. This helps them build relations with Cuba and African countries such as through solar energy development partnerships. With the US-Israel-manufactured war with Iran showing how volatile fossil fuel prices are to interruption and manipulation - I think ‘the West’s’ relative failure to pivot to renewables will be a big means by which it cedes soft power to China already and especially going forward. The O&G industry doesn’t mind dependency on its products though, and they won’t sacrifice their profits today to position Canada for success tomorrow. Keep lobbying for that next (taxpayer-funded) pipeline! /s

I’d already saved Cory’s post from today to read later xD. What an important voice for these times he is

Another example of lobbyists buying policy, in this case land for a data centre, against overwhelming public condemnation. Outside of NYC, shit looks bleak. The electorate needs to take back democracy. Horwath was the former leader of the Ontario NDP. Shame on her x1000

I wish I had an article on-hand at the moment. We’re able to remove like 5% of annual, ongoing emissions at most with carbon capture. And, as you say, carbon capture is primarily used as a reason to delay the transition away from fossil fuels by its proponents. So the solution is not “Carbon capture, but don’t slam the downvote button just yet,” it’s "reduce and stop burning fossil fuels (first, second, third, fourth, etc.), and then and only then does carbon capture become relevant. We need to be careful about discussing carbon capture since, as we agree, “carbon capture” is primarily a fossil fuel industry speaking point. After all, (created) confusion about a so-called “carbon tax” completely beat us as an electorate and slowed our progress away from FF

Sorry, are you against public healthcare? I’m in favour of expanding and improving public healthcare, not shrinking or privatizing it.

Unfortunately, fascists see their own hypocrisy as a sign of strength; they seem themselves as above the rules. Such thorough dishonesty (and disconnect from reality, from civility) that I don’t know why one would ever listen to them, let alone believe them or take them seriously

I think you misunderstand, although to be fair I don’t know for sure how the benefits packages compare, although I’d guess the public one is more extensive.

As is, 65+ go onto the provincial healthcare plan and because of that employers can drop their benefits.

Now the AB government says employers can’t drop benefits for 65+. 3 impacts are expected. 1) Companies will hire fewer people 65+, 2) employer-associated benefits packages will cost more for everyone but the insurance companies as policies include ‘more expensive’ claimants, and 3) this is no doubt a piece of reducing the public healthcare system in AB and pushing us towards the US model with only private healthcare insurance

A chilling read. Incredible investigative work by The Breach.

You took the most important part out of the quote. Here’s the quote:

Ottawa is pursuing trade, investment, and security agreements that privilege corporate access and geopolitical leverage, even when doing so aligns Canada with governments implicated in repression, environmental harm, or grave humanitarian crises. The prime minister has described this approach as “principled and pragmatic,” as “values-based realism.”

“Incidental singing [by Hal Swain]” is a very interesting credit

It’s not right for politicians to undermine publicly-funded, evidence-based healthcare.

We don’t test for no reason. No test is perfect. And so doctors will order a test when the imperfect test can meaningfully inform subsequent decision-making, based on other pieces in the clinical picture.

I’m not sure how the system will manage medically unnecessary tests on many levels.

Let’s say some rich asshole, considering themselves an expert and wanting to take advantage of this anti-democratic system, pays for an MRI of their head with no doctor’s referral simply because they have a headache.

What priority is their scan given? Can they bump a medically necessary scan? Is it clearly communicated to the radiologist interpreting the scan that only a patient and not a healthcare provider deemed it necessary? Is the cranial MRI marked as medically unnecessary on any subsequent health records? (From a healthcare perspective, when one sees a cranial MRI done, they’re thinking something much more clinically relevant than a headache happened; and this stands to cause a lot of confusion and wasted time)

Also, diverting the system towards privatization is a huge abandonment of trying to improve our public system. Shame on the UCP!

Agreed! Wealth hoarding is a huge problem! But it’s the billionaires, not the septuagenarians (ppl in their 70s) that are the main culprits. Generationalism instead of ageism may have been more accurate. And, sure, they can both be guilty. But the billionaires are ~1000x - 10^9x(?) more responsible. So, maybe refocus your criticism a bit. You may be coming from a good place. Peace!

There are bigoted and non-bigoted ways of talking about differences between different groups of people.

From what you’ve shared so far, I think disinformation has clearly worked on you. They wanting you fighting a culture war (eg, ageism), so that you’re not fighting a class war (eg, tackling climate change, demanding a wealth tax)

You’re hard to follow (and ageist). I’m not trying to put healthcare workers on a pedestal, nor dissect what is “smart”.

All I’m saying is that, unfortunately, there’s a much broader swath of the population that’s susceptible to disinformation than “knuckle dragging dumbshit[s]” and [the elderly].

I disagree. I think news literacy continues to fall as people’s access to news is increasingly disconnected from the source and author (eg, they get news mainly from an algorithmic social media feed or a chatbot, which might not mention or link to the original source).

I work in healthcare with smart people who’ll often freely admit that they have little awareness of current sociopolitical events. Those same folks will generally assume that mainstream Canadian media accurately reflects the Palestinian genocide or how concerned they should be about climate change (obviously it does not; corporate and colonial interests are prioritized over journalism)

I think this is why I’ve seen multiple stories recently about disinformationists targeting chatbots: People who use chatbots typically don’t fact check. Use or non-use of chatbots is probably associated with a steep difference in critical thinking ability. So by targeting chatbots, you’re targeting more ignorant, impressionable, and helpless people. Like cults or scammers who prey on lonely or elderly people. They’re seeking the easiest-to-manipulate and concentrating their efforts among those people

Wiki Workers United’s press release