ninthant
Some of them might be real people.
Scapegoating is an extremely successful technique. Instead of dealing with the complexities of the modern world, the supposed strong man can just give people easy and reassuring answers.
Americans problems are not because of unchecked capitalism and the wilful dismantling of the scientific, legal, economic, and political systems designed to help them. It’s because Canada, led by its Mexican Drug Cartels, are taking advantage of them.
Never mind that it’s patently stupid. Never mind that the system of getting access to our raw materials for cheap so they could process them in their countries and their industries was overwhelming as good for them as it was bad for us.
Never mind reality — what matters is that an easy answer was given. It’s not them, they don’t have to confront any harsh truths, or take any painful looks in the mirror, or have to step out of their comfort zone. The Americans were given the answer to their problems by their King, and that answer is Canada.
So the “strong man” strikes at Canada to show how tough they are. And to no one’s surprise, Canada doesn’t take it lying down. We stand up for ourselves and hit back — saying that surely when they see pain they will stop and reflect.
But no, they don’t. Because our hitting back justifies our already-established status as villain. How dare Canada threaten to levy energy exports, says the King. The Canadians have no decency.
And so, feeling the pain we caused, the Americans listen to their King, and they blame us because that is the easy answer. They don’t have to think, they don’t have to pause the sportsball game or the reality tv marathon. It was Canada all along.
So yes — there may be bots and such, but make no mistake that the vocal opposition to Canada will only grow inside America as the trade war escalates.
Respectfully, I don’t think you want to go down this path.
Having a third party setting up a complex software with no commitment for ongoing maintenance leaves you in a bad spot when something breaks or needs updating. And even if this software is great; all technology stacks eventually need some maintenance.
So I think you need someone from your community to step up and be willing to take this on with at least an intention of being there for ongoing maintenance and support. Or, paying for a commercial service who will do this for you.
If you find that person, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll give them some pointers about how to get this up and running and answer some questions about best practices and such. I’m not familiar with Friendica but the setup seems relatively straightforward if you have a web host who supports running Docker containers.
I feel and share your rage about the inaction by the American mainstream left.
My hunch that they’d change their tune before allowing their country to engage in outright war with Canada is nothing more than combination of a hunch and naive optimism.
We certainly can’t bank on my hunch — we need to prepare as if you’re correct.
A couple decades ago I used to have an hour long commute and would listen to The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti almost every day.
She would interview people who would go on with their talking point nonsense, and I’d whip myself up with frustration about what they were saying. And then Tremonti would just… say what was in my head, and make the person actually respond to reality and stop just spouting their rehearsed bullshit talking points.
It was so breathtakingly wonderful, and it happened time and time again. I miss that so much.
We need biased reporters. Biased towards reality and truth, biased against lies and empty slogans. Challenge the mistruths and misrepresentations made by almost any media-savvy participant, be it political or corporate or anything else.
I would LOVE to see HBC reborn as a costco style membership club that sells good quality Canadian products at reasonable prices, and is incentivized by the membership system to focus on providing customer satisfaction not short-term profits.
I’ve given up Costco for the boycott, but it hurts so much buying overpriced stuff from the grocery cartels. Imagine if a reborn HBC could fill that role?
These types of claims are incredibly difficult for a layperson to evaluate. There are at least two explanations for charging very little profit as is suggested BYD and similar companies are doing now.
Incumbent monopolists will absolutely use prices to bully competition out of the market so they can enjoy a longer period without pricing pressure later. This has been well documented across many industries. However it’s also a normal occurrence where a disrupting upstart will apply a low profit margin or even operate at a loss in order to build market share and achieve higher efficiencies of scale.
I am at least mildly concerned that the Chinese EVs seem better fit the mold of the disrupting upstarts, and not that of the incumbent monopolists. If they are serving a lower-price-point aspect of the EV market that the traditional manufacturers are not filling – that is a good thing. This is a role that many of the brands now considered mainstream once filled when they were newer to the western markets.
However, your points towards forced labour are absolutely on point. This is a greater issue that affects all trade with China, and it’s one that we have largely been ignoring for a long time. Every time we buy something made there with it’s unknown providence, we are participating in a system that must be described as evil. I wouldn’t want to drive one either.
