We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, January 21, 2017

What’s Wrong in Canada’s Halls of Power?

Click here to access article by Phil Butler from New Eastern Outlook.

Based on my four years of living in Canada, I think that Butler makes some very keen observations about Canada's rather dismal fate as a colony of the US given what Trump has declared as his agenda for US industry. Still, given Canada's subservience to the US Empire's diktats, I can't imagine that the real directors of the US (think Deep State) will allow him to go too far in hurting Canada's economy.
The fourth largest country in the world by land area, Canada’s true potential is not even close to being tapped. A nation of only 36 million people, the country probably should have emerged as a major power decades ago. Instead the hapless politicians set in place there just tag along, and they don’t even do a good job of that. Canada’s national debt of just over $800 billion is not even all that bad compared to the US, and European nations. Still the leadership there trudges along doing foreign policy like a satrap. It is inconceivable for me that the world’s most educated country can appoint the dumbest leaders on the planet. The only country that can actually beat Russia at ice hockey cannot even chart its own course and best interests?

Canada-Russia relations and trade were put on hold after the Ukraine crisis, to the detriment of both nations.