Hemingways_Shotgun

The only freedom’s you’ll have left is the ability to vote on what America names its version of the Lada

You think a U.S. military base isn’t getting kicked the fuck out of a foreign country the moment they are declared an enemy? Or do you have such a little opinion of everyone else that you think a couple of military bases will immediately take over every European county at once?

If America invades Canada it’s global reach becomes null and void essentially the next day. Every Nato country expels American military personnel, by force if necessary, and America’s role in the world is done, regardless if they win against Canada or not.

I unapologetically woke up this morning hoping to read that someone took a successful shot at him during the Superbowl.

Put me on whatever list you wish.

If they had any brains, they’d create a salient by using the fifth column traitors in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Very little would hold them back in Maple MAGA country. They’d have both provinces in short order and then work on defending them.

A bit like Hitler making a beeline for the Russian oil fields before he got distracted with taking Stalingrad because of “symbolism” or some shit.

Multiple fronts I’d imagine.

I’d easily imagine Mexico declaring and starting to fuck shit up at the southern border.

Depending on when it starts, potentially embargoes from Europe. (Right now I think they’re still too skittish, but if Trump invades after he’s spent another year or so destroying international relations, I don’t doubt Europe would slap embargoes on him. At some point, those countries that host American bases would tell them to fuck off back home which in the short term would be bad for Canada since it would be reinforcing the American military, but in the long term destroying America’s global reach.

I’d accept casualties if it meant taking care of American imperialism long-term.

Imo, Europe is better off forging its own path, only collaborating with countries such as China when it is in our strategic interest to do so.

Europe, without the U.S. needs to increase it’s military spending. (Same with Canada, who, I hate to say it, really needs to get some nukes onto it’s territory on loan from somehwere)

Ironically, NATO increasing it’s military spending is something that the U.S. has been bitching about for years. So now they’d finally get their wish, but in some weird monkey’s paw Faustian way.

The moment they make clear that CA farmers cannot access the Colorado river waters like they used to

But…but…I’ve been told that there’s a big faucet up here in Canada that we can turn on for y’all to make it all better.

/s. (god I can’t believe I live in a world where I need an /s tag for this)

Not really. I find that most “pop culture” still gets talked about, it just doesn’t get pushed into everyone’s face by an algorithm.

If I drift away from my subscribed feed and look at the all feed, it doesn’t take long for something or another about pop culture to pop up. And then if I’m interested, I go to the particular community that’s talking about it and subscribe. The more I do that, the more interests start to show up in my subscribed feed.

For the most part, these communities all exist, there’s just no algorithm saying “hey…you’ll probably like this”. And so you have to find them yourself.

Flive has flive letters.

Capitalism is inherently parasitic

I fundamentally disagree with that.

Venture Capitalism is parasitic. But Capitalism itself is not at all. At it’s heart, if we continue with the landlord analogy, let’s say that you are renting a house from the OP’s Aunt. She’s paying the building insurance. She’s paying the maintenance, (or in some good old fashioned cases doing it themselves). She’s dealing with the paperwork involved in owning a home. Hell, in some cases you don’t even have to mow your own lawn. So of course she’s charging you rent. It’s not a charity.

But if she’s a private owner, than your rent stays with her. She uses what she needs to maintain the building and…yes…makes a profit that then gets spent in the local economy.

The only time there’s an issue is when your rent is being sent to a corporation that may not even be in the same country as you, and that money leaves your local economy for good.

To use an anecdotal example, I’ve worked in my time for two different furniture stores in my town. One was a chain, and one was/is a family run operation from the beginning. And yes…that family is wildly successful; I’m not guessing millionaires, but close to it. And I don’t begrudge them at all for that. Because it’s family owned, they aren’t forced to only care about a stock price or about profit. My boss would randomly come up to me, sometimes multiple times a year, clap me on the back and say “You’re doing a good job, I’m going to add a buck an hour to your wage.”

Because they can. Because for all intents and purposes, you’ve got a better chance to be treated like a human being when a corporation isn’t in the way.

The chain furniture store would only give out raises when forced to by government mandated cost of living increases, because anything more would cause the stock price to go down.

The heart of capitalism is my first example. The reality of capitalism is my second unfortunately. But that’s not the fault of capitalism itself, it’s the lack of government oversight protecting us from predatory corporations.

No.

I of course can’t speak for anyone except myself, but for me, what your aunt is doing is what essentially capitalism is all about.

Its when those landlords get replaced by venture capital corporations and reits that it becomes a problem.

In your aunts case, the rent money stays local, contributes back to the local economy, etc…

In the case of venture capital and corporate ownership, the only goal is to increase a stock price for a corporation. None of that money gets returned to the local economy except for possibly hiring a local property management firm to handle things on the ground for them.

When capitalism remains about people, all of good. When corporations take the reins of ownership so their profit becomes the sole motive is when things go bad.