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Notes -
They said rap should be subversive, well what did they think subversive meant? Vibes? Essays?
Honestly it's a pretty good song, bizarre subject matter aside. This Youtube link is live as of this writing, although it seems like the platform keeps taking new uploads down.
I wonder if 'racism is the paramount evil' would still be a defining characteristic of western ethics if WW2 hadn't happened? I mean, the Transatlantic slave trade and the scramble for Africa still happened, smallpox still wiped out the American Indians. Maybe we would just find some other kind of racial guilt? My assumption is that it all stems from the fact that we're so outbred and WEIRD, not from the particular events of the early 1940s.
I’m going to disagree here. Yes, we knew about the Indian removals of the 1800s and the slave trade and colonialism. But they weren’t things that people were supposed to feel deep guilt about. Indian removal was seen as perhaps unfortunate, but necessary to build a civilization in America. Hitler changed that because he moved at an industrial pace and we won in time to film the aftermath. He was also a gift to the Military-Industrial complex, as the specter of Hitler somewhere in the world was useful to convince tge populace that they should send their sons to some military adventure out in the world, and for that, we needed a huge military. Anti-racism is also politically useful globally because it gives those nonwhite nations a reason to choose our side — we fought genocidal racism.
Without Hitler I don’t think it happens. Without Hitler racism goes from being the evil to being on par with any number of other political evils that we knew about and don’t celebrate, but don’t punish ourselves over. And there are plenty of other evils to bring up.
I think Crowstep is right. In Canada, since they don't have nearly so much slavery to feel guilty about, they DO feel guilty about their
IndianFirst Nations stuff, to a crazy degree, like confessing to genocide about deaths due to disease at residential schools.It's even worse - we had our flags at half mast for like 6 months because a ground penetrating radar found "disturbances" under ground. We now know it was roots, rocks - no excavation has or will take place.
The whiplash from "celebrating canada day is evil" to "elbows up! I love Canada!" has been a lot to take in
Wait, really, everyone just changed their tune about this? When did that happen, and how?
Essentially this took place about the time Donald Trump was elected. It coincided with an inevitable election that we knew was going to be called. Trudeau (polling at catastrophically low numbers) dipped out, and Mark Carney took over the (floundering) Liberal Party. He successfully pivoted and ran on a very nationalist campaign (in opposition to USA/Trump), successfully outflanking the previously ascendant Conservative Party. Rallies were full of Canada imagery, flags (a hate symbol during the trucker protests), colors. He invoked concepts of monarchy, John A McDonald (previously, a genocider). And the NDP (our leftist party) collapsed enough to hand him the victory. (Cons only win if the left is split).
Canada exists as a nation only in opposition to what happens in the states. We have very little national identity to begin with - funny that the old rich white guy who won the election by tapping into boomer nationalist fervor was a liberal, but these are strange times.
There was no pivot; Easterners were always going to vote for themselves and were hungry for an excuse.
Who/whom. The flag being used to represent people it's not intended to represent, in a way it wasn't made to represent them, is powerful symbolism. Same thing with the SuperStraight flag- the Canadian flag is for Easterners, by Easterners; that tree doesn't naturally grow outside Upper/Lower Canada.
Indeed.
The West (the free, productive part of Canada) only wins when the East is split. The NDP/Western Left- what used to be our mechanism of co-operation between West and East- has collapsed in favor of Eastern imperialism (the Western Left tried to out-East the East and failed). We were on the road to reconciliation, but Easterners blew it up, and they did so deliberately because they wanted to play culture warrior.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the Easterners are hell-bent on sabotaging it every chance they get. We'd be better off on our own.
I'm fine with separation but only if we become a part of the USA. A landlocked province would be disastrous, no?
This is why I suggest AB ensures it captures the part of BC that isn't Vancouver or its Island with it; Kitimat is your best shot, a warm-water port, and ideologically opposed to Victoria.
SK and MB could come along as well but Hudson Bay, like the St. Lawrence, is not warm water (which is why Canada will never let the Eastern provinces go, as Halifax is their only warm-water port).
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