wampus

Not a bad bit. None of the choices are good, even looking at fringe ones these days.

Greens are back with May as co leader, after having previously appointed a person based solely on DEI principles and watching that person burn the party horribly. Turns out appointing a black lesbian jewish pro-palestine lawyer woman didn't automatically make her a good leader. Like their own party history is now a very clear, tangible, and credible argument against those sorts of initiatives. DEI is good in principle, but implementation has a bunch of issues -- and the lefts inability to recognise that, even when literally suffering the consequences, is a problem that will alienate many voters. Even returning to May, is like saying the party has no other viable / worthwhile leaders around, which is a huge mark against in terms of stability for the party. The "pro-environmental" party should've had a significant uptick given all the climate disasters, like seeing towns burn to the ground. But they're so warped in their politics now, their core messaging so scattershot amongst a bunch of harder-left wing concepts, that it's dysfunctional as a party at best.

The NDP have Jagmeet Singh, who's overtly racial in his politics. He'll always rush up and hug his ethnic group / favour them at rallies etc -- the optics of which isn't lost on people who aren't part of his demographic. The basic fact that his leadership win, and support, is heavily racially biased is not exactly a secret, nor is it something that will appeal to anyone outside of his race. Demanding that people who question/highlight this issue be labelled as racists, isn't going to help the issue. Jagmeet also cratered Weir's political career based on BS accusations, weaponizing inclusivity policies against a caucasian guy who could've been a rival for the leadership. Singh shielded Weir's (non victim) accuser, when she was accused of misconduct with more tangible evidence (ie. an actual victim stepped forward to accuse her, where none stepped forward to accuse Weir -- the victim was a guy though, so apparently the 'believe the victim' thing didn't apply) -- Weir got the boot immediately, Moore got coddled. Singh seems like a pampered lawyer from a wealthy background -- his private sector work experience being working at his family's law firm for a couple years. When elected, he just picked up a house in one of the more expensive areas of Vancouver like it was nothing -- what's a few million to a 'working class' leader afterall, pocket change. Draped in expensive swag, and with that background he masquerades as a candidate for the working class. Singh stands up and opines about the evil landlord class, while his wife is busy buying up investment condos to provide their family passive income as landlords. Even more, as an overtly religious guy from a minority religion, he alienates many -- and faces really difficult challenges in areas such as Quebec. While many attest that it shouldn't matter, real politics demands a realistic take on the electorate -- if your party wants to win, don't run leaders that explicitly alienate large segments of voters.

Neither alternative party tends to put together a proper platform. The less likely you are to have to make good on your commitments, the more extravagant you can make your promises. Yes, the two main parties fail frequently to deliver, but they're still more realistic in scope during election time.

Just because one step doesn't get you to your destination, doesn't mean you shouldn't take that first step.

Bikes aren't practical in a large number of Canadian cities, especially ones with -30 degree seasons. They aren't practical for disabled people. They aren't practical for families with young children.

A lack of road infrastructure also hobbles emergency services such as ambulances. It reduces the ability of trucks to deliver goods to stores. It reduces the ability for utility crews to service utilities such as power lines and sewers.

There are a lot of potential issues with aggressively pursuing what you envision. At the very least you'd need to massively re-work city design and zoning, rebuild a ton of stuff. That will take time. Shifting to electric cars will take less time, and be a net 'win' for the environment, generally speaking. I see no issue with the first persons response saying we should try to make evs in country.

not practical for many canadian cities -- especially ones further north, with temps frequently around -30 degrees. Also not practical for disabled folks.

Also not practical in areas of higher crime, as we dont have secure 'parking' options.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

Yeah, the drop in travel and drop in spending on American stuff is sharp -- not sure the specific %, but it's definitely up there. What's interesting is that it's a "spontaneous" reaction from many Canadians, not so much a result of leadership. Like, yes, Trudeau made a speech or two that were fairly clear on the sentiments, but people'd already been booing at hockey games / cancelling trips etc before that. Sorta like our armed forces reserve applications going bonkers / crashing the website frequently due to volume, without any specific reason.

But these things are still driven by what seems like mass paranoia / potentially media trends, to some extent - especially as there's been few 'real' controls/measures implemented. Canadian media is heavily skewed/oriented towards the USA, so we've seen a fairly constant blast of negative Trump/American perspectives. Social media makes it really easy to fan those xenophobic flames -- like you'd just need a small batch of bots/agents upvoting/downvoting posts to shift the herds perspective on sites like reddit, as, if they catch posts 'early', that'd essentially allow control of which comments are visible, allowing for control of the discussion. The anti-american stuff feels a lot like a social media trend in this respect -- like people 'spontaneously' recording themselves dumping buckets of ice water on their heads, or taking photos of 'planking', or some random dance move, or stealing stuff from public washrooms, etc. Those sorts of things were basically coordinated through algorithms on social media, moreso than people rationally/objectively deciding to do them. It's not like people across the country woke up one day and all thought "I know how to support ALS research, I'll film myself dumping a bucket of water on my head!". It was a nonsensical behaviour pattern spurred on by oligarch controlled algorithms, demonstrating the power of those algorithms to manipulate the masses.

Very difficult, as most traded goods pass through US boundaries via train/truck.

More "regular" trade agreements between individual states is generally more likely going forward I imagine, but the sort of integrated supply chains that we've all benefited from in North America for like.... decades and decades... is pretty well toast.

Eg. the US wants to build their own cars, in country. This means Canada and Mexico will likely also need to build their own cars, in country. Mexico has a bit more of an opportunity to build up integrated supply chains with countries in south america, though they tend to be a bit less stable -- the proximity is a win. It'd be really cool to see if they did though -- not sure what sorts of free trade agreements are around in the south, honestly.

Canada is busy trying to shore up agreements/trade with areas like asia and europe, as those are 'sorta' the same distance/calculus as shipping things via sea to mexico / south america.

It'd also be interesting if the waning of the US hegemony results in more western countries trading with traditionally 'blockaded' countries. Cuba has long been a Canadian vacation spot, but trade with Cuba has been limited due to US pressure. Given the current state of things, I don't see why Canada wouldn't increase trade there. And given the state of Cuba currently, it could be really beneficial for both country's people.

I'm mostly familiar with the Canadian situation due to my locale.

What I'd say on this front, is that the government of Canada has generally taken preformative steps so far in regards to the issues in the USA. There's a lot of chest thumping and pageantry. Our largest province, Ontario, recently re-elected a fairly hard right Conservative politician -- one who is well known for doing things against the public interest (like selling off what little green/parkland exists around toronto, to his developer buddies)... he was re-elected because he draped himself in pro-Canada trappings. He's the guy who made the "Canada is not for sale" hats more popular. Branding yourself as captain Canada works for elections currently -- which is why, for example, its very likely we'll see a Liberal party returned to power federally, even though until very recently they were looking at a significant routing (that, plus them changing to Carney, who is probably the most right-wing/conservative leader of the Liberal/"centrist" party in history).

When I say preformative, I mean things like... there have been no explicit calls from our government to businesses/industry to follow suit on untangling supply chains or shifting trade relationships explicitly -- they've taken some steps to try and lay ground work for further diversification of international trade, but haven't pushed any levers, outside of allowing market forces to do their thing. Our banking regulators, for example, happily remain within Microsoft's cloud ecosystems -- and they have seemingly no interest in the financial industry outsourcing all of their websites to foreign countries / the USA. Many of our levels of government have made overtures of "buy local" procurement policies, but when you ask for details they're all just "planning/reviewing/considering", without direct action on the table. It's not what you'd expect, given the 'rhetoric' of it being an existential threat / crisis. Our politicians are full of sound and fury, but they aren't bothered enough to take direct action at this point.

If you rely on concrete / verifiable data points from our government, trade and relations are deteriorating, but there's no overt cautions/warnings/mandates to take action. Media posts that hype up the fear by changing words feed into the public paranoia, and ignore the relative calm seen in our government agencies.

I ain't American. I'm from one of the countries most irked by America at present (Canada) -- if you look at my @, I'm on a Canadian lemmy server.

But its still true that Russian propaganda is mostly about disrupting allied nations and fostering civil unrest / animosity between countries. They have literally stated that they seek to amplify things like race-oriented conflicts and stories, because it helps to destabilize western countries (so things like Tiktok, where any anti-black event is automatically on the front page, is part of that routine -- compared to other nations, where it shows more benign things, such as "child prodigy plays piano"). Things like "BuyCanadian" campaigns are likely supported/partially funded by Russian interests -- because it's not just "avoid american products", but "avoid all traditional allies" in tone. Sorta like how Russia didn't need specific 'agents' in the US, but could instead fund "influencers" that were saying things that promoted Russian geopolitical goals.

Is there a reason to be concerned about what's going on in the states? Yes. Doesn't mean that we should hype up negativity beyond reason / create anti-american echo chambers.

Oh, wait, ok, let me go do up a massive post with a ton of cited sources and detailed research in order to support an online opinion about the general feeling I get when seeing these sorts of articles -- specifically ones where the social media site (this lemmy OPs post) re-words the title of the article from "travel update" to "travel warning", and aims to get people going on about how the USA is evil.

Or, no, I won't bother. It's an online opinion meant to draw some additional thought / criticism towards these sorts of posts, and the intentions behind them.

Yeah, it's not too surprising that it'll have slightly different contexts in different regions.

As another poster commented, the actual article doesn't call it a 'warning'. So, this does look like social media/bubble hyping up the issue.