Recent posts

#91

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by viper37 - May 10, 2024, 11:31:46 AM

The Conservatives are on a war path against Tim Horton's new woke coffee lids.

This is serious debate.

#92

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - May 10, 2024, 11:28:38 AM

Sheilbh, you have often commented that the UK Conservatives are fascinated by our own PP. Are the Reform folks there trying to do what the Reformers did here?

To be clear I don't think the Tories as they're in office now are that interested in PP. I think they're still very focused on re-running the 2010s playbook and also, perhaps, realise that they can't do it after 14 years in office.

The interest is in the sort of right-wing think tank/commenter world who are starting to think about what comes next - and there is a group there that's very interested in PP.

On Reform - I don't know if it's something they're looking at or thinking about. But I would say that I've seen at least one piece basically saying the last piece for a Canada 93 scenario would be Farage returning to lead Reform where they would play exactly the role of Reform in 93. Though I think it's unclear whether or not Reform UK have a real geographic base in the way Reform Canada did which, I think, is necessary in a FPTP system. Farage is personally pretty toxic with a lot of voters - he's run in many elections and never won a seat and it's not clear that, say, the Red Wall would swing Reform given that they've swung pretty hard to Labour so far.

It's also worth saying on PP which may be counter-intuitive for the Canadians that it's not the populist wing who are interested in him (they have Farage and Johnson, after all). It's more the policy focused/centre-right to libertarian wing who have been saying for years that housing is causing problems for the conservatives among young people (reinforced by banging on about Brexit and cultural issues that they don't care about). The appeal of PP is that by focusing on real issues like housing they have an example of a right wing leader winning over younger voters and looking set to win. In a way, it's basically an argument of expanding your elderly base to include the elderly working class (Farage and Johnson), or trying to form an inter-generational party on the right which means having to have an offer for young people whose biggest issue is housing.

[Opening new fronts does seem to be to Russia's advantage.]

#93

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Barrister - May 10, 2024, 11:09:10 AM

The Russians are attacking Kharkiv again. From the north, as has been hinted at for the past few weeks

As I said a page or two back and was shouted down.
Hopefully Ukraine was prepared enough for it. Opening new fronts does seem to be to Russia's advantage.
I guess/hope Russia are just doing this to try and grab all they can before Ukraine is fully rearmed rather than genuinely seeing serious opportunity for a breakthrough.

I'm not a military guy, but I'm not so sure.  Ukraine is the one defending, it's supply lines are short.  It's relatively easy for Ukraine to pull units from the south to the north.  Russia is attacking.  It's supply lines are long.  It's much further for them to move a unit from the south to the north.

#94

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2024

Last post by Barrister - May 10, 2024, 11:06:18 AM

He was a great and entertaining commentator in his day; but he is one of those people who should have been sent to pasture years ago.

I would still read his work.

I will admit that occasionally his writing would have me cringe, but most of the time I found him very insightful even in later years.

He indeed had a long and fascinating career.  Born in Newfoundland (before it even joined Confederation) he was a Rhodes scholar, despite being a conservative he worked for the CBC for decades.  His vocabulary was impressive, but always in a way not that he was showing off, but that he just trusted his audience was smart enough to keep up.  As mentioned he was always very polite in dealing with callers on a cross-canada call-in show.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/rex-murphy-the-sharp-witted-intellectual-who-loved-canada-dies-at-77/

By the way here's Rex's last column, filed a day before his death.  He certainly was not going gently into the night as he just blasts Trudeau for ignoring October 7th.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-trudeau-faced-an-essential-moral-test-after-oct-7-he-failed-it

I can't say I disagree with him here.

#95

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by viper37 - May 10, 2024, 11:03:29 AM

Left wing distate for Israel is nothing to do with race and more policy.

So obviously I can't comment on the motivations of every leftist, nor put numbers on how many feel this way - but come on.

It's not very hard at all to find anti-semitism in a hard-left mindspace.  As a leftist you're very suspicious of big corporations.  And who controls the big corporations?  Why the Jews of course!

Obviously, there's all kinds of people in the world. There'll be people who are a hardcore socialists but really really super racist.
But the general dislike for Israel comes from the policies towards Palestine rather than any sort of hate for white people. Thats a weird belief that festers on the far right.

The rest though, no. Left wing distate for Israel is nothing to do with race and more policy.

The fact that you continue to deny this is basically bordering on you being antisemitic as well. Someone who continually shoves their fingers in their ears and chants "this isn't happening" while his fellow travelers (some of whom, like Jeremy Corbyn, have been steeped in antisemitism since the 1960s) chant antisemitic slogans, is essentially normalizing and condoning said antisemitism.

And no, I am not saying everyone on the left. But if even 1 in 10 people I affiliated with was antisemitic, I would insist they be denounced, denounce them myself, and insist they be kicked out of any organizations I shared with them. If those organizations refused, I would leave them. I wouldn't affiliate with people who affiliated with people like that.

I never denied anti-semitism is happening. Stop making shit up.
The topic was its origin.
On the left its far more commonly a case of distaste for Israeli policy first which can then become warped and develop into anti-semitism rather than hating Jews first thus its natural that hating Israel would be an outgrowth of that.

There's a lot of hatred for capitalism of western societies too.

#96

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Josquius - May 10, 2024, 11:03:11 AM

I recall back in the noughties when I'd dream of a golden age where the Tories are dead and buried and the Lib Dems take their place as the other main party.
If only the Lib Dems had their shit in order then we could actually be heading there.

But yes. The Tories have a floor that is even harder to break than the Labour one.

The thing is - if this happened the Lib Dems would eventually be pretty much exactly like the Tories.

I can point to an example of this: British Columbia.  There wasa long-time "Conservative" Party that ruled the province for a number of years called the SoCreds.  SoCreds collapsed in scandal, leading to a left-wing NDP government.  With a giant void on the right side of the spectrum the provincial Liberals stepped in - but this pretty quickly made the Liberals the "Conservative" party in BC.

In time sure.
But it would 'recenter' the power on the right for a while. And in that time maybe we could get some positive reform to ensure the country would be more democratic in the future.

#97

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Josquius - May 10, 2024, 10:58:14 AM

Left wing distate for Israel is nothing to do with race and more policy.

So obviously I can't comment on the motivations of every leftist, nor put numbers on how many feel this way - but come on.

It's not very hard at all to find anti-semitism in a hard-left mindspace.  As a leftist you're very suspicious of big corporations.  And who controls the big corporations?  Why the Jews of course!

Obviously, there's all kinds of people in the world. There'll be people who are a hardcore socialists but really really super racist.
But the general dislike for Israel comes from the policies towards Palestine rather than any sort of hate for white people. Thats a weird belief that festers on the far right.

The rest though, no. Left wing distate for Israel is nothing to do with race and more policy.

The fact that you continue to deny this is basically bordering on you being antisemitic as well. Someone who continually shoves their fingers in their ears and chants "this isn't happening" while his fellow travelers (some of whom, like Jeremy Corbyn, have been steeped in antisemitism since the 1960s) chant antisemitic slogans, is essentially normalizing and condoning said antisemitism.

And no, I am not saying everyone on the left. But if even 1 in 10 people I affiliated with was antisemitic, I would insist they be denounced, denounce them myself, and insist they be kicked out of any organizations I shared with them. If those organizations refused, I would leave them. I wouldn't affiliate with people who affiliated with people like that.

I never denied anti-semitism is happening. Stop making shit up.
The topic was its origin.
On the left its far more commonly a case of distaste for Israeli policy first which can then become warped and develop into anti-semitism rather than hating Jews first thus its natural that hating Israel would be an outgrowth of that.

#98

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Josquius - May 10, 2024, 10:54:52 AM

The Russians are attacking Kharkiv again. From the north, as has been hinted at for the past few weeks

As I said a page or two back and was shouted down.
Hopefully Ukraine was prepared enough for it. Opening new fronts does seem to be to Russia's advantage.
I guess/hope Russia are just doing this to try and grab all they can before Ukraine is fully rearmed rather than genuinely seeing serious opportunity for a breakthrough.

#99

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - May 10, 2024, 10:46:57 AM

The Russians are attacking Kharkiv again. From the north, as has been hinted at for the past few weeks

#100

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2024

Last post by Grey Fox - May 10, 2024, 10:44:42 AM

Jacob and GF may be too young to
Remember him before he went hard right.  He gave brilliant commentary on the National and as PRC mentioned he was a gracious host of Cross Country Checkup. I don't know what happened to him after he left the CBC but he seemed to become a completely different person. Hopefully someone will write a biography- it would be a fascinating read.

There's that and you need to add about more 16 years for me to have learned enough english.