Maple MAGA and Alberta Conservatives are working a scam on us! They want us off balance and scared of responding publically to their tactics. For the last few decades they have protrayed themselves and by location us, as victums of the EVIL Feds and Eastern powers. Take a closer look at who leads their movement, political actors who chum around with far-right wing USA organizations, the NRA, anti-vacers, racists and people who are just plain criminals.
It is time to end our polite rebuff of their movement and raise our voices in public to show the uninformed the truth behind the UCP and Maple MAGA. Use your voice, vote and intellect to reject them. Remember they rely on your fear and silence to win their victory.
It is scary to be a Canadian living Alberta and “invested” in Alberta (children, granchildren, owning a home (that may soon have low value, so I can’t move elsewhere 😵💫)). I can’t “pick up stakes” and move elsewhere. Here I am in my early 60s thinking I’d be set for retirement. Now my home may be at risk, my CPP (upon which my pension relies) at risk, my kids will undoubtedly leave me behind. It makes me sad, angry, confused. I never asked for this, voted for this. I’ve worked hard all my life and contributing to making Canada better. But will I be a Canadian for much longer if I can’t leave?
Nobody in this province seems to look at the recent history of BREXIT and internalize that the if the UK’s 60+ million people watched its economy slide after an emotionally-charged decision driven by a minority, Alberta doesn’t have a hope of coming out of this both independent and strong.
Although extremely upset to be living in this time of monsters, I take reassurance by the pushback exemplified by the indigenous people. Theirs is a history of frequent betrayals and their resilience is a blazing light against the current haze engulfing Alberta.
Yves Blanchette says it best "Quebec sovereignty is about a culture and a nation"; Alberta's - what is the culture basis of oil and gas?" Greed has never been a national rallying cry.
It is blatantly insulting to compare Albertan's to Ottawa's version holocaust victims.
The population of Gaza has quadrupled during the last forty years - an odd sort of genocide methinks. If Hamas gave up their Jewish captives and went into exile the war would be over. Starvation was a weapon of war the allies used on Japan during WWII on a scale that dwarfs the siege of Gaza. The Jewish holocaust and Ukrainian holodomor were genocides which the author mendaciously compares to the Gaza war. Gaza is suffering causalities of war including collateral civilian casualties of a war that they started and Israel will finish.
Why is this separation still a thing? The First Nations own the land - case closed. I'm quite cranky about this and would like the First Nations to deport Albertans, Danielle Smith first.
Not only was Keegstra the mayor of Eckville, he taught social studies at the high school; his own Holocaust denying curriculum. Way beyond mere "statements", he was indoctrinating students.
I'm in my 7th decade & this has been going for most of my lifetime, pushed by political lackies in the easy & west post-Expo '67. People have died from it but we never seem to learn.
Mary Trump, Psychologist, and niece of Donald Trump:
"Many people thanked me for standing up to Donald. Some thought I was brave. While I appreciated that, I also dispute it."
"I am in this fight because it’s necessary. It has, from the beginning, seemed to be my responsibility. I felt it was an obligation because I was one of five people on the planet who could speak to the dangers of another Donald Trump term. It would have seemed cowardly for me not to accept that challenge. Not doing so would have been incomprehensible to me, so I did it happily."
"It wasn’t always easy, but I considered it an honor—not an act of bravery. There are many brave people in the history of [America] who suffered much and risked everything. I was acting from a place of comparative safety."
"We are living in uniquely dangerous times, which is why we all need to start showing up in different ways from what we might be used to—ways which might be well outside of our comfort zones."
"One of the reasons we’ve arrived at this treacherous point in our history is because it has been so difficult for many of us to comprehend what we're dealing with."
"For decades now, people on the left have been making an assumption about voters on the right—that for reasons we can’t fathom they continue to vote against their self-interests, but I think it’s more accurate to say that we often mistake what people's self-interests actually are."
"Because sometimes the self-interests of other people are incomprehensible to us—we find them unspeakable. We mistakenly believe that their self-interests align with our own. For example, like us, they want their children to do better than they did; that they want health care and child care and clean air and water."
"And, perhaps they do want those things, but they want other things more. They want white people to have more rights than minorities; they want to marginalize further those who are already marginalized; they don’t want to do better than such people, they simply want those people to do worse."
"Those are the self-interests of way too many Americans. We don't want to face that reality because it is a very difficult thing to face."
"In 2016, as Donald’s niece I took the results of the 2016 election very personally. First of all, it felt like 62 million people voted to turn this country into some version of my deeply dysfunctional and awful family; to give the worst possible person the most power, the most advantages, the most support, and allow him to run roughshod over much worthier people."
"What I take personally now as an American is that Donald Trump and the Republican Party—the party of fascism—are hellbent on taking away something that is extraordinarily precious to me and to everybody reading this: our democracy—our imperfect, striving-to-be-more-perfect democracy."
"We haven’t done enough to protect it, because we never understood what we needed to do to make it better."
"We are at something of a crossroads [now] and we have some choices to make. The first thing we need to do is look ourselves straight in the eyes and ask where we are, who we are, and what we're facing."
"I always believe there's hope. I wouldn't continue doing the work if I didn't. None of us would keep showing up and staying informed if we didn’t have hope. But we can't lie to ourselves...Right now, the people in power are the people who want fascism. We do ourselves no favors if we don't name it."
"The first thing we need to do, therefore, is oppose Republicans every step of the way. And that means showing up—showing up consistently, showing up constantly to throw sand in the gears, to shout them down, to make our voices heard."
"We cannot afford to continue to squander the few opportunities given to us. And, many Democrats in office fail to understand that what is at stake is so painfully clear."
"We need to figure out how we can be better, how we can be stronger, so that when we are in the position to do so, we can move from opposing the fascists to stopping them."
"Because if we can stop them—then and only then we can build. And notice: I didn’t say rebuild. We need to start from scratch. And that's another thing we can no longer delude ourselves about."
"Our institutions are failing us and one of the reasons that's the case is because the Democratic Party has convinced itself for far too long that our institutions did not need to be strengthened, they did not need to be protected."
"We failed to recognize what was coming, and we failed to create a counterbalance to the right's onslaughts that have been coming at us from every direction because of their vast media infrastructure, their phalanx of think tanks, their infiltration of higher education over the last 40 years."
"Some of us are so disconnected, so disenchanted, so disinterested that we don't even vote at all. And the non-voter is the largest voting bloc in this country: 80 million people just couldn't be bothered to show up, because they didn’t care or didn't understand or didn’t feel spoken to."
"Then there are the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024—many of them for the second or third time. I’m skeptical that none of them knew what they were voting for and I suspect a significant number of them got exactly what they wanted."
"...there are plenty of people who voted for Donald in 2024 who are in the 'finding out' phase of having 'fucked around'."
"...being a supporter of Donald Trump will not make you immune to the devastation he’s spreading."
"Let’s appeal to the self-interest of those people because it’s effective and we have a very easy case to make."
"It’s an easy case because the economy matters more than anything else to most people and there are massive amounts of indisputable data showing that Donald and his policies have been utterly disastrous for the economy—both here and globally."
"When they're worried that the right to due process is restricted to one class of people, they understand that even if they don’t care that an undocumented worker is illegally detained, disappeared, and incarcerated in a foreign gulag, they do understand that denying due process to one person, even somebody who’s not an American citizen, means that they themselves may no longer have due process."
"I absolutely believe that this is a fight we can win. This is a fight we will win because we, together, have the courage that is required."
"Let’s recognize who the enemy is, let’s call it what it is, and let’s understand that the only way forward—the only way through—is to be brave in ways we never thought we would have to be."
I taught at the University of Alberta in the 1990's. Two of my students went to Eckville to try to understand where Keegstra's authority came from as there was no public library. Their findings are worth repeating. While many locals kept Bibles, Keegsta had the biggest books in the village and referenced them in the school where he taught and in local public talks. The book was Mein Kamph, which was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930. By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages. What's worse than burning books is the ability to read but watching gigantic televisions instead. Literacy is doomed by aliteracy (can read but don't read), and the right wing has figured that out. Who needs truth when MAGA thinks for you?
After reading your post today Charlie and your emphasis on DENIAL two books came to mind.
Book #1
David Moscrop "Too Dumb for Democracy" 2019
“ When people try to bypass deliberative rationality—the kind where we treat one another as citizens, as agents worthy of engagement and respect—and (instead) drive straight into manipulation or exploitation to get what they want, they undermine the democratic process.
Compare that to when reasons are connected to deliberative rationality, when they form part of a process. When that happens we get good political decisions, trust, and legitimate outcomes”. (page 91)
I believe those who operate from a mindset of denial have difficulty being deliberatively rational as that would require a level of maturity and self-awareness that bullies don't possess. They would prefer a MY WAY or the highway approach or you could call it an Agenda.
Book #2
Industrial-Strength DENIAL:(2020) Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible from the Slave Trade to Climate Change written by Barbara Freeze an Environmental Attorney from Minnesota.
Chapter Contents cover over 100 years of history where profit came before health of citizens.
The Alternate Reality Crafted by the Slave Lobby
Radium, Risk and Responsibility
Carmakers Avoiding Blame for Highway Deaths
Bias, Tribalism, and Leaded Gasoline
CFC's, Ideology, and Manipulated Uncertainty
Tobacco's Mass Production of Denial
The Financial Crisis and a Culture of Exploitation
Fossil Fuels, Climate Denial and Distrust Building
Charlie, I hope you are planning a trip to Saskatchewan. You have many supporters here.
The Polish people felt uneasy that Hitler might attack them after what happened in March 1939 to Czechoslovakia.
Nobody expected Hitler to have the resources for another invasion so soon. His forces were concentrated in the southeast corner of Germany, already occupying another country, and not directly adjacent to Poland.
The Poles thought they were safe for now, but dug deep trenches along the German border, just in case he tried to attack on horseback.
On the first of September that same year, Hitler invaded Poland using tanks that had no problem crossing these trenches. Poland's government was caught unprepared. Poland fell in a month, and Poles had learned their lessons well back then.
Olga Lautman, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) talked with Zev Shalev about the 'Drums of War' that are beating very hard right now. The conversation was triggered by Putin's no show at the Ukrainian peace talks.
We are just behind a pivotal moment in history. We don't know exactly what will happen, because there are several timelines in how this can play out. But, their assessment is fairly spot on:
"Putin never intended to negotiate because he can't—his survival depends on continued war. The Europeans knew this, setting up talks as a final test before unleashing unprecedented sanctions. Trump's agreement to join sanctions if talks failed rings hollow—Europe is already moving without him."
"Olga’s Take: What's happening across Europe right now should alarm every American. Poland is converting to a full war economy, laying mines on its borders, and repositioning military assets. The former NATO chief just declared Trump's alliance sabotage so dangerous that Europe must form its own defense pact—NATO without America. This isn't contingency planning. This is preparation for imminent war."
"The intelligence assessment from the International Institute for Strategic Studies delivers a stark ultimatum: Any Ukrainian compromise guarantees Russian attack on the Baltics by 2027. Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia—all NATO members—face invasion in two and a half years if Putin claims any victory in Ukraine. This isn't speculation. It's strategic inevitability."
"Putin cannot stop this war without dying. Russia's economy now runs entirely on war production. Stopping means economic collapse and Putin's assassination—Russian leaders who show weakness get eliminated, period. Putin's calculation is simple: take Ukraine, then roll through the Baltics before a weakened NATO can respond."
"Ukrainians understand what Americans refuse to grasp. They're not fighting this war—they're fighting the next three wars. After centuries of Russian genocide and oppression, Ukrainians are willing to sacrifice this generation to secure their grandchildren's freedom. This multi-generational perspective escapes Trump's transactional worldview entirely."
To briefly explain: we are at a fork in the road where there is either global loss of freedom because of authoritism, and many people die through negligence and policing actions of dictators that goes on for many generations if not centuries.
Or, a global (maybe nuclear) war similar to world war II that has repercussions over the next seven years, after which global society begins to successfully rebuild later.
Either way, some of humanity will survive. But, life will be different.
The preparations of the warmongers happens anyway, in both scenarios. This cannot be stopped.
It's just a question of how bad it is, or when the war machinery gets activated: before or after they are ready to invade like Hitler did.
When bullies lose control of their plans, they accelerate their timetables before they lose everything.
That's what's happening now. We are calling them out before they are ready. And, in their weakened positions, they will be LESS destructive and easier to defeat.
Backing off will not stop this. It will only allow them to strengthen their positions, making their actions MORE destructive and a lot harder to defeat later.
Just as Poland prepared trenches to counter cavalry—only to face tanks—today’s war will be between military robotics and mankind. Right now, these robotic forces are not yet mass-produced. But, they do exist.
The Tesla Optimus Robot is able to grip and use hand weapons such as rifles and guns. And, its motors are able to give enough torque to move its 120 pound frame. A kick or arm strike from that thing will carry the same force if you get hit, or try to arm wrestle with it.
It's important to keep our Elbows UP, and our protests going.
I do not believe there are just these two options: war or loss of freedom.
I believe there's a third.
The world CAN stand UNITED and arrest these criminals before they do any damage. It will take our brightest military strategists to arrange it.
Meanwhile, we can play our role to keep these maniacs off balance so they don't have time to prepare. And, we can make our voices heard to show there are a lot more of us than there are of them, allowing our global governments do the expert jobs.
Keep the Tesla boycotts going. Trump's actions have already wiped out half of Musk's wealth. Without funding, he can't mass-produce an army of robots—unless people buy them for him. Do not buy one, no matter how cheap or appealing the deal is. Wait until the crisis is over.
And, remember. If you do "own" one, its not under your control. Each robot has a local on board AI that is directed by a large centralized AI in a datacenter over the starlink satellites. Musk can seize control over all of them whenever he wants, REGARDLESS of who or what owns them.
🍁 Elbows UP! 🏒
Don't get caught in a Poilivere
Poilivere: when you get tangled in the volleyball net
You’ve well articulated why some of us have been calling it AlberDUH for several decades now, Charlie, and applauded the arrival of ALBERTA VIEWS magazine almost 30 years ago which is still about the only centrist media source produced in this province.
Maple MAGA and Alberta Conservatives are working a scam on us! They want us off balance and scared of responding publically to their tactics. For the last few decades they have protrayed themselves and by location us, as victums of the EVIL Feds and Eastern powers. Take a closer look at who leads their movement, political actors who chum around with far-right wing USA organizations, the NRA, anti-vacers, racists and people who are just plain criminals.
It is time to end our polite rebuff of their movement and raise our voices in public to show the uninformed the truth behind the UCP and Maple MAGA. Use your voice, vote and intellect to reject them. Remember they rely on your fear and silence to win their victory.
It is scary to be a Canadian living Alberta and “invested” in Alberta (children, granchildren, owning a home (that may soon have low value, so I can’t move elsewhere 😵💫)). I can’t “pick up stakes” and move elsewhere. Here I am in my early 60s thinking I’d be set for retirement. Now my home may be at risk, my CPP (upon which my pension relies) at risk, my kids will undoubtedly leave me behind. It makes me sad, angry, confused. I never asked for this, voted for this. I’ve worked hard all my life and contributing to making Canada better. But will I be a Canadian for much longer if I can’t leave?
Nobody in this province seems to look at the recent history of BREXIT and internalize that the if the UK’s 60+ million people watched its economy slide after an emotionally-charged decision driven by a minority, Alberta doesn’t have a hope of coming out of this both independent and strong.
If Albertans could commercialize whine as efficiently as we do oil, we’d have a new leading export by next Thursday.
Although extremely upset to be living in this time of monsters, I take reassurance by the pushback exemplified by the indigenous people. Theirs is a history of frequent betrayals and their resilience is a blazing light against the current haze engulfing Alberta.
Yves Blanchette says it best "Quebec sovereignty is about a culture and a nation"; Alberta's - what is the culture basis of oil and gas?" Greed has never been a national rallying cry.
It is blatantly insulting to compare Albertan's to Ottawa's version holocaust victims.
The population of Gaza has quadrupled during the last forty years - an odd sort of genocide methinks. If Hamas gave up their Jewish captives and went into exile the war would be over. Starvation was a weapon of war the allies used on Japan during WWII on a scale that dwarfs the siege of Gaza. The Jewish holocaust and Ukrainian holodomor were genocides which the author mendaciously compares to the Gaza war. Gaza is suffering causalities of war including collateral civilian casualties of a war that they started and Israel will finish.
Why is this separation still a thing? The First Nations own the land - case closed. I'm quite cranky about this and would like the First Nations to deport Albertans, Danielle Smith first.
Elbows Up!
Not only was Keegstra the mayor of Eckville, he taught social studies at the high school; his own Holocaust denying curriculum. Way beyond mere "statements", he was indoctrinating students.
I'm in my 7th decade & this has been going for most of my lifetime, pushed by political lackies in the easy & west post-Expo '67. People have died from it but we never seem to learn.
Right. First they came for the Albertans.
Mary Trump, Psychologist, and niece of Donald Trump:
"Many people thanked me for standing up to Donald. Some thought I was brave. While I appreciated that, I also dispute it."
"I am in this fight because it’s necessary. It has, from the beginning, seemed to be my responsibility. I felt it was an obligation because I was one of five people on the planet who could speak to the dangers of another Donald Trump term. It would have seemed cowardly for me not to accept that challenge. Not doing so would have been incomprehensible to me, so I did it happily."
"It wasn’t always easy, but I considered it an honor—not an act of bravery. There are many brave people in the history of [America] who suffered much and risked everything. I was acting from a place of comparative safety."
"We are living in uniquely dangerous times, which is why we all need to start showing up in different ways from what we might be used to—ways which might be well outside of our comfort zones."
"One of the reasons we’ve arrived at this treacherous point in our history is because it has been so difficult for many of us to comprehend what we're dealing with."
"For decades now, people on the left have been making an assumption about voters on the right—that for reasons we can’t fathom they continue to vote against their self-interests, but I think it’s more accurate to say that we often mistake what people's self-interests actually are."
"Because sometimes the self-interests of other people are incomprehensible to us—we find them unspeakable. We mistakenly believe that their self-interests align with our own. For example, like us, they want their children to do better than they did; that they want health care and child care and clean air and water."
"And, perhaps they do want those things, but they want other things more. They want white people to have more rights than minorities; they want to marginalize further those who are already marginalized; they don’t want to do better than such people, they simply want those people to do worse."
"Those are the self-interests of way too many Americans. We don't want to face that reality because it is a very difficult thing to face."
"In 2016, as Donald’s niece I took the results of the 2016 election very personally. First of all, it felt like 62 million people voted to turn this country into some version of my deeply dysfunctional and awful family; to give the worst possible person the most power, the most advantages, the most support, and allow him to run roughshod over much worthier people."
"What I take personally now as an American is that Donald Trump and the Republican Party—the party of fascism—are hellbent on taking away something that is extraordinarily precious to me and to everybody reading this: our democracy—our imperfect, striving-to-be-more-perfect democracy."
"We haven’t done enough to protect it, because we never understood what we needed to do to make it better."
"We are at something of a crossroads [now] and we have some choices to make. The first thing we need to do is look ourselves straight in the eyes and ask where we are, who we are, and what we're facing."
"I always believe there's hope. I wouldn't continue doing the work if I didn't. None of us would keep showing up and staying informed if we didn’t have hope. But we can't lie to ourselves...Right now, the people in power are the people who want fascism. We do ourselves no favors if we don't name it."
"The first thing we need to do, therefore, is oppose Republicans every step of the way. And that means showing up—showing up consistently, showing up constantly to throw sand in the gears, to shout them down, to make our voices heard."
"We cannot afford to continue to squander the few opportunities given to us. And, many Democrats in office fail to understand that what is at stake is so painfully clear."
"We need to figure out how we can be better, how we can be stronger, so that when we are in the position to do so, we can move from opposing the fascists to stopping them."
"Because if we can stop them—then and only then we can build. And notice: I didn’t say rebuild. We need to start from scratch. And that's another thing we can no longer delude ourselves about."
"Our institutions are failing us and one of the reasons that's the case is because the Democratic Party has convinced itself for far too long that our institutions did not need to be strengthened, they did not need to be protected."
"We failed to recognize what was coming, and we failed to create a counterbalance to the right's onslaughts that have been coming at us from every direction because of their vast media infrastructure, their phalanx of think tanks, their infiltration of higher education over the last 40 years."
"Some of us are so disconnected, so disenchanted, so disinterested that we don't even vote at all. And the non-voter is the largest voting bloc in this country: 80 million people just couldn't be bothered to show up, because they didn’t care or didn't understand or didn’t feel spoken to."
"Then there are the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024—many of them for the second or third time. I’m skeptical that none of them knew what they were voting for and I suspect a significant number of them got exactly what they wanted."
"...there are plenty of people who voted for Donald in 2024 who are in the 'finding out' phase of having 'fucked around'."
"...being a supporter of Donald Trump will not make you immune to the devastation he’s spreading."
"Let’s appeal to the self-interest of those people because it’s effective and we have a very easy case to make."
"It’s an easy case because the economy matters more than anything else to most people and there are massive amounts of indisputable data showing that Donald and his policies have been utterly disastrous for the economy—both here and globally."
"When they're worried that the right to due process is restricted to one class of people, they understand that even if they don’t care that an undocumented worker is illegally detained, disappeared, and incarcerated in a foreign gulag, they do understand that denying due process to one person, even somebody who’s not an American citizen, means that they themselves may no longer have due process."
"I absolutely believe that this is a fight we can win. This is a fight we will win because we, together, have the courage that is required."
"Let’s recognize who the enemy is, let’s call it what it is, and let’s understand that the only way forward—the only way through—is to be brave in ways we never thought we would have to be."
Now Is Our Time
https://open.substack.com/pub/marytrump/p/now-is-our-time
Stay united & stay strong, Canada!
Look south to us in the usa for the consequences of NOT FIGHTING PEACEFULLY, LOUDLY, AND CONTINUOUSLY
I taught at the University of Alberta in the 1990's. Two of my students went to Eckville to try to understand where Keegstra's authority came from as there was no public library. Their findings are worth repeating. While many locals kept Bibles, Keegsta had the biggest books in the village and referenced them in the school where he taught and in local public talks. The book was Mein Kamph, which was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930. By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages. What's worse than burning books is the ability to read but watching gigantic televisions instead. Literacy is doomed by aliteracy (can read but don't read), and the right wing has figured that out. Who needs truth when MAGA thinks for you?
The man who put the Eck in Eckville. F Keegstra and his political spawn.
Hello Charlie,
After reading your post today Charlie and your emphasis on DENIAL two books came to mind.
Book #1
David Moscrop "Too Dumb for Democracy" 2019
“ When people try to bypass deliberative rationality—the kind where we treat one another as citizens, as agents worthy of engagement and respect—and (instead) drive straight into manipulation or exploitation to get what they want, they undermine the democratic process.
Compare that to when reasons are connected to deliberative rationality, when they form part of a process. When that happens we get good political decisions, trust, and legitimate outcomes”. (page 91)
I believe those who operate from a mindset of denial have difficulty being deliberatively rational as that would require a level of maturity and self-awareness that bullies don't possess. They would prefer a MY WAY or the highway approach or you could call it an Agenda.
Book #2
Industrial-Strength DENIAL:(2020) Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible from the Slave Trade to Climate Change written by Barbara Freeze an Environmental Attorney from Minnesota.
Chapter Contents cover over 100 years of history where profit came before health of citizens.
The Alternate Reality Crafted by the Slave Lobby
Radium, Risk and Responsibility
Carmakers Avoiding Blame for Highway Deaths
Bias, Tribalism, and Leaded Gasoline
CFC's, Ideology, and Manipulated Uncertainty
Tobacco's Mass Production of Denial
The Financial Crisis and a Culture of Exploitation
Fossil Fuels, Climate Denial and Distrust Building
Charlie, I hope you are planning a trip to Saskatchewan. You have many supporters here.
Just let us know how we can help you.
Have a good day everybody and elbows up !!
The Polish people felt uneasy that Hitler might attack them after what happened in March 1939 to Czechoslovakia.
Nobody expected Hitler to have the resources for another invasion so soon. His forces were concentrated in the southeast corner of Germany, already occupying another country, and not directly adjacent to Poland.
The Poles thought they were safe for now, but dug deep trenches along the German border, just in case he tried to attack on horseback.
On the first of September that same year, Hitler invaded Poland using tanks that had no problem crossing these trenches. Poland's government was caught unprepared. Poland fell in a month, and Poles had learned their lessons well back then.
Olga Lautman, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) talked with Zev Shalev about the 'Drums of War' that are beating very hard right now. The conversation was triggered by Putin's no show at the Ukrainian peace talks.
We are just behind a pivotal moment in history. We don't know exactly what will happen, because there are several timelines in how this can play out. But, their assessment is fairly spot on:
"Putin never intended to negotiate because he can't—his survival depends on continued war. The Europeans knew this, setting up talks as a final test before unleashing unprecedented sanctions. Trump's agreement to join sanctions if talks failed rings hollow—Europe is already moving without him."
"Olga’s Take: What's happening across Europe right now should alarm every American. Poland is converting to a full war economy, laying mines on its borders, and repositioning military assets. The former NATO chief just declared Trump's alliance sabotage so dangerous that Europe must form its own defense pact—NATO without America. This isn't contingency planning. This is preparation for imminent war."
"The intelligence assessment from the International Institute for Strategic Studies delivers a stark ultimatum: Any Ukrainian compromise guarantees Russian attack on the Baltics by 2027. Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia—all NATO members—face invasion in two and a half years if Putin claims any victory in Ukraine. This isn't speculation. It's strategic inevitability."
"Putin cannot stop this war without dying. Russia's economy now runs entirely on war production. Stopping means economic collapse and Putin's assassination—Russian leaders who show weakness get eliminated, period. Putin's calculation is simple: take Ukraine, then roll through the Baltics before a weakened NATO can respond."
"Ukrainians understand what Americans refuse to grasp. They're not fighting this war—they're fighting the next three wars. After centuries of Russian genocide and oppression, Ukrainians are willing to sacrifice this generation to secure their grandchildren's freedom. This multi-generational perspective escapes Trump's transactional worldview entirely."
To watch the entire interview:
https://open.substack.com/pub/narativ/p/putins-no-show-sets-stage-for-major
Olga's substack:
https://olgalautman.substack.com/
To briefly explain: we are at a fork in the road where there is either global loss of freedom because of authoritism, and many people die through negligence and policing actions of dictators that goes on for many generations if not centuries.
Or, a global (maybe nuclear) war similar to world war II that has repercussions over the next seven years, after which global society begins to successfully rebuild later.
Either way, some of humanity will survive. But, life will be different.
The preparations of the warmongers happens anyway, in both scenarios. This cannot be stopped.
It's just a question of how bad it is, or when the war machinery gets activated: before or after they are ready to invade like Hitler did.
When bullies lose control of their plans, they accelerate their timetables before they lose everything.
That's what's happening now. We are calling them out before they are ready. And, in their weakened positions, they will be LESS destructive and easier to defeat.
Backing off will not stop this. It will only allow them to strengthen their positions, making their actions MORE destructive and a lot harder to defeat later.
Just as Poland prepared trenches to counter cavalry—only to face tanks—today’s war will be between military robotics and mankind. Right now, these robotic forces are not yet mass-produced. But, they do exist.
The Tesla Optimus Robot is able to grip and use hand weapons such as rifles and guns. And, its motors are able to give enough torque to move its 120 pound frame. A kick or arm strike from that thing will carry the same force if you get hit, or try to arm wrestle with it.
Tesla Bot: This Is Actually Crazy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRCkj4dDEao
It's important to keep our Elbows UP, and our protests going.
I do not believe there are just these two options: war or loss of freedom.
I believe there's a third.
The world CAN stand UNITED and arrest these criminals before they do any damage. It will take our brightest military strategists to arrange it.
Meanwhile, we can play our role to keep these maniacs off balance so they don't have time to prepare. And, we can make our voices heard to show there are a lot more of us than there are of them, allowing our global governments do the expert jobs.
Keep the Tesla boycotts going. Trump's actions have already wiped out half of Musk's wealth. Without funding, he can't mass-produce an army of robots—unless people buy them for him. Do not buy one, no matter how cheap or appealing the deal is. Wait until the crisis is over.
And, remember. If you do "own" one, its not under your control. Each robot has a local on board AI that is directed by a large centralized AI in a datacenter over the starlink satellites. Musk can seize control over all of them whenever he wants, REGARDLESS of who or what owns them.
🍁 Elbows UP! 🏒
Don't get caught in a Poilivere
Poilivere: when you get tangled in the volleyball net
You’ve well articulated why some of us have been calling it AlberDUH for several decades now, Charlie, and applauded the arrival of ALBERTA VIEWS magazine almost 30 years ago which is still about the only centrist media source produced in this province.