Light Matter
George Takei 
🏳️🌈🖖🏽Never back down, never go along with authoritarians.
Casper 👻@georgetakei
#BuyCanadianByeAmerican
Dying World 🔥🌎🔥@georgetakei And please remember it's not about tariffs. This is in response to the threat against Canadian sovereignty. I feel many Americans miss that rather big point
Epistomai@DyingWorld @georgetakei because the dictator's rethoric keeps saying that. like in Russia
Play Ball and Fight FascistsShame we don't seem capable of that in the US.
Canadian Crone
François @JuraI never thought USians could be so submissive. Strange times.
derptron@FrancoisPrague @georgetakei We've always longed for the boot. We have "rights", but good luck actually exercising them. As someone who grew up with parents with religious views that said I don't salute the flag...I got to learn first had just how obedient and cowed the American spirit really is. Go burn a flag in protest and someone may actually shoot you.
That's just 90% of the populace. Then a good 40% are just insane.
We're a bunch of religious fanatics that are also massive idolators.
Stephen Elliott~Buckley@crazyeddie @FrancoisPrague @georgetakei
And 54% of adult Americans read at the grade 6 level and below
So literacy is low, but also the critical thinking levels that require deeper literacy
Thanks Reagan
@Maxfieldripken @FrancoisPrague @georgetakei I remember they taught us reading comprehension for like a week in elementary school and being like, "IT LITERALLY SAYS...AND THAT IS WHAT THE TEACHER IS ASKING..." and fuck if it wasn't a lost cause. Like 3 of us got it and the rest decided the teacher was stupid or something. I never forgot it. So far as I can tell, those people did not change when they grew up.
@crazyeddie @FrancoisPrague @georgetakei
Yes, and it actually continues so much. Like I taught high school English for a very long time in suburban Vancouver. It was constantly a process of encouraging curiosity, creating a safe space for kids to challenge assumptions of stuff they thought they knew, the desire to understand more, and the humility to know that you don't know everything. Teenagers have a hard time with humility anyway. But it's doable.
Robin Barton@crazyeddie @FrancoisPrague @georgetakei I remember reading a book about liberal democracies and a point the author made was that legally americans had many more rights that other democracies but the social atmosphere meant that they were not allowed to articulate those rights
M Berberich
Andrew GeczyThat's a lie.
Their numbers have not skyrocketed, Ontario overwhelmingly voted conservative, literally fucking over our education, healthcare, and disabled for more years of corruption and selling off our national landmarks for corporate greed
Our liberal PM was bullied into resigning, and the person who replaced him immediately conceded to conservative agendas and axed the carbon tax... and the Carbon rebate that the poor rely on
WE'RE FUCKED IN CANADA. And Mark Carney is a conservative liar
@AndrewGeczy Part of this is to push everything hard to the right. I'm hoping I still get to keep my country when it's over and can rebuild, but probably not. Everyone is going to feel these effects though. The whole world is sliding to the right. Hopefully, watching America drown in right wing nonsense will put some sense in people, but it's not happening here and we're not a whole lot different from y'all.
I've been waiting my whole life for the human race to get smarter. It just won't.
Wowwww, not so much a lie
Federally the Liberal numbers have gone up, but it was starting with Trudeau's resignation announcement
The OP was about the country, not various hyper conservative regions
Weirdly, Trudeau's tough stance since then has likely been part of what improved the party's polling numbers
Everyone just let themselves get brainwashed by conservative media and propaganda.
TC Won't Give In To LiesYes, people are desperate for the Democrats to fight back
...and what we get is #Schumer and just enough other complicit fools to destroy us all.
volkris@TCatInReality I don't think voting against continuing the operations of the US government is the salvation from self-destruction that you think it is...
There are plenty of ways to vote to keep the government funded. This was a vote to slash funding for whole swathes of the gov while funding others.
IMO, Dems had no reason to be complicit in that.
@TCatInReality No, there aren't plenty of ways to keep the government funded.
There is a single legal way. Congress votes to appropriate money. Other than that one specific way, there is no other way.
This was not a vote to slash funding. That is literally false, that is factually not what this was a vote for.
You're off talking about things that just aren't true. You're spreading misinformation here. And anyone with a basic knowledge of how the US government functions would know better than to believe this kind of nonsense.
No, what you're saying is not true, it's not how the federal government works and it never has been, even if certain politicians are promoting that story for political gain and certain media outfits are getting clicks from putting that kind of story out.
But it's not factual.
There are plenty of bills Congress could pass - maybe a clean CR, or a bill that is actually negotiated with Dems. Schumer didn't hold out for either. That's what I meant.
The budget bill they voted to proceed with has several budget line items reset to $0. It's true, check it out. That's what I meant about slashing gov.
And technical, this was a vote for cloture (a vote to have a vote). IMO, it's pendandic to say I'm lying what the vote was about.
@TCatInReality it wasn't up to Schumer, though. He's not the king of the Senate. He's just one of 100 senators.
We seriously need to stop letting senators use majority and minority leaders as scapegoats for their own positions.
It wasn't up to Schumer to hold out or not. It was up to every single Senator to decide whether to shut down government and accept that blame, and it's not crazy that they didn't want to do that.
And yes, technically this was a vote for cloture. I wasn't going to bring that up, but now that you mention it, that just proves that it wasn't what you said.
I don't have the time or interest to discuss the role of party unity or party leadership. Sure, sometime people break with the party.
But in this case Schumer *led* on Dems voting with the GOP. He absolutely gets a larger part of the blame, IMO.
As for the difference between voting for cloture vs voting for the budget, go ahead - be pendantic.
Have a good day.
@TCatInReality to me that comes across as saying you don't have the time or interest to discuss how the world actually works, how the US system actually functions in reality. And I think that's a big problem.
And yeah I see that a whole lot on the Republican side. I see Republicans constantly chirping about being part of the team when really, that promotes a false understanding of how all of this works, it buys into this very antisocial norm about how the US system of government is set up.
If you don't have the time or interest in speaking back against these norms that do such a grave disservice to the democratic principles underlying the US system of government, well, what's the point then?
I would encourage you not to play their game. I would encourage you to prioritize the interest in speaking out against this misframing about how the world works.
Parties formed almost immediately on the nation's founding and they are found in parliaments around the world. They exist because voting blocs work amazingly well. And a voting bloc uses party leaders and discipline.
You might see it differently. But I think hundreds of years in hundreds of countries shows this is a very realistic view how politics works.
That's why I'm not interested in discussing further. That and you repeatedly called me a liar. I'm done.
It's really important to realize that different forms of government, the US representative system versus parliamentary systems in particular, have fundamentally different mechanisms when it comes to voting, when it comes to what they present to voters, so if you lump them all together you're missing vital differences between how those different systems work.
In many parliamentary systems the parties are put first as fundamental elements, but in stark contrast, in the US system parties form to market to voters, as voters, voting in their districts for their particular representatives, form the fundamental movers.
The two systems are fundamentally opposite. And the difference is so important to keep in mind as you talk about the realities of the US system. The contrast with parliamentary systems is not only academic but it is fundamental and it is practically strategically vital to recognize.
It does nobody any good to ignore the way the US system actually works, especially in contrast with parliamentary systems. And anyone who's not interested in that distinction just isn't really interested in facing realities of where we are in the world today.
Put it a different way: in the US system, in contrast with so many other systems around the globe, I vote for specific representatives, not a party. That is how the US system works, very intentionally.
If you start focusing on party instead of the actual representatives that we are supposed to be holding personally accountable then you excuse those personally accountable Representatives from accountability, directly undermining the democratic structure of the US system.
If you don't like that some legislation passed, don't blame the party, yell at your representative to oppose it. It doesn't matter one bit what the party says because your representatives were hired by you to do the right thing, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the party.
The US system is based on relationships between voters and individual Representatives, not parties. The more you promote this idea of parties being central the more you shield those representatives from accountability.
Yes, the US does not have a parliamentary system. That makes it different. Whether for better or for worse. But it's what we have, so try not to undermine it so much.
Izzy@georgetakei Never give up! Never surrender!
Sorry George, wrong movie, I know. But fits too well. Thanks for not giving up! Keep going, LLAP! 🖖
Kevin RussellIt helps that Canada has an economy larger than Russia. And is the primary customer to the United States. First customer. Main buyer of US exports.
The average steel product bought or sold in the US has crossed the border a dozen times, while being made.
Saying trump invasion tariffs will harm the Canadian Auto Industry is truer without the "Canadian"
Where states each export to the most
Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶@kevinrns @PaulNickson @georgetakei
And now I want to know what and why Utah exports so much to the UK.
And now I want to know what and why Utah exports so much to the UK.
SpaceLifeForm
Cluster Fcku@georgetakei because people know what's right, across the world! It's just sometimes very inconvenient for the autocrats and any politicians who pander to them.
@georgetakei they were also set to lose the elections so it was absolutely in their political interest to do so