Resistance (politics)

 

The photo is the most recent addition to my ko-fi shop, but since the current president of the US has vowed to apply a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Canada to the US, nothing has sold.  In fact I have been encouraging USians to *not* buy from Canada.  That US tariff does not go to Canada, but is a tax on its own citizens and goes into...no one knows really, given the chaos artists currently stomping their way through the US administration, cutting anything that appears to help a citizen facing a crisis.

Since most of my sales come from the US, I am left wondering why I bother having a sales site.  But I just paid the renewal fee in January, right before the president dropped his 'strategy' - which falls squarely in the aggressive end of the spectrum.  

I had one USian chastise me because the president 'only made a suggestion, Canada was free to turn it down'.  Um, tell me you don't understand the term 'annexation' without...

First of all, 'annexation' of a foreign country is never 'benign'.  It is a threat, and from a country with 10 times the population and magnitudes more for their military budget, it is a very distinct threat.

According to my dictionary, to annex is to take possession without right.  This is the word the president himself is using, but as usual, the man who does not understand boundaries is pressing onwards, obviously assuming that he will waltz over the border and take whatever he wants, without regard to natural protections, human protections, and the fact that we are a separate sovereign country, and have no desire to become the 51st 'state'.  Anyone who assumes that Canadians will be able to vote in the US, have not been paying attention.  Or they need to ask what being a protectorate of the US like Puerto Rico is like.  (And just the other day, the president vowed to 'redraw the US/Canada border'.  Um, no.)

I do not 'blame' the ordinary US citizen for this mess.  The alt right has been laying plans since Regan to take over democracy and apply - well there are a number of terms, choose one.  The thing is, the more we 'bow' to the demands of authoritarians, the fewer rights we will have.  To bend to obviously threatening statements, means letting their statements remain in effect.  

So the current prime minister, given that he is already stepping away from the PMO, has been given more freedom to speak clearly and plainly.  And I am 100% supportive of the steps of the Canadian government to not cave in to the bully.  What that means, however, is that the likes of Musk will try even harder to 'break' Canada.  There any number of peoples around the world who understand what it is like to poke the beaver and discover the bear.  

Elbows Up.