Why is populism perceived to be a bad thing? Is it because it rises up in response to inequality of opportunity? That should be a good thing, drawing attention to that core problem. I don't understand why populism seems to be branded as racist etc when it is precisely the opposite. Is that because those in control of the narrative are threatened by being exposed as being exactly those things themselves? The time honoured liberal premise of freedom of speech has been trampled by the current "acceptable" narrative that completely controls the government and elitist social media. Pointing that out by the populists is a bad thing?
It's difficult to judge author's thesis using nothing more than a brief dialogue with Tara, but the absence of a clear definition of "populism" is not encouraging. I'm reminded of an old joke that my grandfather would tell me when I was a boy: What's the difference between a (economic) recession and a depression? Answer: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job. With that in mind, may I suggest that the best working definition of a "populist" is anyone who is not significantly tied into the government gravy train for their income and welfare--truckers, for example. Likewise, anyone who is "anti-populist" can reliably count on a consistent government job and a government pension. This includes politicians, all manner of government workers and bureaucrats, and, to a lesser but still significant degree, those who work for "private" industries that are heavily subsidized by the government or otherwise protected monopolies by government fiat (e.g. healthcare workers, CBC journalists, and college professors who spend their time writing about populism). The real source of today's anguish and civil strife is a function of this government-imposed disparity. Ironically, the solution proposed by the authors is to double-down on that approach with no regard for the economic consequences of such proposals--hence huge government deficits. For example, from the article author summarizes the solution thusly: "So, it’s about government intervention to equalize opportunity, not to equalize outcomes, and simultaneously to support a fair competitive market economy that rewards people according to contribution and productivity." I'm guessing that by "equalizing outcomes" and focusing on "contribution and productivity" author is not proposing that we eliminate government jobs and subsidies--just a guess. My recommendation would be to leave this book on the shelf, and instead pickup and read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." Alternatively, one could reflect upon Russian Foreign Secretary Lavrov's observation that the West (actually, Europe in particular, but the West more generally, IMO) is going the way of the old, defunct, Soviet Union. As someone who grew up through that hell, he would know.
I think most of the politicians know what's going on but they won't tell the journalists or the academics. There is an organized take down of the western societies. They want to save our energy resources for the descendants of the current elite, so they must convince us that we should no longer use energy and yes preferably eat bugs to really cut down on costs. There might be new high tech energy sources to pre-empt this economic take down of the west, but first they want the misery they inflict to help bring in the iron fist control they want. The Bible warns about taking a (QR code) to buy and sell, but thankfully our media and academics are past all that religious stuff.
Jewel, I have a great deal of difficulty with those [I am not saying at all that includes you!] who argue that there is a worldwide WEF agenda and that our politicians are subject to WEF control. Quite frankly, our political class is full of leaks, as is the political class of much of the western world. Even more than leaks, our political class is subject to abject incompetence. To think that they could secretly organize a conspiracy when they couldn't even deal with some recalcitrant (but otherwise law-abiding) truckers is foolish and incomprehensible.
Now, having said all of that, I absolutely accept that there is a "leftish" impulse that is popular and that the WEF endorses and provides "big ideas" to that impulse but to say that the WEF is a "successful" conspiracy - or even a conspiracy at all! - absolutely doesn't work for me.
You are right [in my opinion, at least], that there is a "WEF agenda" but that is simply the (ultimately stupid - remember, my opinion!) "big idea" of this time and place. How long that stupid big idea will be popular and what will replace it I don't know. And, of course, our worsers - not at all our betters! - are egged on by the mainstream media and academics. As to the ignorance of them all, well, I would call them all ignorant, period. Not because of their opinions but their incredibly obtuse inability to see that there are other perspectives which have varying degrees of validity which should be the basis for discussion, not vituperation.
What I DO know is that the current idiocy will change; to what degree and in what direction I cannot predict; it might even become more extreme in the same general direction. What I also DO know is that the current level of mass communication can make populist or anti-populist movements happen more quickly which is perhaps a good or a not so good thing. That is something that I DO NOT know.
Jewel, I - somewhat - agree and - somewhat - disagree with your point.
I quite accept that Schwab said what you say he said. Yup. Agreed.
But, so what? To say that they have "infiltrated" governments is simply another way of saying that they have convinced "our worsers" that the WEF has the "real good idea" of our time. But then we already knew that the government is filled with the "useful idiots" [a phrase from a time when there really was a conspiracy] who have drank the WEF KoolAid.
I simply do not accept that Klaus and his acolytes can control things. They come up with all the looney ideas and sell those ideas as being "good" when those ideas are awful but that doesn't mean that they control anything. We, the citizens have the control - if we choose to exercise that control.
Yup, he wrote a book and did endorse the "Great Reset" but then our politicians have already openly said that they believe in that. What we have here is a group of people - government, academia, media, a lot of the population, etc. - who simply have adopted a goofy economic idea but that doesn't make it a conspiracy; it simply makes it stupid.
As near as I can tell, a conspiracy is a hidden thing, something to which one adheres but denies believing unless and until the hidden idea can be sprung on an unsuspecting public, government, etc. These jokers are out front.
Indeed, what’s so bad about populism? You hit the nail if the head that it is a threat to exposing and breaking up the establishment’s narrative and thus their power and control systems. How did “power to the people” become such a corrosive and suspect concept?
Patryce, to put it somewhat differently if populism is simply a way of expressing the opinion of a group of citizens, why on earth could that be viewed as negative unless one is trying to disallow those citizens to express their completely legal opinions? Allowing citizens to express their completely legal political opinions is essential in a democracy.
Populism would seem to be a form of raw democracy, and the more bureaucratic minded folks want a more boring and stultified existence, where they shine. The truckers coloured outside of the lines, and you can't have that. Never mind that we've had 2 years of a genocide against an unsuspecting population, hidden by an out of touch media.
Very interesting and timely interview. But they miscall it with respect to
the convoy, because they don’t understand the issues and that the federal government hasn’t lifted a single discriminatory rule that fuelled the revolt. Then the Lib/NDPers put a nail in their coffin by evoking the Emergencies Act, something that will always be on their record. This will be the big factor in the next election.
Shocking to see people with serious economic backgrounds advocate capital gains taxes on a principle residence. It's not only unpopular, it is economically illiterate.
Yes, the rapid rise in housing valuations has created a strata of the population that is benefiting in terms of nominal values, and leaving other stratas out of that largely ephemeral benefit. But this is a historical development largely created by government ineptitude. It will naturally end as housing is now so priced out of the reach of many that future rapid gains are very unlikely. It was a mess created by rock-bottom interest rates that drove credit expansion. The answer is not to now punish those who sell into a frothy market and thus become millionaires, especially since for most their only option is to buy back into that same frothy market, with no net gain. The solution is to normalize interest rates. House prices will come down, as few people could afford today's prices at higher interest rates.
With a capital gains tax on homes, you are also punishing people who do sell and then need their equity to rent after retirement. (Unlike those with public pensions who never have to worry about that reality as they cry out for fairness.) The irony is galling.
Capital gains tax on principle family residences will only increase the feeling of disenfranchisement in the working class. Instead why not penalize foreign ownership of Canadian residences since (as Jewel mentions below) foreign speculation in our housing markets is driving prices and putting home ownership out of reach of many Canadians.
‘The failure of virtually every human endeavor begins with the inability or unwillingness to grasp and act upon reality.’
This is a BS article extracted from the musings of two ivory tower academics so profoundly disconnected from the world around them it beggars the imagination. Not surprisingly, they got NOTHING right. ‘Populism’ is simple to explain. It is the rising collective awareness of the public that they are being played by the hypocrites and kleptocrats who rule them. There is an increasing understanding that tyrannical governments are desperate to retain their hold on power, and to do so requires deflecting public attention away from their machinations and redirecting to deliberately engineered issues designed to amplify the distinctions of race, class, gender and sexual preference, etc., thus turning the groups against each other. The tools of tyrants are propaganda, using the cheerful liars in MSM, and the carefully crafted distribution of money and ‘privilege’ to select groups at the expense of others. ‘Populism’ takes off when the warring parties realize they all have something in common - they are ALL being impoverished by a corrupt system - and thus they all have a common enemy.
As for the issue of immigration, the authors again miss this, not by a mile but by several astronomical units. While there are different drivers that vary by country, in the US, the leftist democrat administration has chosen to flood the country with Mexicans and South Americans by the millions, with the intent of constructing a permanent, irreversible voting bloc. This cynical, unlawful, brazen campaign is designed to deny conservative voters ANY influence in their futures. Their resentment is NOT driven by class envy or fear of losing a job they didn’t want in the first place. It is the transparently corrupt end game of an immoral government, and the folks are increasingly on to it.
There is much more to be said, but this is a comment section and not a repository for personal treatises. I conclude my diatribe with this: The article reflects the typical Marxist academic world view, which sees all things through the lens of class and economic conflict, neglecting the overarching CAUSE of conflict - corrupt government and its unrelenting pursuit of power and control absent any moral or ethical boundaries.
The academic world view seems to be 'if only we could get the process right, solidified and etched in stone - then all problems would resolve'. But corruption can work around or within any system. The only defense against it is the bravery of the common person to take on the corrupt, hopefully with enough others doing the same. This time, this era is no time for ivory towers.
Exactly, and I urge Tara to go beyond ivory tower thinking and perspectives in these offerings. I greatly appreciate scholarly thought, but we need to hear from innovative thinkers and activists from outside establishment structures, people who are boldly confronting these issues in a head-on human way, not just regurgitating intellectual analyses.
Jewel, an interesting point. I find that Tara's work is, well, interesting.
I approach my reading from a slightly conservative / libertarian perspective insofar as I think that, for the most part, the government should simply stay our of things. Of course, there are exceptions (whoops! I just betrayed my principles!) but those exceptions should remain small and oriented to the supply of essential services (of which some folks keep trying expand the definitions - doggone it!!) and keeping large organizations (private and public) honest and humble (a real chore, those two tasks).
Yes, I agree that many feel that they have been censored and silenced by mainstream media. Whether that is or is not actually so, many folks do feel that way. And, yes, we do need to have someone who will try to keep on that treadmill tilting at those windmills for us. [Like the mixed metaphors?]
Tara, I'm interested in academic views...but not to the exclusion of the real world concerns. Professional learners too often live in a world devoid of common, day-to-day issues--exposure to unemployment, inadequate income, inaccessibility to thoughtful dialogue.
I'd welcome your attention to some less-ethereal thinking. For example:
The invocation of the Emergency Act highlighted the ability of the federal government to, retroactively and unilaterally, declare a donation as an "emergency" worthy of frozen bank accounts. This may have imposed a significant (?) chill on Canadian philanthropy. It certainly has on me.
I welcome your thinking on more tactical issues also.
Tom, it's precisely when the authoritarians try to scare you that we must not only double down but go full tilt. The main lesson from the book, "Gulag Archipelago" seems to have been that when the state thugs came one by one to take away dissidents in the night, the proper response from those not getting taken away was to en masse fully resist the tyrants when they started their tyranny.
Dare the tyrant to freeze your assets for funding a political cause. This is the time, it won't be later. They only back down when they are forced to. While we have exposure of the problem, there is power in shining the light on the problem. If we cower, they move several steps forward.
I feel the same way. I could barely get through the article, and not just because I was blurry-eyed from just waking up. It sounds like the same intellectual analysis of issues in countless articles that somehow manage to miss the core of what is going on in real people’s lives. Yes, populism needs to be taken seriously, but so do the societal issues that drive it. They focused on income inequality, which has been a serious issue getting worse for decades. No ideas put forward in this article are going to change that when elite groups (such as the WEF) are given the power to control people’s lives. That’s what needs to be addressed, the way people’s lives are being manipulated and controlled by the existing power systems in society, including the medical establishment. The issues of crucial importance today go much deeper than what has been addressed in this rather mundane article.
Thanks for sending this, Jewel. Very informative, while also entertaining. But chilling too! That guy Yaral Noah Harani (sp?) is a real piece of work! The way he talks about “hacking” human beings, since we have no soul, free will, etc. is horrifying. And he’s a member (advisor?) of the World Economic Forum? Unbelievable!
Yes, it’s totally creepy the way he talks about “engineering” human beings in a way that is completely devoid of any sense of human sensibility and spiritual connection. That appears to be what he is advocating.
Okay, I’m researching this man - Yuval Noah Harani - before I jump to conclusions about his motivations and intentions. I read a little about him and he does not seem devoid of concern for humanity (and animals!) Maybe he was speaking these words as a warning or something. I don’t know. Will investigate him further.
I thought this piece was highly insightful and constructive, and it provides reasonable direction going forward. The authors' survey has confirmed what many of us already know intuitively: there are large numbers of people in western liberal democracies, Canada included, who feel that they are being treated unfairly and dismissively by those in power. Instead of demonizing and dismissing these views as "unacceptable", politicians need to listen carefully and use these expressions of discontent as a "canary in the coal mine" that can help better inform policy development and lead to a more harmonious (and less divided!!!) society. But here's the problem: How do we get the politicians on board? Especially incompetent, unscrupulous self-congratulating jackasses like Justin Trudeau?
I agree totally. But it astounds and angers me that in assessments, such as this, which seems to refer, at least partially, to the truckers’ protest, that the crucial reason for the protest was to resist government control over people’s bodies. It has other ramifications to do with power and control, but the underlying issue was that of bodily autonomy and medical apartheid. I keep harping back to this because it keeps getting glossed over or hidden behind a smokescreen of other issues. Why isn’t it treated in the same serious manner as all the other sociopolitical concerns raised? Intelligent and insightful academics, such as Julie Ponesse, have seriously questioned the ethics behind vaccine mandates, but this gets very little attention.
Hi Patryce, to answer your question if I may - I don't think many academics have a grasp of how far out of touch they are. So, in their mind, if the injections were so serious, surely somebody would have told them by now? Not blue collar workers (truckers), they don't count; not a few doctors such as McCullough, Kory or Trozzi and Hoffe - I mean who's heard of them? Academics get their information from certain troughs, they don't have time to go far afield reading old books about the perils of vaccination, or Technocracy. Where are the grants for that? There are a few academics like say Dr. Russel Blaylock who actually do the work - but Alex Jones interviews them, so automatically we must ignore such things.
The shots seem to be accomplishing several things, but one long reaching goal seems to be saying that the state controls your body. Because the system does not want people in the near future, it wants automation.
Good point, Patryce. Almost a third of Canadians supported the truckers, and almost half of Canadians sympathized with them. I suspect that reasons for the support varied somewhat from one supporter to another. For me, the most serious issue was the frivolous violation by the government of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which connects directly to the issue of bodily autonomy, but other issues as well). Government overreach harmed a lot of people (through lost jobs, businesses, etc.). It also harmed Canadian democracy by raising doubt in the competence and integrity of our institutions, especially Parliament itself, and it has seriously divided Canadians. This government has got to go, and we need reforms to ensure this kind of nonsense never happens again. That's my two-cents worth. :)
Hi Jewel, the main point I was getting at is that even our dear PM is just a middle man. We can't get him to do the right thing, that wasn't what he was recruited for. He clearly said in 2013 that he admired China's "essential dictatorship". The perfect leader for the Liberal party of Chinada.
I think many of the commenters here are on more or less the same page, and yes the featured book may have a good use, to help educate the so far uneducated about what really is going on in the world. We live in a world where people believe what they want to, we are divided in that, at least partly because there is so much info out there, so people are highly selective. At some point, Truths leaks out. For those attuned to finding info, they found the truth first and for the rest of us it takes months or years to 'get it'. The Truckers, much like Trump winning, woke a few people up. They realized they had been wearing blinders, and much like Trudeau's 8 horses, they didn't realize their ignorance was trampling some of their fellow citizens.
This story below, the only story going on right now, is 2 weeks old. The Ukraine crisis could have happened any time, and has been telegraphed for years. We are are talking about the Covid injections when we're talking about populism or authoritarian over reach, or the WEF apostles of which Putin was once. Here is Naomi Wolf interviewing Edward Dowd about the greatest crime in modern history. The populists are telling you what the academics have been unable to:
Populism is a loaded word: a word used most often by a certain class of person, as a derogatory against another class of person, that ends up justifying the term and legitimizing the 'condemned' as a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. I'm glad the authors seem to get this.
Excellent point, Travis. The left uses "populism" in the pejorative to essentially mean "empty-headed mob". This is another way to demonize and dismiss those with a contrary view.
Matt Taibi (sp?) has given a few interviews about the devolution of journalism. I think he has a substack, one of the first. HIs dad was an old school reporter, meaning from working class background. Back then journalism did have standards about being somewhat balanced, but it also took truth to power, which it does not now. After the 60's everyone felt left out if they didn't get a Uni education so journalism had to go through the Marxist lens as well, hence where we're at now.
Thanks for the article but I found them dismissive of Canada’s situation. Yes, they have a global perspective but don’t feel they grasped the impact of invoking the emergencies act.
I feel exactly the same way. It wasn’t the focus of their article, I realize, but they gave the truckers’ protest only a superficial treatment, with no real understanding of what drove this “populist” uprising. The feelings and experiences behind this protest, and the way it was handled by the government and media, will not go away anytime soon, so people purporting to analyze populist movements should make an effort to truly understand the reasons driving them, on the basis of people’s real-life experiences, and not just plotting graphs.
I agree. Reaching a conclusion by only reading the published literature leads to a particular bias where you are only seeing things from the lens of a particular class. And although you stated that calling them deplorables and racist is ineffective you seem to still have the same sort of dismissive attitude towards the working class who were most affected in the last two years. You are so tone deaf that your solution (Capital Gains Tax) to a real problem would lead to even further inequity.
Tara, your interview with Paul, and Eric using words like Populism, meritocratic, fairness, Social mobility with the phrase, “…the system is rigged by the elites for the elites,….” I don’t know about Canada, but that’s a fact here in America. Princeton University did a study, and it showed that Congress pretty much only cares about: (interest groups alignment) and (elites’ preference) which pretty much serves the top 10% and leaves the bottom 90% with very little voice in what happens here in America. If you’re lazy, go to Upworthy. If you want to appear studious, go to Princeton. Tara, I certainly don’t know about Canada, but here in America, it makes no difference if 90% of the population wants a policy; how does Canada compare?
"[I think] maybe Canada now has to face the fact that it’s time to tax capital gains on a principal home. But how would you present that to the public?"
Housing is extremely unaffordable and the solution presented, without considering any alternatives, is to give more money to a government that didn't see fit to table a budget in 2020?
Populism by its very wording is nothing more than empty words by empty politicians. It grabs the immediate with no long term effects other than more empty promises to all. I have often pondered why it is there not more of the everyday person in politics to run things and use ideas that affect the every day existence of daily life, jobs, housing, shopping, all the essential items that make and keep people balanced and happy. But no we get a bunch of toady's in power who cant think for themselves, blindly follow some lout who has zero life experience and cant tell one side of a coin from the other. We need people in power who can and will define every life who understand how things work and does not have to pull unicorns and rainbows out of their collective asses and pass this bilge water off a good politics. And as to equality, that comes when society is on a level balanced platform that has steady jobs, good affordable housing and lives that people can live in and with and know and understand how things work...30
From the article: "If you think about the levels of foreign-born people, in Australia, New Zealand it is around 30 percent. Canada’s around 25 percent."
It's interesting how those 3 countries are points of comparison vis a vis Europe and the US.
Australia has a population of 26 million, New Zealand 5 million, and Canada 38 million.
In other words, those 3 countries have about the population of Texas and California combined.
Overall, Europe has 746 million and the US of 330.
So how illustrative are those comparisons? And in terms of immigration, keep in mind that both Australia and New Zealand are islands, and Canada has the US to its south. And all 3 countries are very picky about whom they let in. Not so the US (because of illegal immigration) and Europe (also the site of much illegal immigration).
Why is populism perceived to be a bad thing? Is it because it rises up in response to inequality of opportunity? That should be a good thing, drawing attention to that core problem. I don't understand why populism seems to be branded as racist etc when it is precisely the opposite. Is that because those in control of the narrative are threatened by being exposed as being exactly those things themselves? The time honoured liberal premise of freedom of speech has been trampled by the current "acceptable" narrative that completely controls the government and elitist social media. Pointing that out by the populists is a bad thing?
It's difficult to judge author's thesis using nothing more than a brief dialogue with Tara, but the absence of a clear definition of "populism" is not encouraging. I'm reminded of an old joke that my grandfather would tell me when I was a boy: What's the difference between a (economic) recession and a depression? Answer: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job. With that in mind, may I suggest that the best working definition of a "populist" is anyone who is not significantly tied into the government gravy train for their income and welfare--truckers, for example. Likewise, anyone who is "anti-populist" can reliably count on a consistent government job and a government pension. This includes politicians, all manner of government workers and bureaucrats, and, to a lesser but still significant degree, those who work for "private" industries that are heavily subsidized by the government or otherwise protected monopolies by government fiat (e.g. healthcare workers, CBC journalists, and college professors who spend their time writing about populism). The real source of today's anguish and civil strife is a function of this government-imposed disparity. Ironically, the solution proposed by the authors is to double-down on that approach with no regard for the economic consequences of such proposals--hence huge government deficits. For example, from the article author summarizes the solution thusly: "So, it’s about government intervention to equalize opportunity, not to equalize outcomes, and simultaneously to support a fair competitive market economy that rewards people according to contribution and productivity." I'm guessing that by "equalizing outcomes" and focusing on "contribution and productivity" author is not proposing that we eliminate government jobs and subsidies--just a guess. My recommendation would be to leave this book on the shelf, and instead pickup and read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." Alternatively, one could reflect upon Russian Foreign Secretary Lavrov's observation that the West (actually, Europe in particular, but the West more generally, IMO) is going the way of the old, defunct, Soviet Union. As someone who grew up through that hell, he would know.
I think most of the politicians know what's going on but they won't tell the journalists or the academics. There is an organized take down of the western societies. They want to save our energy resources for the descendants of the current elite, so they must convince us that we should no longer use energy and yes preferably eat bugs to really cut down on costs. There might be new high tech energy sources to pre-empt this economic take down of the west, but first they want the misery they inflict to help bring in the iron fist control they want. The Bible warns about taking a (QR code) to buy and sell, but thankfully our media and academics are past all that religious stuff.
https://i.imgur.com/T5jLNLn.jpg
Jewel, I have a great deal of difficulty with those [I am not saying at all that includes you!] who argue that there is a worldwide WEF agenda and that our politicians are subject to WEF control. Quite frankly, our political class is full of leaks, as is the political class of much of the western world. Even more than leaks, our political class is subject to abject incompetence. To think that they could secretly organize a conspiracy when they couldn't even deal with some recalcitrant (but otherwise law-abiding) truckers is foolish and incomprehensible.
Now, having said all of that, I absolutely accept that there is a "leftish" impulse that is popular and that the WEF endorses and provides "big ideas" to that impulse but to say that the WEF is a "successful" conspiracy - or even a conspiracy at all! - absolutely doesn't work for me.
You are right [in my opinion, at least], that there is a "WEF agenda" but that is simply the (ultimately stupid - remember, my opinion!) "big idea" of this time and place. How long that stupid big idea will be popular and what will replace it I don't know. And, of course, our worsers - not at all our betters! - are egged on by the mainstream media and academics. As to the ignorance of them all, well, I would call them all ignorant, period. Not because of their opinions but their incredibly obtuse inability to see that there are other perspectives which have varying degrees of validity which should be the basis for discussion, not vituperation.
What I DO know is that the current idiocy will change; to what degree and in what direction I cannot predict; it might even become more extreme in the same general direction. What I also DO know is that the current level of mass communication can make populist or anti-populist movements happen more quickly which is perhaps a good or a not so good thing. That is something that I DO NOT know.
Very well-said, thank you!
Jewel, I - somewhat - agree and - somewhat - disagree with your point.
I quite accept that Schwab said what you say he said. Yup. Agreed.
But, so what? To say that they have "infiltrated" governments is simply another way of saying that they have convinced "our worsers" that the WEF has the "real good idea" of our time. But then we already knew that the government is filled with the "useful idiots" [a phrase from a time when there really was a conspiracy] who have drank the WEF KoolAid.
I simply do not accept that Klaus and his acolytes can control things. They come up with all the looney ideas and sell those ideas as being "good" when those ideas are awful but that doesn't mean that they control anything. We, the citizens have the control - if we choose to exercise that control.
Yup, he wrote a book and did endorse the "Great Reset" but then our politicians have already openly said that they believe in that. What we have here is a group of people - government, academia, media, a lot of the population, etc. - who simply have adopted a goofy economic idea but that doesn't make it a conspiracy; it simply makes it stupid.
As near as I can tell, a conspiracy is a hidden thing, something to which one adheres but denies believing unless and until the hidden idea can be sprung on an unsuspecting public, government, etc. These jokers are out front.
Stupid, certainly. Hidden? Not a chance.
Indeed, what’s so bad about populism? You hit the nail if the head that it is a threat to exposing and breaking up the establishment’s narrative and thus their power and control systems. How did “power to the people” become such a corrosive and suspect concept?
Patryce, to put it somewhat differently if populism is simply a way of expressing the opinion of a group of citizens, why on earth could that be viewed as negative unless one is trying to disallow those citizens to express their completely legal opinions? Allowing citizens to express their completely legal political opinions is essential in a democracy.
Populism would seem to be a form of raw democracy, and the more bureaucratic minded folks want a more boring and stultified existence, where they shine. The truckers coloured outside of the lines, and you can't have that. Never mind that we've had 2 years of a genocide against an unsuspecting population, hidden by an out of touch media.
Very interesting and timely interview. But they miscall it with respect to
the convoy, because they don’t understand the issues and that the federal government hasn’t lifted a single discriminatory rule that fuelled the revolt. Then the Lib/NDPers put a nail in their coffin by evoking the Emergencies Act, something that will always be on their record. This will be the big factor in the next election.
To be fair, Tara and the Profs do have a different perspective when analyzing society.
https://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120918123744-prince-william-kate-middleton-solomon-2-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg
Shocking to see people with serious economic backgrounds advocate capital gains taxes on a principle residence. It's not only unpopular, it is economically illiterate.
Yes, the rapid rise in housing valuations has created a strata of the population that is benefiting in terms of nominal values, and leaving other stratas out of that largely ephemeral benefit. But this is a historical development largely created by government ineptitude. It will naturally end as housing is now so priced out of the reach of many that future rapid gains are very unlikely. It was a mess created by rock-bottom interest rates that drove credit expansion. The answer is not to now punish those who sell into a frothy market and thus become millionaires, especially since for most their only option is to buy back into that same frothy market, with no net gain. The solution is to normalize interest rates. House prices will come down, as few people could afford today's prices at higher interest rates.
With a capital gains tax on homes, you are also punishing people who do sell and then need their equity to rent after retirement. (Unlike those with public pensions who never have to worry about that reality as they cry out for fairness.) The irony is galling.
someone has to pay those big public pensions , that is one of the reasons for more taxes
Capital gains tax on principle family residences will only increase the feeling of disenfranchisement in the working class. Instead why not penalize foreign ownership of Canadian residences since (as Jewel mentions below) foreign speculation in our housing markets is driving prices and putting home ownership out of reach of many Canadians.
‘The failure of virtually every human endeavor begins with the inability or unwillingness to grasp and act upon reality.’
This is a BS article extracted from the musings of two ivory tower academics so profoundly disconnected from the world around them it beggars the imagination. Not surprisingly, they got NOTHING right. ‘Populism’ is simple to explain. It is the rising collective awareness of the public that they are being played by the hypocrites and kleptocrats who rule them. There is an increasing understanding that tyrannical governments are desperate to retain their hold on power, and to do so requires deflecting public attention away from their machinations and redirecting to deliberately engineered issues designed to amplify the distinctions of race, class, gender and sexual preference, etc., thus turning the groups against each other. The tools of tyrants are propaganda, using the cheerful liars in MSM, and the carefully crafted distribution of money and ‘privilege’ to select groups at the expense of others. ‘Populism’ takes off when the warring parties realize they all have something in common - they are ALL being impoverished by a corrupt system - and thus they all have a common enemy.
As for the issue of immigration, the authors again miss this, not by a mile but by several astronomical units. While there are different drivers that vary by country, in the US, the leftist democrat administration has chosen to flood the country with Mexicans and South Americans by the millions, with the intent of constructing a permanent, irreversible voting bloc. This cynical, unlawful, brazen campaign is designed to deny conservative voters ANY influence in their futures. Their resentment is NOT driven by class envy or fear of losing a job they didn’t want in the first place. It is the transparently corrupt end game of an immoral government, and the folks are increasingly on to it.
There is much more to be said, but this is a comment section and not a repository for personal treatises. I conclude my diatribe with this: The article reflects the typical Marxist academic world view, which sees all things through the lens of class and economic conflict, neglecting the overarching CAUSE of conflict - corrupt government and its unrelenting pursuit of power and control absent any moral or ethical boundaries.
The academic world view seems to be 'if only we could get the process right, solidified and etched in stone - then all problems would resolve'. But corruption can work around or within any system. The only defense against it is the bravery of the common person to take on the corrupt, hopefully with enough others doing the same. This time, this era is no time for ivory towers.
Exactly, and I urge Tara to go beyond ivory tower thinking and perspectives in these offerings. I greatly appreciate scholarly thought, but we need to hear from innovative thinkers and activists from outside establishment structures, people who are boldly confronting these issues in a head-on human way, not just regurgitating intellectual analyses.
Jewel, an interesting point. I find that Tara's work is, well, interesting.
I approach my reading from a slightly conservative / libertarian perspective insofar as I think that, for the most part, the government should simply stay our of things. Of course, there are exceptions (whoops! I just betrayed my principles!) but those exceptions should remain small and oriented to the supply of essential services (of which some folks keep trying expand the definitions - doggone it!!) and keeping large organizations (private and public) honest and humble (a real chore, those two tasks).
Yes, I agree that many feel that they have been censored and silenced by mainstream media. Whether that is or is not actually so, many folks do feel that way. And, yes, we do need to have someone who will try to keep on that treadmill tilting at those windmills for us. [Like the mixed metaphors?]
A truly incisive and powerful comment. Thanks so much!
My thoughts exactly and very well said.
Tara, I'm interested in academic views...but not to the exclusion of the real world concerns. Professional learners too often live in a world devoid of common, day-to-day issues--exposure to unemployment, inadequate income, inaccessibility to thoughtful dialogue.
I'd welcome your attention to some less-ethereal thinking. For example:
The invocation of the Emergency Act highlighted the ability of the federal government to, retroactively and unilaterally, declare a donation as an "emergency" worthy of frozen bank accounts. This may have imposed a significant (?) chill on Canadian philanthropy. It certainly has on me.
I welcome your thinking on more tactical issues also.
Tom, it's precisely when the authoritarians try to scare you that we must not only double down but go full tilt. The main lesson from the book, "Gulag Archipelago" seems to have been that when the state thugs came one by one to take away dissidents in the night, the proper response from those not getting taken away was to en masse fully resist the tyrants when they started their tyranny.
Dare the tyrant to freeze your assets for funding a political cause. This is the time, it won't be later. They only back down when they are forced to. While we have exposure of the problem, there is power in shining the light on the problem. If we cower, they move several steps forward.
I feel the same way. I could barely get through the article, and not just because I was blurry-eyed from just waking up. It sounds like the same intellectual analysis of issues in countless articles that somehow manage to miss the core of what is going on in real people’s lives. Yes, populism needs to be taken seriously, but so do the societal issues that drive it. They focused on income inequality, which has been a serious issue getting worse for decades. No ideas put forward in this article are going to change that when elite groups (such as the WEF) are given the power to control people’s lives. That’s what needs to be addressed, the way people’s lives are being manipulated and controlled by the existing power systems in society, including the medical establishment. The issues of crucial importance today go much deeper than what has been addressed in this rather mundane article.
Thanks for sending this, Jewel. Very informative, while also entertaining. But chilling too! That guy Yaral Noah Harani (sp?) is a real piece of work! The way he talks about “hacking” human beings, since we have no soul, free will, etc. is horrifying. And he’s a member (advisor?) of the World Economic Forum? Unbelievable!
Yes, it’s totally creepy the way he talks about “engineering” human beings in a way that is completely devoid of any sense of human sensibility and spiritual connection. That appears to be what he is advocating.
Okay, I’m researching this man - Yuval Noah Harani - before I jump to conclusions about his motivations and intentions. I read a little about him and he does not seem devoid of concern for humanity (and animals!) Maybe he was speaking these words as a warning or something. I don’t know. Will investigate him further.
https://rumble.com/vxa2jh-hypocrisy-explained-in-seconds-without-saying-a-word.html
I thought this piece was highly insightful and constructive, and it provides reasonable direction going forward. The authors' survey has confirmed what many of us already know intuitively: there are large numbers of people in western liberal democracies, Canada included, who feel that they are being treated unfairly and dismissively by those in power. Instead of demonizing and dismissing these views as "unacceptable", politicians need to listen carefully and use these expressions of discontent as a "canary in the coal mine" that can help better inform policy development and lead to a more harmonious (and less divided!!!) society. But here's the problem: How do we get the politicians on board? Especially incompetent, unscrupulous self-congratulating jackasses like Justin Trudeau?
I agree totally. But it astounds and angers me that in assessments, such as this, which seems to refer, at least partially, to the truckers’ protest, that the crucial reason for the protest was to resist government control over people’s bodies. It has other ramifications to do with power and control, but the underlying issue was that of bodily autonomy and medical apartheid. I keep harping back to this because it keeps getting glossed over or hidden behind a smokescreen of other issues. Why isn’t it treated in the same serious manner as all the other sociopolitical concerns raised? Intelligent and insightful academics, such as Julie Ponesse, have seriously questioned the ethics behind vaccine mandates, but this gets very little attention.
Hi Patryce, to answer your question if I may - I don't think many academics have a grasp of how far out of touch they are. So, in their mind, if the injections were so serious, surely somebody would have told them by now? Not blue collar workers (truckers), they don't count; not a few doctors such as McCullough, Kory or Trozzi and Hoffe - I mean who's heard of them? Academics get their information from certain troughs, they don't have time to go far afield reading old books about the perils of vaccination, or Technocracy. Where are the grants for that? There are a few academics like say Dr. Russel Blaylock who actually do the work - but Alex Jones interviews them, so automatically we must ignore such things.
The shots seem to be accomplishing several things, but one long reaching goal seems to be saying that the state controls your body. Because the system does not want people in the near future, it wants automation.
Yes, right on, thanks!
Good point, Patryce. Almost a third of Canadians supported the truckers, and almost half of Canadians sympathized with them. I suspect that reasons for the support varied somewhat from one supporter to another. For me, the most serious issue was the frivolous violation by the government of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which connects directly to the issue of bodily autonomy, but other issues as well). Government overreach harmed a lot of people (through lost jobs, businesses, etc.). It also harmed Canadian democracy by raising doubt in the competence and integrity of our institutions, especially Parliament itself, and it has seriously divided Canadians. This government has got to go, and we need reforms to ensure this kind of nonsense never happens again. That's my two-cents worth. :)
Spot on, thanks John.
How? Caviar and champagne.
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1503349513255325699?cxt=HHwWhsC47dma_NwpAAAA
Another obscene display of privilege and entitlement!
Outrageous...
The politicians are middle men in our system, there are quite a few well meaning ones but the parties will not make them leaders.
Hi Jewel, the main point I was getting at is that even our dear PM is just a middle man. We can't get him to do the right thing, that wasn't what he was recruited for. He clearly said in 2013 that he admired China's "essential dictatorship". The perfect leader for the Liberal party of Chinada.
Frankly, I get tired of this type of pseudo-academic overthink.
It's just a pretentious word-salad concealing the fact that people are pissed-off.
Once they reach their LOPO levels then they will either shut things down, break them or replace them. ( LOPO=level of pissed-offness )
I think many of the commenters here are on more or less the same page, and yes the featured book may have a good use, to help educate the so far uneducated about what really is going on in the world. We live in a world where people believe what they want to, we are divided in that, at least partly because there is so much info out there, so people are highly selective. At some point, Truths leaks out. For those attuned to finding info, they found the truth first and for the rest of us it takes months or years to 'get it'. The Truckers, much like Trump winning, woke a few people up. They realized they had been wearing blinders, and much like Trudeau's 8 horses, they didn't realize their ignorance was trampling some of their fellow citizens.
This story below, the only story going on right now, is 2 weeks old. The Ukraine crisis could have happened any time, and has been telegraphed for years. We are are talking about the Covid injections when we're talking about populism or authoritarian over reach, or the WEF apostles of which Putin was once. Here is Naomi Wolf interviewing Edward Dowd about the greatest crime in modern history. The populists are telling you what the academics have been unable to:
https://rumble.com/vwjmjm-bombshell-naomi-wolf-interviews-edward-dowd-about-pfizer-fraud-and-criminal.html
Thanks for the link to that video, which I started watching and will return to when I have an hour. Good one!
I may end up getting this book.
Populism is a loaded word: a word used most often by a certain class of person, as a derogatory against another class of person, that ends up justifying the term and legitimizing the 'condemned' as a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. I'm glad the authors seem to get this.
Excellent point, Travis. The left uses "populism" in the pejorative to essentially mean "empty-headed mob". This is another way to demonize and dismiss those with a contrary view.
Matt Taibi (sp?) has given a few interviews about the devolution of journalism. I think he has a substack, one of the first. HIs dad was an old school reporter, meaning from working class background. Back then journalism did have standards about being somewhat balanced, but it also took truth to power, which it does not now. After the 60's everyone felt left out if they didn't get a Uni education so journalism had to go through the Marxist lens as well, hence where we're at now.
Thanks for the article but I found them dismissive of Canada’s situation. Yes, they have a global perspective but don’t feel they grasped the impact of invoking the emergencies act.
I feel exactly the same way. It wasn’t the focus of their article, I realize, but they gave the truckers’ protest only a superficial treatment, with no real understanding of what drove this “populist” uprising. The feelings and experiences behind this protest, and the way it was handled by the government and media, will not go away anytime soon, so people purporting to analyze populist movements should make an effort to truly understand the reasons driving them, on the basis of people’s real-life experiences, and not just plotting graphs.
I agree. Reaching a conclusion by only reading the published literature leads to a particular bias where you are only seeing things from the lens of a particular class. And although you stated that calling them deplorables and racist is ineffective you seem to still have the same sort of dismissive attitude towards the working class who were most affected in the last two years. You are so tone deaf that your solution (Capital Gains Tax) to a real problem would lead to even further inequity.
Tara, your interview with Paul, and Eric using words like Populism, meritocratic, fairness, Social mobility with the phrase, “…the system is rigged by the elites for the elites,….” I don’t know about Canada, but that’s a fact here in America. Princeton University did a study, and it showed that Congress pretty much only cares about: (interest groups alignment) and (elites’ preference) which pretty much serves the top 10% and leaves the bottom 90% with very little voice in what happens here in America. If you’re lazy, go to Upworthy. If you want to appear studious, go to Princeton. Tara, I certainly don’t know about Canada, but here in America, it makes no difference if 90% of the population wants a policy; how does Canada compare?
"[I think] maybe Canada now has to face the fact that it’s time to tax capital gains on a principal home. But how would you present that to the public?"
Housing is extremely unaffordable and the solution presented, without considering any alternatives, is to give more money to a government that didn't see fit to table a budget in 2020?
Populism by its very wording is nothing more than empty words by empty politicians. It grabs the immediate with no long term effects other than more empty promises to all. I have often pondered why it is there not more of the everyday person in politics to run things and use ideas that affect the every day existence of daily life, jobs, housing, shopping, all the essential items that make and keep people balanced and happy. But no we get a bunch of toady's in power who cant think for themselves, blindly follow some lout who has zero life experience and cant tell one side of a coin from the other. We need people in power who can and will define every life who understand how things work and does not have to pull unicorns and rainbows out of their collective asses and pass this bilge water off a good politics. And as to equality, that comes when society is on a level balanced platform that has steady jobs, good affordable housing and lives that people can live in and with and know and understand how things work...30
From the article: "If you think about the levels of foreign-born people, in Australia, New Zealand it is around 30 percent. Canada’s around 25 percent."
It's interesting how those 3 countries are points of comparison vis a vis Europe and the US.
Australia has a population of 26 million, New Zealand 5 million, and Canada 38 million.
In other words, those 3 countries have about the population of Texas and California combined.
Overall, Europe has 746 million and the US of 330.
So how illustrative are those comparisons? And in terms of immigration, keep in mind that both Australia and New Zealand are islands, and Canada has the US to its south. And all 3 countries are very picky about whom they let in. Not so the US (because of illegal immigration) and Europe (also the site of much illegal immigration).