i think this summarizes my position on the topic relatively well.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/essays/intersov.html

the thing that people aren't cluing into is that "reparations" is a kind of code word in competing contexts. if you walk into a church in south carolina, it means transferring wealth downwards, and one would expect sanders to support that. but, if you walk into a hockey rink in burlington and start taking about reparations, what it means to the people there is transferring wealth sideways based on racial characteristics, and nobody at all should support that.

i understand that components in the black community want a simple answer on it, but they're wrong to take that position - and rather than being pandered to, should be called out for taking a simplistic, binary position on race. warren, particularly, should be called out for pandering, here. sanders is right to ask for the term to be defined before he commits to a position that he doesn't just not support, but that has the potential to severely damage him with the kind of voters that are actually going to decide the election, at the end of the day.

i have a simple position on reparations, myself, although it means something different in canada, where the reparations are directed entirely at the indigenous population.

"yes, i have support for reparations. i call that support socialism."

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/26/reparations-bernie-sanders/

see, we've been through this with bernie on foreign policy before - he takes these positions that are factually dubious in the sense that he holds hands with the washington consensus most of the way down the path before stepping back on some point, and holding to it. in a sense, it's weasel words, but it's backwards - his weasel words are directed at the cfr, or whomever it is that is listening in. so, he's able to avoid what ought to be a lot of wrath.

then, the left starts yelling that he's repeating falsehoods, and he is, but did you notice that he's on cnn, guys? if you listen carefully, you realize that what he's doing is avoiding the hegemonic talking points, without directly contradicting them. so, the left is kind of missing the dog whistle. but, we're not trained for it.

and, then, after walking this tightrope over all of this propaganda, he comes up with the right actual policy, which is that maduro is not a dictator, it's up to the people of venezuela to determine their own future and intervention is wrong.

so, you have to give him like a B- or something because he came up with the right answer, in the end. meanwhile, the rest of the field is getting Fs and Ds. so, you curve him up to an A - even if you're a little unsure.

you just have to remember that noam chomsky isn't running for president, and bernie sanders is.

it's enough to me that he's not participating in the zombie apocalypse that has hit both washington and ottawa - he's demonstrating independent thought.

is there a kind of liberal that's all about free markets, supply management be damned?

sure.

and, are there more of them in the west than the east?

probably.

and, do they care much about muslim immigrants and their head scarves?

mostly not, probably, no.

also:
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/search?q=bernier

the greens did not run in this riding. so, it's not entirely clear if bernier's party hit the conservatives or liberals more.

in bc, you have the socred history - which is really what bernier is tapping into, right? and, it kind of splits through both bourgeois parties...

so, do the liberals win by default already, then?

not if the ndp collapse pushes the bloc over the brink.

so, they've just grown a beard to spite their face.

it is likely that history records this victory as a brutally pyrrhic one, but here we have it - jagmeet singh is entering parliament as the leader of the third party, on the same day that the liberals retake outremont.

the ndp had exactly zero seats in quebec for something like 70 years. but, people forget that the ndp vote came mostly from the bloc, who lost party status as a consequence of the ndp's surge in 2011. everything is suggestive of a bloc resurgence, right now, as the ndp roll up like a carpet.

they will probably lose party status in october, as they seek to rebrand themselves in a post-industrial economy as a right-leaning alternative for disaffected minority groups. whatever you think of this, it opens up a dramatic vacuum in the balance of power, as a large (if shrinking) voting block in canada slowly becomes disenfranchised.

if i'm right about what they're doing, the new ndp could very well win power within a decade, but the left is unlikely to be very supportive of their policy positions, when they do - it will be as a neo-liberal party in the image of the american democrats. and, this realignment i've been talking about for what is now a couple of years is going to need to find a new party to exist on the left, or risking forfeiting dominance to the right, as former ndp voters sign faustian deals with a conservative party that is just looking to take advantage of them. 

singh didn't create this and isn't fully at fault for it, but it's up to voters to adjust to what is unfolding in the way that is most in their own interests.

i always thought the ndp were better off entering into a coalition with the bloc than trying to displace them. but, we need to find a way to do some serious organizing in ontario.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-jagmeet-singh-wins-burnaby-south-by-election-clearing-leadership

"a luxury the country can no longer afford"

this rhetoric is coming from:

a) a thatcher-era tory minister talking about the destruction of the welfare state.
b) a gringrich-era republican talking about cuts to medicare and social security
c) a german banker arguing for austerity in the south
d) a twenty-first century american democrat talking about border security.