The Russian Money Behind Alberta’s Separatist Movement
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/58688162
https://thewalrus.ca/the-russian-money-behind-albertas-separatist-movement/Open linkView original on lemmy.caSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.cahttps://thewalrus.ca/the-russian-money-behind-albertas-separatist-movement/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
16 replies
When I said this five months ago I got a bunch of razzing, about how it was only Americans doing it.
It’s coming for everyone. Hell, the UK is about to go under.
Yes the vast majority of the money is American. The separatist movement is in open collaboration with American politicial and corporate actors. Some 60% of our fossil fuel industry is American-owned and there's cross-polination between it and the separatists. Of course there are other foreign actors and it's good to know their influence but the US is unmatched in scale.
Some news outlets specifically hammer the non-US actors to distract from the elephant. The Walrus isn't one of them AFAIK so their reporting is indeed intended to inform. I wouldn't take it to mean that America is not the main problem in this context. Well, American capital, not so much American workers.
MAGA and russia are aligned, yes. Pre-trump, in America it was the NRA, evangelical “Christianity”, and Fox News. All of which have analogues in Canada and all of which have been gunning for the same result ever since Brexit. Calexit, Texit and others were years ahead of Alberta and all directly connected to russia.
“America is the biggest contributor” is more obfuscating than relevant. Alberta’s MCGA turn would have happened either way. It happened in New Zealand. They’re working on Germany. Is America behind those? Insofar as trump and his fascist toadies, or big oil are part of it, yes, but the direction and planning is all russia.
It’s beyond debate. It’s been proven for years already.
E: I did not doenvote
Those organizations you mention - Fox, and I'll extend the list to the rest of the large right media network, NGOs and think tanks like The Heritage Foundation, CATO and so on - they are not some directionless NPC orgs that serve and bankroll Russia's direction. This kind of interpretation is ahistoric and not consistent with the material interests behind them. Look up their history, who and why created them. They were created by the American owner class following the leftward shift under FDR that took a lot of owner class money and gave it to the peasants, with the express purpose of moving the country back to a non-dustributive right position. Any current alignment with Russia is tangential and merely tactical and that's a pretty recent phenomena, given some are over half a century old. The MAGA / Trump movement is also not fundamental to this, they're the latest political face of it. They did not exist when the same interests pushed the US to destroy Iraq. They've been openly giving American governments direcrion (e.g. Mandate for Government which Reagan proudly imolemented) since Reagan if not before.
E2: BTW I don't disagree that MCGA would've happened without American involvement. It would have happened without any external involvement. There have been internal interests for at least 50 years that believe Alberta is getting shortchanged by Canada through equalization payments and other other means. America is supercharging this pre-existing condition for their own material interests - extracting resources for cheaper.
Yes, there are legitimate problems with the decisions Ottawa has made. There's been legitimate problems with the decisions the Alberta government has made as well. That holds true for every province, we're not special in that regard. The smart move is to do our best to make the best of the situation, not nurse old grudges like children throwing temper tantrums.
Every country has cracks that can be leveraged. If we'd use our bloody heads for something other than a hat rack, we wouldn't let ourselves be suckered by every interest that tries to yank our chains. We had the best education in North America for 30 years. We have zero excuses for getting dog-walked into a wood chipper like this.
Word. No notes.
America, Russia, what’s the difference?
The scal, the target and what we can do about either. Countering what the US does would look very different than countering Russia. We can hurt the US much more than we can hurt Russia, and the US can hurt us back much more than Russia can.
Oh come the fuck on.
It's a valid question. Even discounting the strong indication of back-room collusion, they are effectively pursuing the same agenda with the same level of cruelty, lawlessness, and reckless destruction. Even if assuming it's not a coordinated effort, it's a distinction without difference.
What, theirs also Russian money on it too? Fuckin hell
There's American money, there's Russian money, there's Chinese money, there's Israeli money, there's Saudi money... everyone has a vested interest in convincing Albertans to do the dumbest thing possible. If this is news to you, you're not paying attention. We've been trying to fight back on this for 20 years without getting turned into a pariah for being nasty about it. No one paid attention.
crazy considering it seem to not be working and a huge waste of money. hay, you think i could get the money and do a bad enough job to convince albertens to stay instead and get payed by these dickheads?
The global right answers to two masters, Putin and Israel
russia wants the united states to be bigger and stronger?
are you not listening to how stupid you sound?
Do you think that's the only possible outcome of this? Do you know how stupid you sound?
Russia sows division in countries, because it causes dysfunction. A unified, well functioning country will more often than not want to fight fascism and not just be selfish and insular. Exactly what russia doesn't want while they're pursuing their imperalist agenda.