Right-wing hysteria over the carbon tax their movement invented the worst of Canadian politics

Thing 1: carbon pricing is a good idea that conservatives invented and they should proudly own it. Instead, we’re in this surreal hellscape where they’ve disavowed their idea, labelled it as the “Liberal carbon tax” and are campaigning hard against it.

To be clear, it was under the federal Liberal Party that the government passed the carbon tax legislation that attached a price to carbon consumption which applied nationwide – except where a province had their own plans which substantially meets the same goals.

BC had their own, Alberta (under the NDP) had their own, Quebec, Ontario (under their previous Liberal gov’t) had their own – of the large provinces.

Ousting the provincial NDP gov’t in Alberta and subsequent defeat of the Ontario Liberals brought conservative regimes to power in both provinces. For reasons unknown to logic, they both repealed their own carbon pricing regime – with triggered the federal one to be imposed.

They handed control over this file TO the Federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau…for which they attack him for now.

Now, I get the electoral politics here; it is politically expedient to align against a program enacted by your political opponent. There is a short term benefit to that in the context of polling to be sure. But the longer term side effect is ones credibility.

But the elephant in the room is the fact that carbon pricing is intended to act as a consumption tax (the form of tax that conservatives generally support), that is supposed to be revenue neutral. Carbon pricing dings the consumption, rewards the reductions we make in our carbon footprint. Any excess therein is generally redistributed in forms of tax relief and various rebates/credits to offset the financial burden of the various carbon taxes at the lowest income scales.

That was the idea behind carbon pricing. Philosophically, it’s a good idea and yes, the devil is in the details.

The crux of the current debate is the scheduled increase on April 1, 2024 of the per-tonne carbon rate. The detractors calculate that as a 23% increase. Sure, we’ll take that argument at face value.

But this is no ordinary tax, and the reasons for it aren’t specifically for basic revenue generation reasons.

Thing 2: why we have carbon pricing.

Look around you. The effects of climate change are only disputed by small cabal who would argue that the world is also only 6,000 years old.

We have once-in-a-lifetime climate events every year now. BC has had several record wildfire seasons in the last decade at the cost of billions of dollars each – and that’s just the cost of fighting the fire. The other costs are the post-fire repairs, mitigation, compensation, and effects on the economy where the fires damage timber supply to our forestry sector; or other important agriculture operations. Same problem for the atmospheric rivers – which entered BC’s weather lexicon in the last few years as catastrophic rains and flooding diplace towns, farms, disrupt transportation links, etc.

Private and public insurance rates increase as a result of the redemption of insurance policies made necessary by climate triggered damages. The effect the bottom line for business and families are sure to be felt with higher premiums, or taxpayer supported bailouts when insurance companies fail to deliver on their policies.

These are the costs of climate change. There’s no hope that this cost decreases so long as we don’t take this seriously.

Thing 3: Anti-tax propaganda and hypocrisy of the far right.

To hear the rhetoric of the opponents, the carbon tax rates are to be increasing by almost 20¢ per litre for regular gasoline. That’d be huge – if it was true.

Spoiler: its a lie.

2.69¢ per litre is a far cry from the 18¢ being pushed by conservative propagandists.

To be sure, few people will willingly embrace any tax increase, though most people accept that taxes are necessary. But if we’re to debate tax policy, let’s start out from a position of honesty. Conservatives are absolutely not being honest. But that’s their trademark: lie about something, then campaign about the thing that isn’t true…make it about big government hurting the little guy.

The problem is that government has a requirement under our constitution to do what it can to protect society; and climate change – the effects therein, are a real – existential threat to Canada and the world around us. By having conservatives undermine the threat of climate change, they’re putting society at grave harm.

The harm isn’t specific to flooding in leftwing BC coastal areas from atmospheric rivers and rising sea levels, the harm is also the droughts affecting interior, northern and prairie agricultural sectors. These are small towns and rural areas that the conservatives call their base of support. Watch and see how absent these politicians become once their farming towns are decimated from a raging wildfire made possible by soils and plants dried out from a lack of snow and spring rains.

Thing 4: the carbon tax is a consumption tax, something that conservatives generally like.

Think of the GST. I remember that chaos of an introduction in 1989/90 when the then PC Party government under Brian Mulroney replaced the Manufacturers Sales tax with the GST.

The revenue haul from that tax is substantial. Ottawa collects a gross $48 billion annually from the GST. The GST credit, designed for low income adults in Canada costs up to $5 billion annually. That’s a staggering profit. All leftover revenue goes to the general funds of the nation and finance whatever is deemed appropriate in the annual budget.

The Carbon Tax is different. It’s supposed to be revenue neutral, and it largely is; but its purpose driven. In Canada, where the federal carbon tax is collected from; the proceeds are turned around and remitted back to the provinces where they originated.

In BC, where the carbon tax revenue allocations are spelled out; well over half is returned in a ‘climate change’ credit, and the remainder is split between an electric vehicle rebate program (on the purchase of a new zero emission vehicle), a BC Hydro rebate to install heat pumps, and funds to assist in carbon friendly retrofits. In both cases, federal and provincial, while not exactly as revenue neutral – they come awfully close…and a lot closer than the GST which is the original consumption tax in Canada.

Summary

Conservatives are trying to position the carbon tax issue merely as a political one; where they’re seen as the good guys trying to hold back the ever-oppressive federal government from taxing citizens into oblivion. It is that over simplification that gets played over and over and over in the media and we’ve stopped talking about what is really at stake.

The controversy of carbon pricing is that it shouldn’t be controversial. The goals and means are clearly stated, and the evidence that its working is also just as compelling.

Sure, nobody likes it when things cost more, but that is the taxation model of carbon pricing; increase the price through the tax, decrease demand. The “23%” increase looming this April 1 equates to 2.69 cents/litre in BC which has so many folks upset, but nobody says anything when big oil jacks the price up by 30 or 45cents over the span of a couple weeks for no reason.

We’re set to judge our political leaders in the coming months over policies and performance based on how we feel in the moment. But we are going to be judged by our children and grandchildren by our failure to act when we fully knew better.

It’s time to stop being influenced by the here-and-now politics, and be swayed by the do-the-right-thing planning for the future.

My2bits

All we had to do was be kind to each other.

But have we failed?

Seeing past each other’s differences and recognizing their good qualities inherently takes more effort than giving into hate and division. Ultimately, great things happen though cooperation and dialogue. This is the harder path, but is the step necessary to heal the wounds in our society. It's also a choice.

Its awful to any humanitarian what is going on in the middle east. The ongoing conflict in Gaza and the IDF’s military expedition now underway has ripped open wounds and tested sanity of folks the world over.

Nobody, in their right mind, likes war. Not overt war, not acts of terror, not anything where there’s a potential of large losses of innocent civilian life.

This goes for Jews the world over, and Muslims everywhere as well…or, folks of any faith (or practice none at all)…yet here we are.

In one of the most hotly contested real estate on the planet, the Holy Land is claimed by all the major religions as their rightful turf.

Clearly that isn’t going to happen. Not like that, and not in absolute terms either.

Lets be clear of a few absolute facts.

  1. Hamas is a terrorist organization who have the folks in the Gaza strip under an oppressive boot. Hamas terrorizes their own citizens as well as Israeli citizens.
  2. Israel is lead by alleged corrupt Prime Minister in Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition of far right political parties. The Lekud lead parliamentary coalition in Israel is a far right hawkish group who have little qualms about military intervention into their neighbors. But they are not exactly popular at home. Folks in Israel have taken to the streets on several occasions to protest the actions of their government.

This isn’t a ‘both sides are bad’ argument, but the leadership of both sides have a lot to be held accountable for.

Reasonable people the world over are getting louder in their calls to stop the bloodshed, and they’re right to do so. But there’s a new problem rising out of the conflict for anyone who dares to speak about it.

The radioactive, rhetorical quicksand that a person finds themselves in once they speak openly about the outrageous situation and a need to stop the violence.

By calling for a ceasefire, I’ve witnessed those same people attacked as anti-semitic…for a call to stop fighting. Nothing else.

I have also seen folks who call for the return of the Hamas-held hostages called “genocidal Zionists”.

Really?

We’re at a place where any expression of basic humanity is attacked for being anti-this or anti-that.

I’ll add that I am not Jewish, or an Israeli citizen. So I have no lived experience from the perspective of those folks. Just as I am not Islamic or Palestinian – and no first hand knowledge of their experience either.

I am a Canadian citizen, I would consider myself as a progressive/left-leaning-Christian, with a basic grasp of humanity and decency. For that, I’m certain, would be labelled as a bigot against one side or another.

We need to stop doing this. Now.

Being a humanitarian isn’t a political narrative. Nor is it a party, or a candidate. Wishing that innocent folks stop getting killed is the correct position, everywhere…in every religion, belief system or otherwise.

We should have, instead of rushing to ‘pick sides’, we should have stepped out of our comfort zone and seen each other in a time of great anxiety and fear.

We all know at least one person or family that is either Jewish or Islamic who are going through extremely hard times as a result of the anarchy in the middle east. They might even know or have family in the region.

This was the moment to reach out and offer an empathetic ear, recognizing their fear and anxiety; they’re not alone in this world or our community.

This is by no means to excuse the horrible, hate-filled, rhetoric spewed by some very bad-faith actors seeking to exploit and create divisions in our society.

Exploiting religious sensitivities and culture war tactics are how we get distracted and pitted against each other at a time we need each other the most.

All we had to do is to be kind to each other.

We still can.

Its a choice.

my2bits

The far right’s anti-immigrant narrative gave a permission structure to the Trudeau Liberals to cap foreign students wishing to come to Canada to study

Political triangulation is a thing that centrists know well; it’s where you adopt a position of your opponent to appear pragmatic, denying the opponent a position to attack from, then paint them as the extremists unworthy of your vote.

There are exceptions to this rule. Adopting policies which are inherently racist or bigoted in nature should be avoided.

But these are desperate times for the federal Liberals.

There’s an undercurrent of resentment in various western nations about “foreigners” who “come here and take [x, y, z] from our own folks and we need to take it back”.

What they’re not telling you is that politicians who follow through with these anti-foreigner policies aren’t interested in providing “for our own”, they’re just full of hate towards the different looking folks and used a right-wing populist mythology to score your vote from you.

The joke is on you.

It’s a hard truth that every province relied on a mix of foreign students (who pay full rates) to help subsidize domestic students who were largely subsidized.

Ottawa has unleashed a policy change to severely restrict the number of foreign students under the pretense that they want to stop the “cash cow” of milking foreign students of money (at full tuition rates).

This is going to ring popular in certain voting blocks to be sure; but popular doesn’t always mean ‘right’.

This policy change won’t open up those former seats in universities to domestic students..the extra money that subsidized the domestic seats the rest of our students chase after has been chased away.

If anything, expect that tuition rates in many provinces to either go up – or enrollment to decrease.

Right wing populism has real world negative consequences, I just didn’t expect that to flow from federal Liberals – not this blatant at least.

There is one upside though. It will help fully expose the funding shortfall that government at every level is guilty of when it comes to post secondary education.

Short term rental exploitation are damaging our economy and more

Along with millions in my generation and those born every generation before, we were told that by hard work and sacrifice, we could earn our place in this world. Buy a house, raise a family, pass a legacy on to our children.

Along comes an app and business model that seeks to exploit the housing market in such a way that it denies the opportunity of others to participate in the economy.

This isn’t just about money. But its financial effect has been crippling for far more than those who make money from it.

To summarize, AirBnB (along with a handful of other websites/apps) allowed a property owner to list suites, condos, houses as short term rentals; ostensibly as competition to hotels. In the beginning, it was just that. One could rent a house for the family if on vacation for a week – instead of a hotel. Or renting a room for a few days as a business professional only in town for a seminar.

Then the housing market went from hot to stupid.

We have a housing shortage for folks ready and able to participate; but are priced out of the market because it makes some people a LOT of money to buy up the properties and flip them into temporary, short term rentals.

There was no limit to how many properties one could own and list as STR’s, so long as you had the resources to buy them in the first place. That itself added to the upward pressure on housing prices.

Even as the industry is genuinely responding to high demand for housing and building more homes, the homes largely didn’t end up for sale for traditional home sales, but as a commodity haul for investors to sweep up and pad their inventory.

This business model has made it impossible except for the one-percent income earners to participate in the market. This had never been the case for all of the history of the post war economy from 1945 onwards.

Again.

Housing became a commodity, not just places for families to live.

Potential homeowners are not opposed to paying fair market value for a house; neither are renters who have reasonable incomes. Its that the going rates for buying or renting outpaced average wages by exponential factors and its just wrong.

The Govt has entered the chat.

Public pressure to ‘build more homes’ and ‘do something for renters, first time home buyers’ is one of those files that was going to be political quicksand no matter how it was approached.

But not this time.

The government has been dumping billions into affordable, low cost, urgent home building – largely to grapple with the unhoused. But it needed a tool to combat the problem at the core.

Short term rentals were the problem.

Suddenly it came into view. You can do largely what you want with your property that you live on. But to own large swaths of homes and condos that are excluded from the rental market – that’s just not ok…and the gov’t can outlaw it.

So that is what they have done.

Starting in May 2024, cities and towns set aside in the provincial regulatory change will have STR restrictions to the home-owners property itself. Cities outside that list may opt into it. Some are indicating that they plan to do just that.

Short term rentals have affected businesses because its forced them to pay higher than usual wages as its impossible to source local talent to run the shops and services in areas saturated with STR’s. Nobody on average wages can afford the high premium rates that STR’s charge for nightly rates, and buying into the market is just unreasonable for someone earning less than $40/h these days…if there’s supply to choose from.

The reforms now pending are not an attack on private property rights. Government, either local or provincial, have always had the right to impose land use regulations; and this version is in response to an industry needing regulations.

Do folks have the right to buy multiple properties? Yes…and that won’t change once the new rules take effect. What is different is that folks doing so would have to put those properties into the long term rental market.

Oh, what’s that? You don’t want to be a landlord? Cool. Then sell your surplus properties so that maybe someone else has a fighting chance to live in a home they can own too.

The NDP are responding to a problem made infinitely worse by short term rentals; and there are likely some who will feel some heat by this. Not everyone involved is a high rolling investment firm; some are small players who gambled with some extra funds in buying another home or five. But my sympathies for those folks are held in check by the outrage I feel at a generation mathematically excluded from anything remotely middle class thanks to a greed-based business model.

Seriously. The business model that sustained short term rentals was the overheated real estate market in BC (and other parts of North America).

There is a high probability that folks affected by these changes will organize and probably file legal challenges; probably looking for compensation. But there’s nothing in the regulatory changes that affect a person’s right to own and profit from their own personal property. There’s no right, however, that guarantees you a profit margin off secondary and subsequent properties under this flawed model. But they’re free to make the argument if they wish.

What I would bet money on is the copycats in other jurisdictions also looking to solve the same housing riddle. This is a good idea and a game changer. I hope it succeeds.

I am tired of this. Homes are for families to live in; not as a commodity for trading. Cracking down on real estate speculation, empty home taxes and now reining in the short term rental market.

Lets build homes for people to live in – like our parents and grandparents did. Its that simple.

my2bits

United BC or BC Liberals cannot seem to help themselves

Natural disasters are not a politicians photo-op.

By Peter Kelly

Late August is upon us and wildfire season is in full swing. For several months, many areas of BC have not had significant rain to temper the threat of raging wildfires.

Climate change is the culprit and we’re all to blame. But that’s what has led to stunning extremes to our climate patterns here and around the world. For us, it means tinder dry forests by early spring and ashes by the time the rains and snow return in the fall.

It isn’t new, but it’s getting worse. Those of us today are left to mitigate the effects of this not-so-slow moving trainwreck.

A lightning strike, a cigarette butt or campfire sparks, broken glass by the side of the road and wilful acts of arson are some of the human causes of these fires. But that’s less significant to the fact that once lit, they gotta be put out.

The good.

This should be every coherent person asked to curtail their water usage in a fire zone, asked to pack up and leave their homes in a mandatory evacuation, and of course the thousands of firefighters send to the fire zone.

I’m told that fighting a wildfire is far different than a structure fire (home, business, etc)…sure, of course it is. What’s important to me is that thousands of hard working folks suit up in some of the hottest, dangerous working conditions possible, and attempt to blunt the spread of the fire..that it may burn out or get doused with rain.

There are a lot of potential things than can go wrong. Loss of houses and businesses, farm animals and other wildlife being the product of such a wildfire. Its a shitty thing when it happens. It’s even shittier when any one of the above tragedies happen as a result of either carelessness or wilful defiance of fully legal evacuation orders.

To be clear; a government authority can’t just order an evacuation for no reason; only as a result of an general emergency declaration can such an order be made.

This was done. The Province made a declaration of a state of emergency, and local governments made their subsequent evacuation orders.

To be fair, regardless of how stressful or inconveniently this may have been, overwhelming majorities complied and packed enough for a couple days and hit the road as instructed.

But not everyone.

There will be holdouts, to be sure. Folks determined that they know how to better defend homes and farms (etc) from fires than firefighters have been known to defy evacuation orders. That’s a problem because the residents are often ill-equipped for a fire spreading at storm-force winds at several thousands of degrees of literal fire. They go from a behind-the-line nuisance, to being in need of rescue when they could have left in an orderly fashion.

Evacuations happen because they don’t want anyone to die. This isn’t hard.

It’s far better scenario to attend or donate to a rebuilding fund for those who lost all their worldly items (and weren’t insured), than it is to attend a funeral for those who lost everything.

The bad.

Fresh out of the official pandemic, government ordained emergency orders are bound to upset people. But a fire-triggered evacuation order should be seen no differently than one ordered as a result of an inbound tsunami, or flash floods, etc.

But not this time. This time, a fringe minority took it upon themselves to organize…a freedom convoy.

A Freedom Convoy.

As if to borrow from the narrative of truckers convoy that illegally blockaded the city of Ottawa and Coutts Alberta border crossing, these folks were intent on busting through legit roadblocks because freedom.

It caused serious concern with the BC Wildfire Service.

There was no need for this. Defying blockades and evacuation orders happens; but its usually in isolated incidents. This stupidity triggered a police incident.

The ugly.

The defiance of legal evacuation orders is troubling enough; but even being the most charitable, one can understand the human behaviour and frustration.

And then the BC United Party entered the fray.

They decided then and there that this was the moment to enter the fracas and take a partisan position. On fires, evacuation orders, etc.

This was the time to exploit anxiety and fear and promote an effort to undermine the safety measures being enforced under local government evacuation orders.

A tweet promoted by:

Previous BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson would have slapped this down in a hurry. Politicians should not be exploiting this at all. Emotions are running high enough; but this crew of BC Liberals/BC United MLA’s feel emboldened enough to yell this from the rooftops.

But wait, there’s more.

The stupid

After things had relatively calmed down, it was discovered that the BC United Party was pushing a partnered fundraising effort with the Red Cross (wildfire fundraising) that included a data harvesting attempt that was automatically authorized unless you looked far enough to ‘opt out’.

What made this especially insulting is that only a day previous, they were undermining evacuation order. This, along with the ‘freedom convoy’ organized to bust through police blockades – only to attempt to scoop some political credit and data from good hearted Red Cross donors.

Whomever decided these things were ok – or decided not to stop these things from happening, should probably look for work elsewhere. Totally beyond the pale.

We need to reset the dialogue please.

  1. Please follow emergency evacuation orders; they’re rare, so they’re for good reason.
  2. If you’re a politician, a natural disaster isn’t your photo-op. Promote the official opportunities to assist – which could be financial, could be blood, could be something specific – like blankets or baby food.

Shitty things will continue to happen. Wildfires, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. We can debate things in the political arena at any time, but we should probably make sure folks aren’t unnecessarily put into harms way as a result.

We’re supposed to be better than this.

My2bits

So be it, Alberta.

So you’ve gone and reelected your UCP to a second term in power tonight.

I’m not from Alberta, never lived there, but I can’t help but feel some disappointment for large swaths of your province.

Your government, headed by a science/medical professional skeptic who has pledged to undermine public healthcare is bolstered with a fresh mandate to burn the thing down.

By tapping into an undercurrent of distrust of the feds, wilful ignorance of constitutional law means another predictable clash with Justin Trudeau. A clash the UCP will almost certainly lose…then blame on the corruption of the eastern elite.

Nothing really changes. But the people will suffer. The Alberta healthcare system is in crisis too. But their solution is to attack the front line workers trying to get the job done. There’s profound consequences to this policy direction.

When it comes to oil and gas, as an industry, I fear for Alberta. They should be adapting now, not fighting against the winds of change. Electric vehicle manufacturing is on the way up; and the requirement to do so is a federal mandate. Not that it matters, it’s a change made by a vehicle manufacturing industry which will have a devastating impact to the oil patch.. because their government lives in denial. So now Alberta will put even more eggs into this basket. Must be nice when the price of oil is so high. This trend doesn’t last forever, by the way.

But, who am I to tell the Alberta voter they’re wrong? I won’t. You’ll get to discover that. One painful step at a time.

My2bits

Racism and bigotry are gaining again

And we are worse off for it.

By now you’ve been well acquainted with ‘wokeism’ and the smear the far right have coined against anyone or anything that highlights systemic injustices faced by minorities and the historically oppressed.

But the opposite of ‘woke’ isn’t merely to disagree. The folks on the right are actively moving legislative agendas to literally criminalize the very people that the “woke” identify as being under attack…justifying the social activism of the left.

But the right doesn’t care. The far right has some natural advantages here. There are severe economic pressures and genuine anxiety in society in the slow recovery from the pandemic.

As predicted, the economy bounced back very quickly once the various pandemic restrictions came off, but it seems to have bounced too far and too fast…and its left many behind.

Income disparities, housing crisis, hardcore drug use, and global crisis’ such as climate change and war are on everyone’s’ mind, but true to form – the far right’s response isn’t to offer solutions, its to find a scapegoat.

To believe the far right, its the Woke (the activists who raise awareness on social inequalities and injustices) who are causing banks to fail; making housing expensive, exploit the vulnerable, etc. Arguments that flop with the slightest amount of scrutiny.

Its the same tactic of a certain nationalist party from Germany in the 1930’s led by a former Austrian corporal who pinned blame for all things on the Jews of the world as his scapegoat.

That scrutiny however, as it comes in the form of media inquiries and fact checks – is promptly spun around into the typical victim complex that the right wing has perfected in the sense that they are the victims of witch-hunts and ‘cancelling’…when in reality, every allegation of theirs is a confession.

To be fair however, centrist politicians fail at addressing crisis’ which allows extremists to rise as they offer extreme solutions to poorly understood problems.

Its just that the yardstick is different when measuring up what might be proposed from the left vs the right.

There is an expectation for those on the left that whatever they propose will be a perfect solution, but the right doesn’t get that sort of scrutiny – so its populist and vile talking points are given FAR more weight than anything on the left…even if the left is correct.

We’re seeing banks fail; a call back to the 2008 subprime lending scandal that threw the world into a near depression; but what the right wing isn’t telling you is that the bank crashes are linked to their repeal and Trumps signing of bills that repealed the Frank – Dodd regulations that were to prevent such stupidity from happening again.

It was a move from the left to regulate big banks and the investment community to ensure such disasters don’t happen again; it was because the regulations were removed that the stage was set for a return of risky behaviors which landed in a handful of banks failing – and crumbling investor confidence.

There is no justification on earth to exploit children, they have a right to live their best life and grow into young adults where they can make their own decisions.

But lets be honest. Historically, and in the current context, there are far more people generically conservative who groom children – or far worse. Vile people people aren’t specific to one group or another, its just that you end up finding more from a conservative ilk than not. Reminding of this fact gets you hate and death threats however, as they run out of coherent things to say.

I am the last person to argue for a crackdown on free speech; in fact I would argue that the remedy for awful speech is more people speaking out against it. But there are elements in our society who do not deserve a platform.

Neo-Nazis do not get equal billing in the round table of ideas. They are the modern standard bearer of genocidal murderers who need their mouths sewn shut, forever. That goes for any ‘group’ who calls for laws to exclude, nullify, attack, imprison, or otherwise demonize anyone in society just for being who they are.

There are legitimate grievances by left or right on the economy, social issues and immigration, national defense, etc. So have fulsome debate in the democratic forum, formulate plans and offer them as a platform: how is your party’s idea better than the rest and how will your changes benefit everyone? Lets have those debates.

But those ideas need to be rational, backed by data and a coherent philosophy. Should those ideas come at the expense of other you scapegoat or wish to deport, enslave or murder? Then you’re a fascist.

We don’t accommodate fascists.

Ever.

my2bits

Another lap around the big flaming gas bag at the centre of our universe

We’re in the final hours of 2022, and to many, glad to be done with it. The new year awaits, but how are we going to be any different than 2020-22? Excusing the fact that a global pandemic interrupted our world, what have we learned?

Some might argue that the pandemic brought out the worst in society; I would argue that it merely ripped the bandage off and exposed society’s rot which has always been there.

The divisions and distrust in society didn’t happen because of covid19, or which party controls congress, or the house of commons. These divisions, barriers and the like have happened because society looks at each other and finds blame in others for what is going wrong out there and not looking inward and asking – how can I make a difference.

The great thing about the human species is that we are infinitely capable of learning though. We’ve spent years pointing fingers and avoiding the mirror. We can change this, in fact if you want 2023 to be different than ’22 and earlier – this self reflection and evaluation is necessary.

This doesn’t excuse bad people, doing bad things from the accountability due their lot. This also doesn’t mean that others, not necessarily doing bad things, standing on their self granted soap box and pointing a finger in moral judgement.

We’re at a place in history now where many large problems have been exposed because of our collective failure to deal with them as small problems.

What we need is a consensus in society to deal with these matters because they’re no longer avoidable. Solutions won’t necessarily be easy or comfortable, but the sooner we get to it – the better.

This message won’t land well who profit from peddling fear and hate. I don’t care. Those folks offer no solutions, they offer blame, and as influencers – they can make a lot of useless noise.

Sift out the noise of hatred, fear, division, distraction. Listen to each other.

Turn the page.

All together. Now.

My2bits

The coming reckoning of social media

Starting with MySpace 20+ years ago, now facebook and twitter, social media is facing a reckoning.

The legal framework for social media to exist and thrive has been based on the limited immunity that each organization has through actions of various governments. This means that users can post whatever they want, but social media operators are required to maintain a version of a community standards policy that forbids the most vile content (overt racism, violent content, sexually exploitative content, etc).

Big corporate (and little corporate) advertisers generate most of the revenue flow to social media orgs – which maintain the free basis that average users enjoy. Advertisers in turn may target their advertising dollars to get their product or message in front of you based on your browsing habits and demographic information you’ve volunteered as part of your application to join.

This was the deal. It was a cost free way to join a large club for users; reach out to your community and family and for others to make money. So long as bad actors didn’t exploit the system for their own gain.

The limited immunity granted by government against social media orgs gave folks a place where free speech thrived. But like anything, there are extremes…and freedom of speech doesn’t equal freedom from consequences.

We have learned that the new measure of power is influence itself. The more people you can influence, the more powerful you are. If your social media circles amount to around 100 people – that is your reach. But if you’re a powerful ideologue with 250 million followers, your words carry powerful influence.

That’s a lot of power given to one person; to reach millions with a message. What if the message is lies? Who gets to vet what is truth and a lie? Is lying contrary to social media community standards? Maybe; but who gets to determine this?

Lies that told to millions of followers where election integrity is undermined; dog-whistle racism promoted; basically any narrative that might get you fired from a job or potentially charged with mischief – is that free speech?

For the same reason that you cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre and claim free speech, other words can have dire consequences too. Inciting violence (re: January 6, 2021) isn’t free speech. Yet, free speech puritans argue that it is; that literally anything is fair game…all of it. One problem.

Advertisers do not want their brands anywhere near racist, xenophobic, sexist rhetoric. They don’t want their brands anywhere misinformation on election integrity, antivaxxer garbage – and there is not a law in the land which will force advertisers to do so.

With a loss of substantial sums of money (used to prop up social media orgs), they’ll have little choice but to charge membership fees for what used to be free. In itself, this is a partial solution; but won’t replace the lost cash flow of big advertisers.

What Elon Musk, proud new owner of Twitter has elected to do is double the premium service fee – and add the vaunted blue check ‘validation’ marking to any subscriber who pays $8 per month US.

Anyone.

The blue check was a symbol, and it was granted to important account holders; political leaders, influential business leaders, some corporate accounts, big named media personalities, religious leaders, etc. Now anyone could buy their own blue check – making it meaningless across the system.

What Twitter could have done, is bolster their real-person authentication system. Only bonafide people or legitimate businesses with verifiable account users to wipe out the menace of trolls and bots that are largely responsible for the spread of misinformation. No – instead, those fake accounts can easily get the blue check and portray themselves as trustworthy.

As an advertiser, why would you want your brand to be mired in this ever worsening cesspool of misinformation and hate?

They’re fleeing…if not outright, they’re setting up shop on alternative social media places such as Mastodon. At best, for twitter’s sake, they’ve paused their ad spending, and Elon Musk is pretty upset about it…as if his corporation is entitled to money from another business.

What lays ahead I believe is a reckoning of the social media industry. What began as an experiment in online community building and commerce has become the testing ground for anti-democratic zealots bent on undermining freedoms around the world.

Nobody is interested in undermining free expression, but we are all interested in letting such freedoms thrive as we promote democracy and choice – not attempting to pull the rug out from underneath it.

You can bet you last assets that there are folks uninterested in democracy and freedom and wish to install themselves in positions of absolute power; corporate, religious, and extremists of the hard right and left would ban elections if they could. Social media has given their agents just enough room to spread misinformation and doubt on voting, elections, personal freedoms – to the extent that some ask – why even bother with these troublesome things.

That is what they want.

I don’t pretend to have the answers either, but I know that we cannot keep going the way we are going.

Life and freedom wasn’t bad before social media; but the anonymity of such platforms has given rise to very bad actors where they couldn’t have their soapbox before – out of the shameful embarrassment of their ideas.

The hidden keyboard warriors gather their troops; led by ‘generals’ who gain more and more authority as a result of the increasing absurdity of the level of hateful and false rhetoric that they post. They brag about being outside the mainstream as something to be proud of and gather a following of others who get to be part of this incoherent cabal of others who won’t follow the masses.

Clearly they must know something and big media/corporations, MSM and the political elite must be lying – withholding the truth, I guess.

Admittedly, its empowering to be part of a cause larger than the self; to put efforts into making society better for all. But to what extent do election integrity doubters help society? Covid deniers, antivaxxers, etc. They don’t help. They are menacing to society.

Previously, these circus side show freaks got little attention; now thanks to algorithms of the social media empires – they get promoted. Its the modern equivalent of bombarding people with lies – and demonizing efforts to fact check dangerous mistruths.

We have seen this before.

This is ultimately what their goal is.

My two bits.

The “NDP leadership/membership fiasco” is a right wing trap and many are falling for it.

I’ll put down this marker right now, and I’m guessing that I can speak for many others too. Anjali Appadurai is likely to be an approved leadership candidate, very few memberships are likely to be terminated as a result of the internal investigation raised as a result of some publicly available information hinting at the potential of bad actors trying to influence the membership vote.

Anjali Appadurai was an approved federal candidate in the last election for the NDP and almost won a long time Liberal seat on the power of her candidacy. If she’s good enough to pass the federal NDP vetting process, she’s good enough for the BC NDP too.

Nobody has a problem with this. Any member in good standing can apply to seek the nomination of a federal or provincial riding association, seek an internally elected position or stand for leader of either party. This isn’t the issue.

Anyone can join the party too. Remember, however, that a political party has the right to set rules and conditions for obtaining and maintaining membership in a party. Most parties – as they’re in competition with each other for the same electoral contests – forbid memberships of people who retain a membership in another party.

Obtaining membership in an organization by means of deceit or fraud is illegal. I’m not sure which laws are broken, but I’m certain that its unlawful. The memberships gained in such a way would rightly be terminated, plus any and all evidence of said fraud should be forwarded to the appropriate authorities for possible legal sanctions where they may apply.

When we heard of the general fuckery regarding a possibility of some activists “paying” for others’ membership – a practice flatly banned by law, many of us were alarmed. Immediate links to the BC Liberals own leadership/membership fiasco were made – we don’t want to follow those foot steps.

The current flap is nothing more than a narrative trap. It should not be controversial that a party seek to assure its membership base is legitimate and that its leadership election process is without issues. Yet addressing the concerns and complaints made, any attempts to dig into the matter and the party is accused by some of being under the influence of the ‘good old boys’ network.

Attacking those who defend the party and its REQUIREMENT to audit and examine memberships in light of the allegations made is turning into an exercise in gaslighting.

Just. Fucking. Stop.

Defending the party’s attempt to identify fraudulent memberships is not somehow undemocratic; its protecting the integrity of the vote itself. For folks on the right to attack the NDP for this; well that’s what they do best…attack. But for folks on the left to adopt some of that ‘anti-elitist’ language you often hear in Qanon circles, well that’s an extra level of absurd.

We pay membership dues and make donations not just to fund the various campaign needs we have, but to maintain a party infrastructure – equipped to deal with a mess like this. We want the leadership election process to be untainted. To fail to do so, means that we’ll have equally embarrassing and potentially worse outcomes.

The BC NDP are not the only political party where potential fuckery happens in the lead up to a leadership contest. Most of the federal parties, even the federal green party has had issues. This year, they booted Quebec Green Party leader Alex Tyrrell as they seek to renew their leadership from the last time they had a tainted leadership contest.

I don’t care that Anjali Appadurai is seeking the leadership of the BC NDP, and if I’m disappointed by anything its that only two names came forward for leadership. But this is where we are.

Members will have to decide which leader works best for party unity, setting government policy for the remainder of the term, and who is best to lead the NDP to a winning result in 2024.

One choice.

my2bits