Business
Western societies must stop the spread of Marxism
From the Fraser Institute
The point is not to improve, it’s to destroy. Think of any tradition or institution that has thus far escaped attention from woke radicals and make a note. Within a year you will learn it too is under siege.
Recently in this paper, Jordan Peterson diagnosed the psychological grip woke activists have on ordinary people, urging conservatives to move beyond the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” and start fighting the philosophical battles at hand. I would argue the economic and philosophical problems originated in the same place—the seminal text of political economy, which became the handbook for bad economics and the woke movement alike. Put simply, it’s the political economy, stupid.
I speak of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Published in 1888 it opens with the simplistic declaration: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed.” In the rigid oppressor/oppressed scheme, which is the heart of woke ideology, everyone is either tyrant or victim, not based on one’s choices but by the accident of historical circumstances. If you are an oppressor, you can never be anything else.
And, most ominously, everything that’s contributed to historical oppression, including all customary civil rights and social institutions, must be destroyed and replaced with a new centrally-planned society. According to Marx and Engels, “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” To abolish private ownership is to abolish all individuality, replacing it with uniform group identity under the control of a totalitarian state.
And they didn’t stop there. They called for abolition of all forms of free buying and selling, all rights of inheritance, family structures, religion, private industry, parental control over education, etc. They called for the centralization of banking, industry, agriculture, all means of communication and all forms of transportation into the hands of “the State,” by which they meant themselves and their allies. “In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things,” they declared. “They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” (emphasis added)
It was through this tortured logic that Marx and Engels convinced their followers to gain power through force, strip people of their rights and impose brutal totalitarianism. After all, what we call “civil rights” and “personal freedoms” were merely the means by which oppressors have historically exercised power. Neither Marx nor Engels nor their allies asked whether their cure might be worse than the disease. Having declared that society is nothing but oppressors exploiting the oppressed, and having declared themselves the true Advocates for the oppressed, they were duty-bound to destroy society and impose what they called “communism,” an empty word that turned out to mean nothing more than them and their fellow lunatics taking charge.
Once you understand that every institution on which society has hitherto rested, down to motherhood and milk, is a target for overthrow, today’s woke revolution makes sense. The point is not to improve, it’s to destroy. Think of any tradition or institution that has thus far escaped attention from woke radicals and make a note. Within a year you will learn it too is under siege.
The 20th century taught us that Marxist theory is false and toxic, but once it takes root it spreads quickly, including in places where people believed “it couldn’t happen here.” From 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 at least half the world lived under Marxist dictatorships. Why would such an odious doctrine become popular in so many societies? How can it be stopped once it begins to spread? After the fall of communism, we in the West stopped asking those questions, and forgot how to answer them.
Marxist doctrine spreads because the “oppressed” gain instant status and power without the need for personal virtues or accomplishments. The idea holds appeal, but only to our most selfish and cruel instincts. The oppressed become exempt from criticism, and come to believe they’re entitled to take everything the so-called oppressors have, by force if necessary, or to burn the whole system down for revenge.
The only remedy for this cult-like mindset, what Elon Musk called the “woke mind virus,” is to teach people a healthy and proper loathing of victim status. The young must be taught old-fashioned values of self-reliance and individual accountability. Coddled adults who embrace cultural Marxism and its seductive promise of victim status might eventually tire of its grim nihilism, but until they do they must not be allowed to exploit or misappropriate the compassion decent people feel towards genuine victims of oppression.
Peterson is right that the underlying battles are philosophical and psychological. Many people will only become engaged when cultural Marxism begins to destroy the economy, as eventually it must. Anyone who wants to prevent another outbreak of the political and psychological horrors of the Maoist and Soviet empires must recognize the lateness of the hour and equip themselves accordingly.
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From LifeSiteNews
Pornhub has taken down 91% of its images and videos and a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because it never verified the age or consent of those in the videos.
Despite an aggressive PR operation to persuade lawmakers that they have reformed, Pornhub is having a very bad year.
On May 29, it was reported that the European Commission is investigating the pornography giant and three other sites for failing to verify the ages of users.
The investigation, which comes after a letter sent to the companies last June asking what measures they have taken to protect minors, is being carried out under the Digital Services Act. The DSA came into effect in November 2022 and directs platforms to ensure “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors, on their service” and implement “targeted measures to protect the rights of the child, including age verification and parental control tools, tools aimed at helping minors signal abuse or obtain support, as appropriate.”
According to France24: “The commission, the EU’s tech regulator, accused the platforms of not having ‘appropriate; age verification tools to prevent children from being exposed to pornography. An AFP correspondent only had to click a button on Tuesday stating they were older than 18 without any further checks to gain access to each of the four platforms.”
Indeed, Pornhub’s alleged safety mechanisms are a sick joke, and Pornhub executives have often revealed the real reason behind their opposition to safeguards: It limits their traffic.
Meanwhile, Pornhub — and other sites owned by parent company Aylo — are blocking their content in France in response to a new age verification law that came into effect on June 7. Solomon Friedman, Aylo’s point man in the Pornhub propaganda war, stated that the French law was “potentially privacy infringing” and “dangerous,” earning a scathing rebuke from France’s deputy minister for digital technology Clara Chappaz.
“We’re not stigmatizing adults who want to consume this content, but we mustn’t do so at the expense of protecting our children,” she said, adding later, “Lying when one does not want to comply with the law and holding others hostage is unacceptable. If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our law, they are free to do so.” According to the French media regulator Arcom, 2.3 million French minors visit pornographic sites every month.
Incidentally, anti-Pornhub activist Laila Mickelwait reported another major breakthrough on June 7. “P*rnhub is deleting much of what’s left of the of the site by June 30,” she wrote on X. “Together we have collectively forced this sex trafficking and rape crime scene to take down 91% of the entire site, totaling 50+ million videos and images. Now a significant portion of the remaining 9% will be GONE this month in what will be the second biggest takedown of P*rnhub content since December 2020.”
“The reason for the mass deletion is that they never verified the age or consent of the individuals depicted in the images and videos, and therefore the site is still awash with real sexual crime,” she added. “Since the fight began in 2020, 91% of P*rnhub has been taken down — over 50 million images and videos. Now a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because P*rnhub never verified the age or consent of those in the videos and the site is a crime scene.”
Mickelwait has long called for the shutdown of Pornhub and the prosecution of those involved in its operation. This second mass deletion of content, as welcome as it is, reeks of a desperate attempt to eliminate the evidence of Pornhub’s crimes.
Chief David Jimmie is president of Stonlasec8 and Chief of Squiala First Nation in B.C. He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group. Photo courtesy Western Indigenous Pipeline Group
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Stonlasec8 agreement is Canada’s first federal Indigenous loan guarantee
The first federally backed Indigenous loan guarantee paves the way for increased prosperity for 36 First Nations communities in British Columbia.
In May, Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) announced a $400 million backstop for the consortium to jointly purchase 12.5 per cent ownership of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system for $712 million.
In the works for two years, the deal redefines long-standing relationships around a pipeline that has been in operation for generations.
“For 65 years, there’s never been an opportunity or a conversation about participating in an asset that’s come through the territory,” said Chief David Jimmie of the Squiala First Nation near Vancouver, B.C.
“We now have an opportunity to have our Nation’s voices heard directly when we have concerns and our partners are willing to listen.”
Jimmie chairs the Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance, which represents the communities buying into the Enbridge system.
The name Stonlasec8 reflects the different regions represented in the agreement, he said.
The Westcoast pipeline stretches more than 2,900 kilometres from northeast B.C. near the Alberta border to the Canada-U.S. border near Bellingham, Wash., running through the middle of the province.
It delivers up to 3.6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas throughout B.C. and the Lower Mainland, Alberta and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
“While we see the benefits back to communities, we are still reminded of our responsibility to the land, air and water so it is important to think of reinvestment opportunities in alternative energy sources and how we can offset the carbon footprint,” Jimmie said.
He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG), a coalition of First Nations communities working in partnership with Pembina Pipeline to secure an ownership stake in the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system.
There is overlap between the communities in the two groups, he said.
CDEV vice-president Sébastien Labelle said provincial models such as the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC) and Ontario’s Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program helped bring the federal government’s version of the loan guarantee to life.
“It’s not a new idea. Alberta started it before us, and Ontario,” Labelle said.
“We hired some of the same advisors AIOC hired because we want to make sure we are aligned with the market. We didn’t want to start something completely new.”
Broadly, Jimmie said the Stonlasec8 agreement will provide sustained funding for investments like housing, infrastructure, environmental stewardship and cultural preservation. But it’s up to the individual communities how to spend the ongoing proceeds.
The long-term cash injections from owning equity stakes of major projects can provide benefits that traditional funding agreements with the federal government do not, he said.
Labelle said the goal is to ensure Indigenous communities benefit from projects on their traditional territories.
“There’s a lot of intangible, indirect things that I think are hugely important from an economic perspective,” he said.
“You are improving the relationship with pipeline companies, you are improving social license to do projects like this.”
Jimmie stressed the impact the collaborative atmosphere of the negotiations had on the success of the Stonlasec8 agreement.
“It takes true collaboration to reach a successful partnership, which doesn’t always happen. And from the Nation representation, the sophistication of the group was one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”
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