Trump’s threats to Canada are not idle boasts and shouldn’t be taken as such. They call for a whole of society response.
I am very glad that Canadians are uniting and sticking up for their local businesses like never before, but we cannot lose sight of what the real danger is.
The US is very unlikely to launch a physical invasion. It would be extremely foolish for numerous reasons, chief of them being our massive unprotected border and how our major urban centres are right beside US cities. We are not a country on the other side of the globe.
No, the real danger is the US economically weakening us and putting us into a position where we are forced to capitulate much like Mexico. Canada does have leverage over the US but that only remains if we protect our industries which make up our economic backbone. Donald placed a 250% tariff on Canadian dairy which, on paper, seems pointless because the US doesn’t really buy any Canadian dairy. But it does send a message that he knows dairy is a protected industry in Canada and he wants to attack it.
It is so important that we have leaders willing to protect these industries and be willing to spend money to expand them.
Ah yes. I’m glad we can be so confident the current administration would never do something foolish or damaging to themselves or others.
Also it only took them days to stop multi drug resistant tuberculosis treatment half way, and giving countless babies HIV that wouldn’t have had it, if not for the recent actions of this administration. Or blatantly and loudly planning an ethnic genocide. Also following the putin method by the letter, and letting Russian media into the oval office while they try to put down Zelenskyy.
Hmm, what is the Russian ‘go to’ behaviour for shared borders?
I think we need to be developing anti drone tech among other things. I’m not saying it will happen, and it would likely instigate or be included in a civil war. I would usually think all of this sounds crazy, but we live in unprecedented times, full of familiar historical rhymes. I’m sure their preference is to take over without having to actually fight, so they can grow their power, but also things might escalate as they continue to rob and abuse the masses. There are more reasons than i can summize here, but I think pretending there is no danger is wilfully ignorant at this point. I hope for the best, but I don’t trust these people to not be thoughtlessly monstrous.
The US is very unlikely to launch a physical invasion. It would be extremely foolish
It would be extremely foolish to avoid preparing to defend yourselves based on expecting this administration to avoid foolishness.
I never said we should avoid it.
Canada should 100% be securing its borders, arms, and making new allies. Joint military cooperation with the EU would be a huge boon, as would civil defence measures. Finland is a great example of how to prepare when living next to a hostile power.
@TheFeatureCreature @noxypaws I think Finland is a good model, also for other European countries. Western European countries especially could do with some societal resiliance and militancy.
Finland went full Tropic Thunder in joining NATO. They had a good model.
Canada will be waiting fuckers!
God damn right we will. Stock up now folks. There are loads of things you can have on hand to be ready and simple training you can get in a weekend or two to assist.
What training do you suggest?
First aid.
Drone operation or building
PAL for firearms.
Cooking classes.
How to grow, forage, harvest foods.
Food storage. Canning, dehydrating, fermenting, curing, root cellars, refrigeration.
Train on HAM Radio and find trusted independent alternate media sources and follow CBC and open source social media for news and organizing.
Fitness of all kinds including self defense.
Survival or wilderness experience.
Learn to drive a standard transmission or a large truck or operate a piece of heavy equipment or large farm equipment.
Small engine repair or basic construction skills.
Those with medical training update your trauma training.
Consider joining the reserves.
Learn how to operate a chainsaw.
Rescue training.
High angle and confined space training.
Swimming lessons, diving lessons, boating course.
Computer programming, design and 3D printing.
Classes on the manipulation tactics of social media.
Create permanent personal media backups of important information including Wikipedia, entertainment, and Foss based software that can operate free of internet connections or obscure your location and personal information to the best of your ability.
Volunteer at a local mutual aid org (food banks, search and rescue, volunteer fire or ambulance, community gardens, drop in centers, youth training programs, libraries, municipal rec departments etc.)
Contact your MLA, MP, Mayor and Council about starting a civil defense League and leaving social media sites from American oligarchs.
And most of all organize. Talk to your neighbors and friends about what they are doing to prepare. Help one another. There are so many things we can do to educate ourselves and find like minded community members to start organizing. The organizing and meeting people is what makes us stronger. The rest is just a bonus.
To add : Support communication infrastructure outside of AWS : that can be as simple as showing up on Lemmy regularly, visiting CBC website and a variety of Canadian information sources all the way to having a computer offline with a copy of early 2025 Wikipedia and various open sources software and decent local LLM.
Community involvement will be for two objectives: increasing preparedness is evident but also your own mental health that will be way more stable with you actively doing something tangible + the support network.
Wow this is epic!!! Thanks for sharing. Every Canadian needs to step up with this stuff.
Add HAM radio to the list!
Good one. Will do.
just lure them to the high artic, and the yukon the fat slobs will just donnor party each other very quickly. canada also has to option to cut off all traffic to ALASKA.
Unbelievable shit. Your brothers from Europe are with you.
This could be pretty scary if the US had an evil and competent leader.
Given Jabba the Trump’s track record, he’ll surrender in about 3 months.
Yeah we need deterrents. This shit ain’t funny anymore and there’s no guarantee Trump will be the last in the string of fascists.
Exactly they’re repopulating themselves like cancer. On socials they’re regurgitating MAGA/Trump bs talking points. It’s the American culture at this point to do hostile takeovers. They’ve always been this way. We just never thought it would happen to us.
i declare war to start on march 25th
actually war is pushed back to April 1st
ok it’s war time! wait why is my economy hurting, pause the war
ok war for real now. wait, sorry one sec, war partially pushed back to next month
why is Canada attacking us?
Imagine marching troops in only to retreat after 18 hours of something stupid.
Citizens of the world, I’m begging you not to trust my country. If they’ve been so awful to me, a citizen born here, there’s no telling what they’ll do to you.
Considering how pissed off and united we are over some off the cuff comments about 51st state and the fact it’s personal for trump, he really hates Trudeau, I don’t think they would be ready for the absolute carnage some of us would unleash on them. IRA showed everyone the way forward.
I wouldn’t say months of repeated messaging in official speeches is “off the cuff”
Never thought I’d ever say it, but I’m not terribly opposed to an independent Canadian nuclear deterrent these days.
I can think of no other workable solution if we’re serious about remaining Canadian. The Ricans would steamroll us conventionally. Without a credible deterrent, Slobba the Slut could very well ramble himself incoherently from ‘economic pressure’ to ‘occupational force.’ We don’t know what his puppetmasters and wormtongues are whispering in his ear, or how far he and his sycophants are willing to go for a cheaper egg.
Increasing domestic drone and munition (mortar shells, AT mines, grenades) production would be valuable too.
This. Ukraine has shown us the way. There is no great counter to cheap drones yet…
This is the kind of thing where I hope we are secretly working on this and are able to make an imminent announcement to make it crystal clear not to test us.
This isn’t the case.
Poland is thinking of that.