You’re itching for a fight, when nobody started a fight with you. I am not saying whether this is good or bad advice. I am saying that the fact that this looks like bad advice is because we are losing the class war. I am saying that I remember a time when the balance of power was different, when we temporarily had the upper hand in the class struggle due to the COVID weirdness. During that time, people were actually doing things like quiet quitting, and strong-arming employers, and that in that environment advice like the one in the meme did not come off as bad advice.

I’m describing a dynamic, not blaming workers. If I had anything to say to the «single moms wokring at McDonalds» (you did an instrumentalization there, like the «kids in Africa») that would be «hey, how can I help you folks unionize?».

I disagree with the vetting process too, I think there is something really paternalistic and anti-democratic about it. That said, there is something to be said about how Mugyenyi’s candidacy was explicitly declared as en extension of Engler’s campist tankie campaign.

Shenanigans beget shenanigans of course and that was a bad faith response to a bad faith decision by the vetting process. So yes, this is NDP bureaucracy shitting the bed, but from there to saying “the NDP is not interested in renewal” as Nora Loreto writes, I think that’s an overstatement that does a disservice to the moment.

Indigenous lives matter.

Let’s fucking goooo.

No, my argument is that there is a class war and we’re losing it.

Remember post COVID how people were quiet quitting and CEO’s were talking about how workers had too much power?

I remember.

This comment does have a bit of an “ephebophile” vibe to it.

Then accuse me of making an unsubstantiated rant like you just did. To that I can respond with “that’s what Varoufakis has been screaming off the top of his lungs for a decade now and that’s what people like economic historian Adam Tooze have basically said more politely”. When it comes to the stereotyping and moral crusade kind of attitude I can talk from my own goddam experience.

But accusing me of “propaganda” takes it a step further into saying I am a bad faith malicious actor that is trying to manipulate the space over some kind of agenda. Propaganda is not a difference of opinion or a rant, it is a deliberate sustained tactic to control the information space on behalf of someone else. Propaganda is post-truth, treating speech as ammunition in an information war.

So here is what I am asking you to clarify: are you saying I’m a post-truth actor engaging here on behalf of some other entity to perform information warfare?

Yes but we have full control of our currency and central bank and therefore we have more policy levers to fine tune our response. “Forward facing” is aspirational, I just don’t see the benefit.

Why bother with full EU integration then? Let’s apply to join the EFTA and avoid the shenanigans.

I’ve already pointed out your mistake, not sure if it’s worth repeating myself.

In short: a country that controls its currency, faced with a situation like Greece’s in 2012 can ease the hurt by devaluing its currency. That option was not available to Greece because of the Euro. Instead the internal devaluation was forced through, to immense social cost.

That said, I take a very great deal of exception to the “propaganda” accusation. It implies I’m a bad faith actor here, which in turns means anything I say is suspect. If that’s what you think, I have no reason to continue this discussion. Clarify your position.

Take Sweden and Denmark as better examples. But these opt-outs are no longer available. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty is explicit.

Get your Greeks straight buddy. Mitsotakis is not Cypriot. I also have no idea what you mean by “military aid flooding into Cyprus”. Cyprus has a tiny national guard.

That said, with the Helsinki agreement in 1999, Greece pinned its hopes to normalization with “longtime NATO ally” and regional bully to a europeanization of the relationship. The hope was that getting Turkey to commit to European values would “tame” its aggression towards Greece and Cyprus. Then came Erdogan.

1. No we can’t. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty requires new entries to eventually join the Euro.

2. I’m talking very specifically about how the EU is politically dysfunctional. The EU hasn’t matured institutionally, requiring unanimity for things that shouldn’t require it (c.f. Hungary) and informal pressure for things that shouldn’t (cf. how Greek democracy was rendered irrelevant by Shcauble).

Greece’s problems prior to the debt crisis were not the fault of the Euro.

The “solutions” that were offered to Greece during the crisis were not conceived with Greece’s best interest in mind, but with preserving the Euro and placating German (and other “northern”) right wingers that saw the debt crisis as a moral crusade against “lazy Mediterraneans”. That’s what I mean by straitjacket. The Greek economy was forced into an aggressive internal devaluation with no upside. Greece is currently trailing behind post-soviet-bloc members. It’s been effectively shot for at least 10-20 years.

This is to say: a currency union only works if you have other mechanisms for deeper union in terms of fiscality, transfers etc. And in an unequal system like the European one, this doesn’t work to the advantage of everyone. Canada should not let go of the CAD.

EDIT: We are a raw resouces exporter. So take oil for example. If Canada joined the Euro, and oil prices crashed while German manufacturing stayed strong, the Euro would remain high. Canada would be stuck with a “strong” currency it can’t afford, leading to the exact same “straitjacket” effect that Greece suffered from.

The unoccupied part of Cyprus is a functional democracy. At the time of accession, it was hoped that the EU would catalyze a solution to the Cyprus problem altogether. Greek-Cypriot nationalists fucked that up.

The biggest problem with Turkey is not religion, it’s the stunted democracy, the abstention from various international treaties, the occupation of half of Cyprus and the active casus belli against Greece.

As a dual Greek-Canadian citizen: fuck the Euro. It’s a straightjacket that forces everyone to follow the economic priorities of Germany.

We don’t need the Euro. We don’t need the European Stability and Growth Pact. Yes to closer integration, no to joining EU institutional dysfunction.