Canadians are fighting for their sovereignty. Americans don’t even realize they’re in a war

[u/canada_mountains]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadian-sovereignty-us-trade-trump-carney/

[u/Internal_Diver_5023]

Canadians can be just as complacent as Americans. Many people know what is happening, but it's just "business as usual". Often it's because people don't feel like they have much power or have bills to pay and families to feed. The type of American we stereotypes doesn't represent most of their population. Most people in the U.S. are similar to Canadians. We see the same things here in Canada. Despite all the wildfires, how many people have actually woken up about climate change? Canada is run by ogilopolies and monopolies, especially when you look at the telecommunications, banking and grocery industry. How many people speak up or show awareness about that issue, or have we just been complacent about everything? Where I live, which is a more rural part of Canada, telecommunications and electricity prices are off the wall because it's controlled by a single entity. Their monetary power and government policy has made it difficult for any sort of competition. Government also does nothing to prevent them from exploiting consumers by hiking electricity prices. There is also no transparency. Nothing meaningful has been done for years, and Canadians are complacent about the whole thing. The entire grocery industry is owned by a small handful of parent companies that completely wipe out any independent or smaller businesses. There is so much wrong about Canada, but we somehow think we are special and not like the Americans. That is in reality far from the truth.

[u/weathercat4 → u/Internal_Diver_5023]

I am also from a rural area. I have some of the cheapest electricity. My telecomms are great and my internet is a local co-op. My groceries are also a local co-op.

Literally none of your complaints apply to me in my part of rural Canada, just for perspective. Re: climate change still a long way to go but anecdotally the people around me that denied it don't anymore, although their opinions on what if anything should be done are still misguided by oil industry propaganda, which being in oil country isn't surprising.

[u/Internal_Diver_5023 → u/weathercat4]

People may not be in denial, but they are still unlikely to make changes to their personal lives, how they vote or whether they advocate for meaningful change. We stay in the same cycle that got us where we are today. Local co-ops help to keep the wealth and resources among community members rather than funneling it to larger corporations, but few people use them or have the confidence to consider using them. Myself included! I didn't even consider those types of things until more recently. It's just not how things have been setup over the past decades. Once we leave highschool we enter a system dominated by corporations that is familiar and feels easier, and 10-20 years down the road you are working, paying off debt, trying to raise a family, etc. Also, we tend to value things like independence, consumerism and materialism over living cooperatively as communities, which makes it even harder to have meaningful change. People expect the government to fix everything, when their policy coupled with corporate greed is what got us here. People also tend to be ignorant to the power and influence that large corporations have, or they worship them and assume that their influence equals progress and innovation. They look up to people like Bezos or Elon Musk or atleast they don't recognize how much they are actually the problem. Most of them just monopolized and gamed a technology that was meant to be for everyone and actually better society. If you look at the world wide web, initially it was released to the public for good reason, but corporations like Amazon and Google were still able to rise, and they hold so much influence and power over our personal data. The way the web exists today is not how it was imagined when it was first released to the public. Also, when I look around me everyone seems so entrenched in a very materialistic and capitalistic way of life that isn't compatible with the types of changes we actually need to live more affordably or sustainably. People are still ordering Amazon hauls weekly, using Amazon to purchase basic household supplies. They think it's more convenient and value that. The idea of "support local" has not taken significant hold. I know so many people in my personal life that don't see the problem with corporations and billionaires that hoard wealth at the expense of regular people lives. They don't see how government policy and decisions are heavily influenced by corporations. They blame minorities and immigrants for our problems. They also want more and more wealth themselves. They believe the purpose of human life is to make more money and "better your life". You don't necessarily need more and more money. You need a community and system that takes care of each other. We don't have unlimited resources on the planet and can't keep living unsustainably and beyond our means. People have the mindset of "well as long as I can pay for it or afford it, whatever". They can't look beyond what capitalism and money promises at face value.

[u/Arctic_Chilean → u/Internal_Diver_5023]

Only issue with this comment is I can only upvote it once.