Institute for Non-toxic Propaganda

I am appalled by the Canadian diplomatic passivity re the Trump alliance proposal. It requires a generous amount of mock-understanding reaction to scare them into paralysis:

As Canadians we monitor the USA very closely and recognise that your primitive toxic two party system is on the verge of collapse. While we welcome in principle your impulse to modernise your societal institutions through an amalgamation with our confederation, there a would of course be several requirements before we could consider your application as potential 'state/provinces'. ( State is likely not the best word to use in this context as it carries much baggage from the horse and buggy era of your founding, and confounds some international concepts of statehood; either you are united as one state or you are not.)

We would also be very concerned with any tendency to retain any vestiges of your rhetoric of exceptionalism, in fact we take it as a given that your desire to join with us is a tacit admission that this is no longer the case. Your choice to seek to learn from our experience demonstrates a newfound political maturity; there should be many a mutual benefit in a life together sans tariffs. (We trust that you have already begun French language classes.)

Among the structural adjustments that will assist our mutual prosperity is the immediate adoption of proportional representation as a minor nod to the principles of democratic socialism. Your winner-takes-all binary promotes the abusive confrontations that sadly colour much of your political discourse; while the corruption inherent in the plethora of political appointments seems very damaging. Some might say that we are not that much better, but we at least function through a tradition of minority governments that invite to a spirit of compromise and adaption.

Also it should be noted that we currently operate with 13 administrative entities that equate with your 'states'. A handful of these, while they cover enormous geographical areas, do have very low populations relative to even your smaller states, but since each of these have independent infrastructures it may be best to retain them at least in a transition phase. To bring justice into our merger, an electoral college system where each of our provinces have its vote weighted at four times that of an individual US state would provide matrimonial balance. ( 4 x 13 = 50 + DC and Puerto Rico). The fun question would of course be: what should the new country be called? I suspect that Trumpland won't go down well here, but at least you can be quit that silly habit of claiming to be the sum total of two entire continents.

XR Bergen encourages:
https://www.facebook.com/Pangfritt-Nytt%C3%A5r-101825234652422/
(Må få alt på samme plass)

Pangfritt Nyttår Vi ønsker å endre nyttårstradisjonen som kommer fra den materialistisk samfunns ytelsen og inspir

pbs.twimg.com

This is a bit vital to a non-toxic strategy. I haven't yet googled Boenhoffer, but his timeline ends in 1945 and he writes from prison, so asking him to display hope would be a bit much. I'd say that since there may very well be some stupidity in the system, it is useful not to feed nor provoke it, but rather use its our weight against itself. The homeopathic remedy would seek to approach it by posing a dilemma in a posture where one is even more naive than the one you seek to confront. (Naive and innocent would inevitably be labelled as stupidity by the stupid.) Therefore 'Listening Stations' generate more good than do rantings.

creativeconflictwisdom.files.wordpress.com

Rough translation for the internationals:
My latest project is designed to wean the blesséd Norwegians off their primitive rite of shooting off fireworks on New Year's as a clumsy (and if you ask me utterly inappropriate) method to both thank Mother Earth for her generosity in the year gone by and to express the wish that our good cooperation may continue.
(next week: we follow up with the constructive alternative dancing vegetable video campaign which everyone will be encouraged to circulate like mad.)