Analysis from all corners - BlogFlock

A Thanksgiving of Resistance - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-12T12:02:15.000Z

Every year at this time as I watch the yellow leaves being blown off the trees and the cold wind of October tingling the air, I’m reminded of a decision that changed my life.

25 years ago, on Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to dedicate my life to politics. Not the politics of a big title and fancy office – but the politics of resistance, the politics of standing up for people who had no voice.

Up until that moment, my focus was raising my young family, playing in a band, and trying to make ends meet. I didn’t even own a suit.

But in 2000, I found myself standing on a blockade at the Adams Mine road near Kirkland Lake. There were hundreds of people out that day. We had been there for several days, blocking the road and the railway line. Over Thanksgiving weekend, the Premier of Ontario issued the order for police to move against us with mass arrests.

The people they were coming to arrest weren’t dangerous radicals; they were my neighbours. Farmers. Miners. Indigenous people. Retirees. We were all there together to defend our region against a massive garbage-dump plan that would have devastating consequences for our groundwater and environment.

Adams Mine, Kirkland Lake, Ontario

The plan was so obviously fraught with problems and danger that it should have been rejected outright. And yet, at every stage of the public process, it was pushed ahead. Laws were changed, public hearings turned into rubber-stamp exercises, and the voices of experts were ignored.

Over 18 years, our rural region of 35,000 fought five separate campaigns against the Adams Mine proposal. Each campaign was an increasingly high-stakes affair that included mass demonstrations, blockades and non-violent resistance.

During that long struggle, the region was also forced to confront international PCB import schemes and the potential of toxic waste shipments from Japan, the United States and Mexico. The fight against these projects started in small northern Legion Halls and went all the way to an international NAFTA Tribunal.

At every step of the way, a population of rural and Indigenous people had to face down against the power of big money and lobbyists. They believed that we counted for little – we were going to be made into a sacrifice zone.

As I stood on the barricade, I realized that it should never have come to this. That the people whom we trusted to defend the public interest failed us. I swore I would never let the people of my community be put in that position again.

That’s the moment when I began my new life project – building resistance and standing up for people.

Here’s what I learned during the long fight to protect our region.

I learned that that we needed to find ways to overcome our internal divisions and mistrust. We had to work together: First Nations and farmers, environmentalists and miners, urban and rural, Anglophones and Francophones. In the crucible of a vicious dump war, community was built, and community won out.

I learned that being nice and trusting in the “process” will guarantee that the mega project goes ahead. Resistance was about forcing the “process” to listen to us – hence the blockades and rallies.

I learned that the greatest strength ordinary people have is their goodwill and decency. Which is why when the police showed up to break the blockade, we responded with a call for people across the region to come celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with us.

We fed over 1,000 people on that Thanksgiving Sunday.

There was food to feed everyone and more pumpkin pie than you could have ever imagined. I will never forget the beauty of that cold day and the incredible spirit of the people. The odds were so stacked against us, but we had each other. And this made us unbeatable.

The other side had all the money, the power of lobbyists, and the inside track with government, and still they lost.

Which brings me to the most important lesson I learned of resistance:

It doesn’t matter how great the odds are against you; what matters is the solidarity and determination of the people who are ready to stand up.

From my family to yours, happy Thanksgiving.

Take care of yourselves and each other, my friends and fellow resisters, and don’t let the bastards get you down.

- Charlie

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The Great Derangement: Carney, Trump and the Return of Keystone XL - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-10T12:02:31.000Z

Well, that was unexpected.

Not the part where Donald Trump cut off our Prime Minister as he was speaking to brag about Canada becoming part of the United States. Or that Trump offered no deal, no concessions. Or that in response to our unilateral offer to drop tariffs, he raised the stakes on Canadian lumber and furniture.

What was surprising was that Mark Carney suddenly put a plan to revive the dormant Keystone XL pipeline on the table.

This controversial pipeline has been dead for years. Reviving it represents a huge increase of Canadian bitumen production all to benefit the United States. It is also a massive carbon bomb whose emissions will impact the planet for decades.

Didn’t Carney go to Washington to fight for aluminum and steel?

Instead, he promoted the interests of the already hugely profitable oil sector. Vichy Premier Danielle Smith described the Carney-Trump agreement as “love language.”

I have been chastised by some on this issue because I apparently don’t seeing the big picture. They say that Carney isn’t really serious and that Keystone will never get built. Or that this was a smart gambit to win other concessions.

And yet Washington made sure to shut that down right away. Sure, they are interested in being the beneficiaries of a massive increase in Canadian oil, but they remain determined to take the war to our auto and steel sectors.

The Keystone talk comes at a time when all the red lines on planetary stability are being crossed. Canada remains determined to lead the world in increased oil production. The publicly funded TMX pipeline added nearly 900,000 barrels of new production to the tar sands. This represents a massive doubling down on the long-term expansion of oil. Keystone would add another 890,000.

This would create a carbon bomb that will have a lasting impact on the planet for centuries.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Carney has made commitments to significantly increase LNG production. For this, he has received a great deal of praise in the Canadian media. The way it is being spun, LNG will build our economy and foster national unity.

And yet I haven’t read a single article that mentions the huge methane impacts of LNG. Methane is a planet killer, and recent studies show that far from being clean, LNG’s methane emissions are 33% worse than those of coal.

In the meantime, our political leaders have stopped talking about inconvenient realities like the dangerous 1.5 degree Celsius red line (we are blowing way past it).

Or meeting our 2050 Net Zero targets (we were never even close to achieving).

Or how Canada’s EV strategy and clean tech potential could enable us to become a global leader in technology.

I write this in October, where the fires of a catastrophic summer burning season continue to impact people. When I landed in Saskatchewan last week, the big blue prairie sky was hidden by smoke. When I returned to Northern Ontario, the smell of a burning planet followed me.

What frightens me is how quickly we seem to have adapted to the notion that summer has become the season for mass evacuations and fire. Does it not occur to us that this is just the beginning phase of out-of-control climate breakdown?

Seth Klein, in his book A Good War: Mobilizing for Canada’s Climate Emergency, attempted to reposition the crisis as the ultimate “nation-building” exercise. He writes about how Canadians came together in the face of staggering odds to find victory in World War II.

We succeeded then, Klein writes, and we have the potential and skills to do so again. Except there doesn’t seem to be any political interest. It’s like we pretend that we are somehow living in an eternal present.

Perhaps it is simply a reflection of an existential inability to confront the magnitude of the crisis that we have unleashed. It seems more comforting to hide in delusion rather than face harsh reality.

Amitav Ghosh’s book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, describes the staggering refusal of thinkers, artists, and writers of our time to address a crisis that could destroy our lives on this planet.

As someone who is constantly pestered and harassed by climate deniers, I think “great derangement” is the perfect term.

In recent catastrophic fires in Oregon, a group of armed men set up roadblocks, determined to hunt arsonists who they believed were committing arson on an unprecedented scale. They were convinced that the massive fires causing so much damage to the environment and homes were the actions of ANTIFA. Frustrated police and fire services begged these armed men to stop interfering with the work of evacuations and fire suppression. There was no arson. There was no ANTIFA.

Oregon was burning from a growing climate disaster.

We can shake our heads at the delusion of these MAGA nutters just as we laugh at the US Congressmen who wrote a letter to Canada this summer telling us to keep the smoke from a burning planet on our side of the border.

However, when it comes to the state of the planet, there is plenty of delusion to go around. Are those men in Oregon any more delusional than our Prime Minister, who more than anyone knows the environmental impacts of investing in massive new fossil fuel projects?

Over the last number of years, Mr. Carney gained an international reputation as the “green banker.” He was regularly presented as the erudite economist who explained how market forces would inevitably lead to a massive greening of the economy.

I remember the optimism when Prime Minister Trudeau stood up at the Paris Convention and promised that “Canada was back.” He made multiple promises to set firm Net Zero targets, invest in clean energy, and put Canada on the road to becoming a climate leader. I sat on the Natural Resources Committee because I wanted to play a role in building on Canada’s immense potential for renewable energy.

Examples of the possibilities were everywhere: California and Texas shifted heavily to renewables to the point that it became possible to run their grid on clean tech. Chinese investment in renewables has revolutionized battery storage, clean technology and EV cars in the space of a few years.

Europe is looking at transitioning to a clean energy future. President Joe Biden invested massively in clean tech and was in the process of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs when Trump came in with a determination to push the clock back to the 20th century.

Canada had the opportunity to be a world leader in clean tech. The heart of this new economy was in Alberta, with its immense leadership in the energy sector. In my time in Parliament, I met with many investors, workers and regional leaders who saw the potential for 170,000 new jobs in Alberta from clean tech investments.

But Danielle Smith killed the clean energy economy with a cynical moratorium on new projects. In a single stroke, she shut down $33 billion in planned clean energy projects.

Her focus was on reviving the energy wars with Ottawa. The Conservatives blamed the Trudeau government for trying to destroy Alberta’s energy industry. And yet, throughout the Trudeau years, oil and gas production continued to increase. Huge public subsidies were spent on Big Oil, including building the TMX pipeline.

Even as the climate impacts became increasingly obvious, the oil giants doubled down.

In Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown, researchers Andreas Malm and Wim Carton argue that we are way past the point of punting the issue of the planet’s future to a more convenient time.

We frittered away the window that we had for an economic transition without pain. They write that the powerful have too much money invested in the death of the planet.

“Any attempt at meaningful mitigation of the crisis will have to waylay the dominant classes with a force and confrontational resolve unlike anything in common memory or imagination… As things now stand, the crisis will not wait for anything less than a blitz to strip elites of the assets they hold and defend.”

Will Keystone XL bring peace between Canada and Trump? Don’t count on it.

Will it help the struggling auto and steel sector? Not a chance.

Will it drive the profits of the oil giants? Absolutely.

As for the planet?

Good luck, friends. Good luck.

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Ancient Roman theatre was a powerful weapon of empire, so why were actors lives so tragic? - HistoryExtra

2025-10-09T11:59:20.000Z

Roman society was acutely hierarchical. Every occupation carried a moral weight, and the line between dignity and dishonour was a stark one. A senator who spoke in the law courts could win eternal repute, but a gladiator who risked his life to entertain the masses was branded socially devalued, and the same was true of actors.

No matter how dazzling their performances in front of a packed theatre might be, their profession consigned them to the lowest rungs of society. By law they were infamis; people of ill repute, stripped of civic rights and grouped alongside the enslaved.

But what was this paradoxical life of stardom and shame really like for the actors of the Roman empire?

Roman theatre’s golden age under Augustus

“When we talk about a golden age of Roman theatre, we tend to be talking about Emperor Augustus’s reign and the beginning of the Roman empire,” says Jessica Clarke, author of A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.

“This was a period with new cultural, religious and political structures being implemented.”

Augustus was the first emperor of Rome, ruling from 27 BC until AD 14. And he grasped how useful theatre could be as a political tool.

Read more | The worst Roman emperors

Spectacle was part of a strategy that Romans would come to call panem et circenses, or bread and circuses: free food and entertainment offered to the populace in return for loyalty and social cohesion. Drama and performance helped bind audiences into a shared Roman identity and provided a stage (quite literally) for imperial ideology.

A web of theatres across the Roman empire

“Augustus built hundreds of theatres across the Roman empire, all following the design of the theatre that he also built for himself in Rome,” Clarke explains. “These theatres are enormous, they’re spread across all of the provinces. Essentially, what he built was a web of entertainment venues that Rome was in charge of.”

These theatres were architectural marvels in themselves. The Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, inaugurated by Augustus in 13 BC and named after his nephew, could seat more than 10,000 people. Its semicircular rows of stone seating rose above a wide orchestra space and a stage backed by the towering scaenae frons; a richly decorated permanent backdrop of columns, niches and statues.

Men and women alike could attend the performances at this new wave of theatres, (unlike in Greece, where women were mostly banned from attending) and seating was arranged by social rank, with senators and equestrians – members of the second-highest social class – in prime positions, and the poor higher up.

Read more | Women in ancient Greece: what were their lives like?

Performances ranged from solemn tragedies to ribald comedies, farcical mimes and elaborate pantomimes accompanied by music and dance. Admission was usually free, funded by magistrates or emperors seeking popularity.

Who performed and who was excluded

The Roman stage, however, was overwhelmingly male. As in Greece, women were largely banned from treading the boards. Clarke points to the existence of scant evidence of female performers in mime and pantomime – forms considered lower status and more risqué – but official theatre roles were reserved for men.

“It’s quite similar to Shakespearean rules around who is allowed to step onto a stage,” says Clarke. “Though it would have been slightly easier for men to play the female roles because they had masks on.”

Masks, made of linen and plaster or occasionally wood, were central to performance, and not just because they made it easier for men to portray women; they exaggerated expressions and amplified voices too.

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Actors as infamis

No amount of training or talent could lift an actor out of the social stigma that came with the role.

“In ancient Rome, acting was an incredibly lowly profession,” says Clarke. “It wasn’t something that was seen as an acceptable job for a Roman citizen to undertake.

An actor was in the class known as infamis.

“This was the same class as a slave; the same class as a prostitute. You would have no voting rights, and you also don’t have bodily autonomy, so you don’t have legal rights over your body,” Clarke explains.

Why this disdain? Roman moralists believed that a respectable citizen should preserve dignitas (dignity) and gravitas (seriousness). To display one’s body on stage, to impersonate others, or to provoke laughter was considered undignified. The actor sold their body and voice for public pleasure, which made the profession inherently shameful.

Read more | Who were the gladiators of ancient Rome? Plus Spartacus, Crixus and 8 more fighters you should know

This attitude was consistent with how Roman society viewed other entertainers. Gladiators might achieve celebrity in the arena, and charioteers could command passionate fan followings, but both were technically degraded in status. Performers were celebrated in spectacle but lacked any standing in civic life.

The life of a Roman actor

Evidence from inscriptions, satirical writings and contracts paints a picture of precariousness. Troupes travelled from town to town, dependent on festivals and civic sponsorship for work, while pay was unreliable; some actors received generous gifts, others little more than food and board.

The constant would have been the rehearsals. Actors trained their voices to carry across open-air theatres, practised precise gestures codified to signal emotions and maintained the masks, costumes and props essential for performance. Injuries would have been common, especially in physical pantomimes involving acrobatics.

Read more | The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist

“But that doesn’t mean that we don’t know about some very famous actors,” says Clarke. “One we know of is called Clodius Aesopus. He was the most famous tragic actor in the late Republic. Cicero was friends with him.”

Aesopus, active in the first century BC, was celebrated for bringing Greek classics to Roman audiences. As Clarke notes, he became a personal acquaintance of Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of Rome’s greatest statesmen, orators and philosophers, whose speeches still survive as masterpieces of Latin prose. That such a figure could publicly befriend an actor underscores the inherent paradox: Aesopus was admired, wealthy and socially connected, yet in law he remained infamis.

Life as a Roman actor was full of strange contradictions. The art form of theatre was a powerful political tool, theatres themselves were magnificent constructions, audiences were vast and enthusiastic, and some performers became famous enough to mingle with Rome’s elite.

Yet the profession itself stripped actors of rights and respect. It was a life lived in the spotlight, but without dignity.

Jessica Clarke was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

What did the Tudors think was ‘good’ sex? These tips and tricks were key to relationships in the 16th century - HistoryExtra

2025-10-08T15:53:59.000Z

Is there any better way to understand the deadly politics and high drama of the Tudor era than through the lens of their audacious romantic entanglements?

After all, King Henry VIII had six wives, instigating the Reformation in the name of love (and presumably lust, too), meanwhile Queen Elizabeth I grew a cult of personality around her virginity, developing it into a sharp instrument of power and control. Sex, or lack thereof, was clearly important to the Tudor royals.

But away from the courts of kings and queens, what role did intimate romance play in the lives of ordinary Tudors; the people who were farmers, millers, bakers and blacksmiths? What did they get up to in the bedroom, and what was the role of sex in their lives?

Good vs bad sex

“[Sex] was seriously important to people in Tudor Britain,” says Ruth Goodman, speaking in her newest HistoryExtra Academy course, Tudor Life, “it marked the moment of adulthood. A single person [as opposed to someone who was married] wasn’t considered to be fully adult”.

Watch now | Ruth Goodman on Tudor life

As a watershed moment in a person’s life, sex was incredibly important, both practically and symbolically. However, it wasn’t necessarily straightforward – there were social norms that dictated how people should be having sex.

Sex was only considered ‘good’ if it took place within marriage and, as Goodman explains, “so long as it fulfilled one of two purposes: one was to bond a couple together, and the other was procreation”.

No matter what sort of sex it was, if it happened outside of the marital bed, it was immoral. Anything that fell outside of the “traditional marriage picture of a man and a woman creating babies” was a transgression and ‘bad’ sex.

But that didn’t mean that the Tudors discouraged pleasure.

The importance of pleasure

One of the main Tudor beliefs about sex was that a woman could only conceive if she was enjoying the act, and this would ideally include a female orgasm. “Just as a man needed to be interested in order to produce seed, a woman needed to be interested in order for that union to occur”, explains Goodman.

It may seem surprising that there was such a focus on women’s pleasure in what was a largely patriarchal society. But, while some good husbands may have used this belief to ensure their wives had a good time, there were some more sinister repercussions to this too.

“The bad side of [this belief] is that if a woman is forced [to have sex] and she conceives, then nobody in society believes she was raped; they think she must have been enjoying it,” explains Goodman.

So, while female pleasure was considered to be a crucial part of sex, and essential to procreation, it was a double-edged sword that had inadvertent negative consequences too.

Getting the position right

But pleasure wasn’t the only thing needed for procreation, according to Tudor ideas about sex. There was some biological backing to their understanding of reproduction too.

“It’s thought in the Tudor period that a woman’s reproductive organs are a mirror image of a man’s … if you want to have children, you should [be positioned in] a nice straight line to allow the seed to get where it needs to go”, says Goodman.

Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love

This meant that the ultimate position to optimise conception was the missionary position. The idea was that the straighter the couple’s bodies were lined up, the more likely they were to conceive. “Any [position] in which the bodies were bent, particularly a woman’s body, which might prohibit the movement of the seed [was] not so good,” notes Goodman.

It wasn’t just the position of the couple that mattered, though. The Tudors had detailed notions about how the testicles affected the success of conception and the gender of the baby.

Tudor understandings of the body proposed that the right-hand side of the heart carried fresh, more vigorous blood around the body, so the right side had more energy than the left. It followed that the more ‘powerful’ right testicle would therefore be responsible for creating male children – and the left, female.

As we know from Henry VIII’s succession crisis, having male babies was of great importance. So, what did Tudor men do if they wanted to ensure a male heir?

Well, as Goodman reveals, “if you wanted to be sure of having a boy, it was a really good idea to tie a ribbon around the left-hand testicle, just to ensure that the correct seed made the journey”.

Although we now know that this would not have had any impact on a baby’s sex, it’s intriguing to think that men in the 16^th century – including King Henry VIII himself – may have been tying ribbons around their genitals in an attempt to conceive a much-wanted boy.

What did Tudors think was sexy?

While the main reason for sex in the 16^th century was to conceive a child, that doesn’t mean people were only having sex to procreate. Many couples were simply in love and just wanted to have fun. To do that, they had to be attracted to each other.

But what was considered sexy in the Tudor period?

According to Ruth, linen was considered a very sexy material because it was the “layer that sits next to the skin, [highlighting] that intimacy between you and your clothes”.

Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn't know about Tudor fashion

The same principle applied to a woman’s hair. As something that would usually be either covered or pinned back in polite society, a woman unveiling her hair to a man was considered a great honour and an intense act of intimacy.

“A woman’s hair is her crowning glory and her husband’s delight”, says Goodman. “It is a private sexual pleasure, not something to be shown to [just anyone]”.

For Tudor women, they might be drawn to a man’s legs. Those tight stockings that are a familiar image of the Tudor period were a way for men to show off the shape of their “nicely turned calf”.

The Tudors had rules – but they weren’t prudes

With all these rules and expectations, and the notion that hair and calves were sexy, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Tudors were prudes. In reality, they were quite open about sex.

Tudor society had its deep-rooted beliefs about what sex was for, who could have it and how they should do it, but they weren’t shy about it. As Goodman explains, “The Tudor world was not particularly prissy. There was an awful lot of talk, and quite open talk, about relations between men and women, about attractiveness and sexiness”.

Want to step even further into the world of the Tudors? In her brand-new HistoryExtra Academy series, Ruth Goodman takes you inside everyday life in the 16th century — from food and fashion to faith, work, and even love and marriage. The first three episodes are available now on the HistoryExtra app, with more to come soon. Start watching today

Tudor life, with Ruth Goodman - HistoryExtra

2025-10-08T15:16:05.000Z

Welcome to our Academy course – Tudor life with Ruth Goodman

What was life in the 16th century like for ordinary people? In this seven-part video series, social historian Ruth Goodman takes viewers on a tour of the Tudor period, exploring what people ate and drank, how they worked, what they wore, and even how they thought about love and marriage.

Episodes 1-3 available from 6 October. Episodes 4-7 available from 20 October.

You’ll have an opportunity to join Ruth for a live Q&A on the topics discussed in the series on 19 November at 7pm GMT. Register here

Tudor religion: what did people believe? - HistoryExtra

2025-10-08T15:13:44.000Z

Religion was at the heart of Tudor life. It shaped how people understood the world, guided their daily routines, and affected everything from politics to personal relationships. In episode two of Tudor Life, Ruth Goodman looks at what people believed in the 16th century

View Green Video on the source website

Enjoyed this video? Ruth is hosting a live Q&A for HistoryExtra members on 19 November 2025 at 7pm (GMT). Find out more here

Want more from Ruth? Find more episodes of Tudor life here

Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm

What did Tudor people do for fun? - HistoryExtra

2025-10-08T15:12:52.000Z

We often think of the 16th century as an era of hard work and strict social rules – but leisure and entertainment played a bigger role in daily life than you might expect. In episode one of Tudor Life, Ruth Goodman explains just how much time people really had for leisure, why Sunday was the key day for recreation, and which pastimes were most popular among both commoners and even Henry VIII himself…

View Green Video on the source website

Enjoyed this video? Ruth is hosting a live Q&A for HistoryExtra members on 19 November 2025 at 7pm (GMT). Find out more here

Want more from Ruth? Find more episodes of Tudor life here

Tudor work: what jobs did people do? - HistoryExtra

2025-10-08T15:12:12.000Z

From long hours in the fields to the bustling noise of Tudor workshops and marketplaces, we’ll discover exactly how people in the 16th century earned their keep — and what it meant to make a living in a world without modern comforts or job security

View Green Video on the source website

Enjoyed this video? Ruth is hosting a live Q&A for HistoryExtra members on 19 November 2025 at 7pm (GMT). Find out more here

Want more from Ruth? Find more episodes of Tudor life here

The War on Ideas - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-08T12:00:33.000Z

In mid-September, I was invited to speak at the University of Regina about the threat posed by MAGA gangsters to higher education.

My speech came in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. MAGA dark lord Steve Bannon has used the shooting as a call to arms against education, stating the time has come to “take the blowtorch” to the nation’s universities.

From burning the books to burning the institutions.

Charlie presenting at the University of Regina - September 23, 2025

In the talk, I placed the threat to education within a broader war that has been planned by the far right for some time. The strategy was articulated by right-wing influencer Rush Limbaugh, who identified the four “corners of deceit” that had to be destroyed for the right wing to take power: government, media, science and academia.

Since the first days of Trump’s reign, he has waged a full-on war on the elite education institutions in the United States. Call it the Bebelplatz principle.

The Bebelplatz was where the Nazi’s burned the books. But they didn’t burn the books in some back alley; they burned the books in the heart of Germany’s cultural and academic centre.

If they could burn the books there, they could burn them anywhere. The result was the collapse of Germany as the world’s centre of knowledge and education.

The great thinkers who could get out got out. They moved to the United States, creating the foundations of what has been the American century. The ones left behind were either murdered or went along as quiet and obedient Nazis. And German education has never recovered.

The same pattern is being played out in the United States today, as Trump targets institutions such as Cornell, Berkeley, Columbia, the Smithsonian, and Harvard. How easily the great learning institutions folded and kissed the gangster’s ring.

There is an opportunity for Canada to become a new global centre of research and innovation if we invite the brilliant voices being shut down in the United States.

But unfortunately, our own public education system is being underfunded and targeted by our own short-sighted politicians. Every classroom, every lecture hall, every library must become defended ground.

We cannot let education become neutral territory.

All of this is unfolding as we witness the incredible response of people in Alberta to Danielle Smith’s deliberate attack on public education. Alberta was once a gold standard of public education.

However, more and more money is being syphoned off to private schools and pet projects of the extremist government in Alberta. Last month, Danielle Smith attempted to ban The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984 from the school curriculum.

People stood up.

Now the fight centers on the future of well-funded public education.

If you want to understand the scale of the threat before us, and the opportunity we have to create a better world, I invite you to watch now.

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The MAGA Pipeline to Breakup Canada - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-06T12:01:34.000Z

MAGA Alberta’s latest attempt to sow division came in the form of a two-pronged assault.

A group of MAGA separatists met in Washington with “cabinet-level” officials about their plan to break up the country. MAGA Alberta is looking to use Danielle Smith’s promised referendum to unilaterally declare independence, with the expectation of immediate recognition from the Trump administration.

This is the second time since April they’ve met with “high-ranking” Trump officials. In April, a $500 million slush fund was reportedly discussed to facilitate the breakup.

As the MAGA traitors were meeting in Washington, Premier Smith announced that Alberta would lead the way in pushing a new pipeline through British Columbia.

Never mind that companies making unprecedented levels of profits aren’t willing to put a dime into the scheme. Or that the only thing Alberta has brought to the table is the promise of a measly $14 million to “study” possible routes.

Or the fact that Canadians are still on the hook for $34 billion spent on the last pipeline. Or the fact that at the start of the summer, Danielle Smith and Doug Ford announced a new pipeline through the fragile James Bay lowlands to a deep water port that doesn’t exist.

(We never heard anything more about that one after the initial flurry of headlines.)

Smith isn’t trying to get a pipeline built - she wants to force a debate over the oil tanker ban on the British Columbia coast.

This is all about stoking a war with British Columbia, environmental groups and Prime Minister Mark Carney. As her separation referendum stalls out, she needs to pick a fight with Canada to rile her base.

Will it work? Well, Canada’s media are already diving in. There is nothing Canada’s media loves more than a west versus Ottawa donnybrook and whether Ottawa is being mean to our oil giants.

But let’s talk about the real reason Danielle Smith can’t find a company willing to do the job.

When Kinder Morgan began the TMX pipeline, it quickly became apparent that the cost to build would be more than they could ever recoup. They walked when the project hit $5.4 billion.

The Trudeau government stepped in with a seemingly endless pot of public money.

The eventual cost to taxpayers was $34 billion. That meant that every household in Canada paid somewhere between $580 and $1,200 to help Suncor transport its bitumen to the United States.

Time and time again, Canadians have been promised that we would get our money back. The government swore that once the pipeline was built, it would be sold to a private company. No company has stepped forward.

The reason is that, despite the massive money dump, there is still no business case for the pipeline. That’s not to say that the oil companies aren’t making out like bandits thanks to the pipeline. They are making money hand over fist, but only because the public is paying the cost to ship every barrel down the pipe.

In 2013, the Canadian Energy Regulator decided to cap the costs that could be charged to companies that might use the pipeline in the future. The toll rates are the means by which the pipeline recovers its costs.

Capping the costs at 2013 levels meant that Canadians would pay 78% of the actual cost of using the pipeline through subsidized toll rates. Needless to say, the idea that letting massively profitable companies pay a mere 22% of the freight for their product represented an outrageous abuse of the public interest.

So, the interim toll rates have increased, but it still means that Canadians are paying about 52 cents on every dollar, while Suncor and Imperial take home the profits. And even then, the companies are fighting these new toll rates. They have gone back to the board to claim they are getting ripped off.

But here’s the simple fact: if the companies actually had to pay the full cost, it would add at least $13 per barrel for shipping fees, and the pipeline would grind to a halt.

One potential way to alleviate this debt problem to help out Big Oil is already underway.

The government has created two companies: the TMX Pipeline Corporation and a shell company called TMP Financial.

TMP Financial has no employees and is entirely under the control of the Canadian government. This company is where all the debt has been placed. Nothing like a shell company to make it easy for the government to erase the debt from the books, and voilà, TMX suddenly looks like a money winner.

And yet, still nobody wants to buy it.

So, what company is going to step up to lead Danielle Smith’s demand for a new pipeline through the northern British Columbia mountain range?

It’s not going to happen.

But you won’t see Danielle Smith or the MAGA separatists admitting there is no business case. They are setting up a fight over the federal tanker ban that was put in place to protect the fragile BC coast.

Already, oil giant Enbridge has stepped up to blame the tanker ban for their unwillingness to put their money where their big mouth is. This gives Smith the footing to stoke the rage machine. It is about driving her agenda to get a referendum on breaking up our country.

And that will give Trump all the fuel he needs to light a match on our border.

Hence, his willingness to meet the marginal characters claiming to be the ambassadors of a non-existent country.

Don’t get distracted by what you read in the media about the pipeline fight. MAGA is setting the stage for a manufactured “unity” crisis to try and break up our country or at least seriously undermine the federal government.

Keep your eye on the ball. The real strategy is there in plain sight.

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A Note From Charlie - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-03T20:00:58.000Z

Recently, I had this strange encounter on a packed subway at midnight. I was coming back from the OASIS concert in Toronto when I ran into two veteran political journalists from Ottawa. They struck up a conversation.

Very quickly, it turned into a full-on interrogation of my views on the Trump crisis, The Resistance and what I was doing with Meidas Canada.

I fielded question after question until I finally said that I found it strange that they were so interested in my work, considering I had not appeared on any major Canadian news network in eight months — not since I began talking about the rise of a new era of fascism. Somehow, it seemed I didn’t fit into the familiar “he said/she said” format of the nightly pundit shows.

“Well, what if you’re wrong?” the journalist shot back.

About fascism? About the threat to our country and the global order?

“Wouldn’t that be the best thing ever?” I replied. “I’d be thrilled to be proven wrong. But if I was wrong, I doubt you would be here at midnight questioning me so intently.”

One of them then admitted to being worried about the state of the world. But they never did have me on their networks.

Charlie with Grandmothers Against Genocide in Toronto, ON

I’ve been reflecting on that conversation and about how far The Resistance has come over the last nine months. When I started this Substack back in January, it was a bit of a panicked scramble — an attempt to make sense of the threats facing our nation. The hope was to find language to articulate what we were dealing with and provide a path through the darkness.

I didn’t expect that my voice would be heard, but from the get-go, the response was overwhelming. Since then, we’ve published over 200 essays, held 16 Resistance Tour events, and built a Substack community of 68,000 readers. What’s even more extraordinary is where people are turning in from: every Canadian province and territory, every U.S. state, and 134 countries around the world.

People immediately understood that this had nothing to do with a trade war. We were watching the rise of a new form of gangster fascism, and they wanted to be part of pushing back.

The work of The Resistance has helped shift the language on the nature of the threat we are dealing with. And then we launched the Meidas Canada Network on Youtube.

Meidas Canada has welcomed a global audience who are as concerned as we in Canada with the threat to democracy. Our team has moved from being a Canadian nationalist “Elbows Up” campaign to working to frame issues within the larger threat to global democracy.

Charlie in Mexico City for the 2025 PanAmerican Congress

Meidas Canada has grown to over 170,000 subscribers, and in the last month alone, our work has reached 2.2 million views, with support coming from all over the globe.

In addition, the Meidas Canada Resistance Tour has received an increasing number of requests to host town halls and organize meetings. The fall calendar is now full but we are starting to plot out tour stops for 2026.

It’s a pace that just won’t let up. So here’s where I’m asking for your help.

Every essay we post is free for anyone to read, and it always will be. We don’t receive any outside funding. Everything we do is powered by you.

If you are a paid subscriber — a thousand thank yous. If you're reading The Resistance as a free subscriber, thank you so much, and please continue sharing.

But if you’re able to take the next step and upgrade to a paid subscription, it would make a huge difference. Paid subscriptions mean that we can do more, reach further and sustain this work.

Subscribe now

Charlie with a few of the Meidas Mighty in Regina, SK

Some folks across North America have reached out with contributions to help support the costs of putting our team on the road. Maybe you’ve met Raul or Jan at Meidas Canada Resistance Tour stops or perhaps you’ve received an email from Cate, our amazing volunteer who helps to keep up with all the correspondence we receive.

If you’d like to make a contribution beyond a subscription, please get in touch with Meidas Canada / The Resistance at info@charlieangus.ca

We are going to keep kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.

Thank you.

— Charlie

When Did the New Global War Begin? - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-03T12:00:55.000Z

This past week, Russia escalated its incursions into European and North American airspace. So far, they have targeted Estonia, Rumania, Poland, Denmark and the United States (Alaska).

“Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow”
— T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

In response, Poland invoked Article 4 of NATO – the precursor to a full-out military call-up. Germany announced that their nation was no longer at peace. They stated this as Putin launched a massive conscription drive.

What happens when someone shoots down a jet? Nobody is kidding around anymore.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Donald Trump held an unprecedented gathering of generals where he declared his plan to use American cities as practice zones for the mightiest army the world has ever known.

It was a grim and dark promise of civil war. A war where only one side has the guns and the tanks.

As Trump attempted to win over the impassive faces, he tried to raise their spirits by claiming that he had broken Canada economically and that we would become a vassal state. It raises the obvious question:

If he is willing to send soldiers against San Francisco, why wouldn’t he be willing to send them after Canada?

“Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.”
— T.S. Eliot

So maybe now I can finally pose the question that has been keeping me up at night:

At what point will it become evident that we have entered a global conflict? A third world war?

This is clearly not another 1914 or 1939. However, the obvious differences may blind us to the strong similarities.

In 1914, global powers were attempting to play chess when they were actually playing chicken. The result was that the world stumbled into slaughter. In 1939, it was more methodical with the sudden Blitzkrieg storming across the border.

This new global war is a different beast.

This war is about the future of the democratic world and the rule of law that has existed since 1946. And our team isn’t doing so well.

It is a war for reality itself. One could go back to the Crimean invasion of 2013 and the massive disinformation campaign launched on the world by Putin’s machine—a disinformation storm driven now by the far right and AI Bots.

Once again, “the good guys” are scrambling and disoriented.

This has been a war against the international “rules-based order” and the treaties put in place to limit war crimes and widespread abuse of civilians.

On this front, the West simply capitulated. They fail to understand that we are not dealing with a return to the black and white Cold War but with gangster fiefdoms where the lives of civilians count for little.

The total abdication of the West to Netanyahu’s genocide machine has opened the door to the monsters. If the global war expands on the ground, you can now expect that vicious violence against civilians will become the norm.

Over the past year, I have made multiple comparisons between the current situation and key indicators from the 1930s. I have referenced the fall of Weimar Germany, the Reichstag fire, and the establishment of the first concentration camps in 1933-34, all of which compare with the Trump agenda.

In recent articles, I moved the literary clock to 1938 in describing Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin betraying the people of Ukraine as cynically as the Munich betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

However, this past week in The Guardian, Simon Tisdall advanced the historic clock: “Suddenly it feels a bit 1939.”

Tisdall was writing about how Putin and Trump have basically created a pincer movement against Europe in the same manner as the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement that made possible the Nazi onslaught into Poland.

Tisdall compared the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal to the work of the two gangster oligarchs – Putin and Trump – in carving up the world order and leaving Europe on its own.

There are key differences between then and now.

Hitler and Stalin were both focused on carving up Poland. Putin’s focus since 2013 has been to undermine Europe and break apart the European project. Trump seems more focused on waging war on his own people.

Putin must be howling with laughter.

Has the new world war begun? The bankers are already there.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon is warning bankers to get their heads around the brutal facts: “World War III has already begun. You already have battles on the ground being coordinated in multiple countries. The risk is extraordinary.”

The Russians have been operating on a principle of war by other means since at least 2013. But they, of course, blame the West for starting the war out of desperation. Recently, the Russian International Affairs Council released a report stating boldly that “World War III has already begun.”

These are very dangerous times. Such are the things that keep me up at night. I find myself a Cassandra in my 60s who spent my life believing in peace and disarmament. But this is the age of the monsters. Led by leaders who are little more than hollow men.

I am determined not to accept the fate that Elliot described:

“This is the way the world ends…
Not with a bang but with a whisper.”

We need to be kicking at the darkness now more than ever.

Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

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The Shadow of Residential Schools and the Darkness that Remains - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-10-01T12:02:54.000Z

Last Wednesday, I stood at the gates of the abandoned Fort Qu’Appelle Residential School in Saskatchewan. I was with James Daschuk, author of Clearing the Plains.

The school was torn down years ago.

All that remains are two large brick columns and an iron gate covering. To get there, we had to cross railway tracks and cut through a ravine.

Gates of Qu’Appelle Residential School

It was chilling to stand at the entrance of an institution where the death rate of children who attended was higher than that of Canadian soldiers who fought in the Second World War.

It is a haunted place. Forgotten by the rest of the province. No plaque.

But Indigenous people understand the significance of those foreboding columns.

At the gates, there is a red dress symbolizing the murdered and missing Indigenous women, hand-coloured rocks, children’s toys, and an orange shirt. The orange shirt represents not only what was taken away from the Indigenous children forced into the system, but has also become a powerful emblem of how we move forward as a nation.

On September 30, children in schools across Canada wear orange shirts of remembrance. I have attended many of these school events. There are youth marches, pow wows, and assemblies. Young people create art to try to make sense of what happened in the attempted genocide of a previous generation of Indigenous youth.

I love Orange Shirt Day. It gives me the firm hope that a new generation can do better in our relations with the original people of this land.

My generation was never taught Canada’s darker history. It is a history that needs to be understood if we are going to move forward. Unfortunately, in the case of St. Anne’s Residential School, there is a significant amount of unfinished business.

The Apology

In 2008, the Parliament of Canada welcomed residential school survivors into the chamber to hear the Prime Minister apologize on behalf of the people of Canada. It was one of my proudest moments as an elected representative of the Canadian people.

The televised apology was replayed in gymnasiums and Band offices on reserves across Canada. I spoke with people in the James Bay region who told me their parents wept for days after hearing the apology. They just couldn’t believe that anyone would ever acknowledge what had been done to them.

To avoid the flood of lawsuits, the government and churches proposed an alternate legal process to adjudicate the thousands of claims of abuse and neglect.

The Independent Assessment Process (IAP) was promoted as a non-confrontational means by which survivors could tell their story in a private hearing, and then an adjudicator would award them the compensation they deserved. Everything would be done anonymously, which the government said would protect their privacy. It also meant there was no way of really tracking what happened in the hearings.

But at the time it seemed like a good process for bringing a dark chapter of Canada’s history to a close.

I thought that was the end of it.

However, in 2013, Edmund Metatawabin, the former chief of Fort Albany, approached me about the fact that survivors of St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany had been subjected to a serious abuse of their legal rights in the IAP.

St. Anne’s Residential School was a notorious house of horrors where generations of Cree children were subjected to rape, torture, hunger and other nightmarish forms of abuse. In the early 1990s, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) launched a massive investigation into the crimes.

The OPP did their job. They went after the Oblate order, the Grey Nuns, and the Diocese of Moosonee for additional documents. They created a list of perpetrators that named 180 people, including the bishops and notorious clergy abusers. A number of criminal trials were launched, but many of the main perpetrators had either died or gone to ground.

In 2004, the Justice Department went to the Ontario Superior Court to formally request access to the thousands of pages of police evidence. They stated that, as the defendant, it would not be “fair” if the government were unable to prepare its defence for the coming flood of legal cases.

In addition to the OPP evidence, the government obtained all the documents relating to 154 civil cases that were underway against the Catholic Church and orders over crimes at St. Anne’s.

Under the IAP the Justice Department had the job of defending Canada, but it also the role of providing the evidence of known crimes at each institution. It was an obvious conflict of interest, but who could imagine that the Justice Department would fail to represent the highest standard of “reconciliation” and “justice” as promised by the Prime Minister and his ministers?

In the case of St. Anne’s the Justice Department opted to sit on the evidence. When survivors testified in the hearings to share their stories, Justice Department lawyers questioned their claims and credibility.

So, who were the adjudicators to believe?

Elderly Indigenous people telling horror stories of being tortured in an electric chair, raped by priests and forced to undergo abortions or the lawyers for the government of Canada, who said there was no evidence that such things had ever occurred?

When Edmund Metatawabin brought his concerns to me, I thought this matter would be straightforward. We would raise the issue publicly, share the false evidence dossier that the Justice Department had prepared. How could the government and courts fail to rectify their mistake?

How naïve I was.

St. Anne’s survivors had been fighting for justice their whole lives. I now joined them in a dozen years of bitter, trench warfare against the power of the Canadian state.

Edmund Metatawabin speaking for survivors at Ontario Superior Court.

Initially, it went well. In January 2014, the Ontario Superior Court ordered the Justice Department to turn over the evidence to the IAP. The government stalled, which required a second legal order. They were trying to walk out the clock on a process that was supposed to wrap up within an agreed-upon period.

When the Justice Department finally complied with the court order, it responded with a massive document dump with the names of perpetrators and witnesses blacked out.

They refused to update the Person of Interest (POI) reports for any of the “settled” cases, which involved some of the worst legal abuses. One such case was that of Father Arthur Lavoie, who raped and abused children for decades at St. Anne’s.

Charlie Angus holding a photo of abuser Arthur Lavoie at Ottawa rally for residential school survivors

Survivor H-15019 (all survivors were treated to anonymity) was one of the many victims of horrific child rape. A lawyer from the Department of Justice argued that his testimony should not be accepted as true because there was no evidence to support the claim that the priest was at the school at the time. They supplied a POI report that was a mere two pages in length.

Based on the government evidence the case was thrown out. The adjudicator had no way of knowing that the government was sitting on the true POI report that included 2,472 pages of evidence documenting a four-decade spree of sadism and abuse.

None of that evidence was provided by the government, despite the fact that this hearing was adjudicated after the Superior Court had ordered the government to make those documents available.

When H-15019 attempted to have his case reopened, the government argued that even if they provided the evidence, the documents should not be trusted unless they were “tested” – i.e., the survivor had to find a corroborating witness. As these crimes happened decades ago, the government thought it had shut down the problem.

But Angela Shisheesh was a survivor who remembered the crimes, and she stepped forward to testify. The Justice Department then claimed Madame Shisheesh wasn’t allowed to speak because she was under a confidentiality agreement with the Catholic Church from a previous compensation case.

In December 2017, Angela Shisheesh went to court to challenge the government over silencing her voice about the crimes she witnessed as a child.

Charlie Angus with Angela Shisheesh heading to Ontario Superior Court

http://anishinabeknews.ca/2017/12/14/st-annes-residential-school-survivors-in-court/

The crimes committed against H-15019 were horrific. It destroyed his life. The trauma of going to court and being told that he wasn’t believable only added to the abuse.

Similar was the case of C-14114.

When she challenged the IAP ruling after evidence came forward to support her claim the IAP actually agreed to reopen her case. Her file could have been easily settled, but the government refused to update the POI report, making it impossible for the case to proceed. I held a press conference with the survivor Stella Chapman, who gave up her right to anonymity to shame the government into turning over the evidence.

This was a breach of the process that pissed off both the government and the courts.

The judge couldn’t target me, an elected Member of Parliament, but on the very day that I held the press conference with Ms. Chapman, Justice Perrell went into court to attack Fay Brunning, lawyer for the St. Anne’s survivors

Without giving Ms. Brunning a chance to defend herself, he convicted her of contempt of the court even though she had nothing to do with my decision to host a press conference with a survivor.

Justice Perrell claimed that Brunning’s public comments about the lack of justice for St. Anne’s had slandered the court’s reputation.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/judge-st-anne-s-residential-school-lawyer-reprimand-1.4490498

Government lawyers working under Minister Carolyn Bennett followed up on this by demanding that the court go after Ms. Brunning for the legal fees for the government of Canada. Justice Perrell agreed with Canada.

Ms. Brunning was later exonerated.

Millions Spent to Deny Justice

In January 2018, the Justice Department went to the BC Superior Court to obtain a ruling to ensure that no other St. Anne’s cases would be reopened. The decision to take the case to British Columbia made it impossible for St. Anne’s survivors to travel to have their rights heard.

The survivors’ argument was solid. They pointed out that they had been denied the basic legal right of procedural fairness due to the denial of evidence that had been held back by the defendant Canada.

The government took the position that since the term “procedural fairness” had not been written into the IAP, this basic principle of justice did not apply to residential school survivors.

Weasel words.

I used my position in Parliament to challenge the government factum that had been presented in court claiming that Indigenous people weren’t entitled to these most basic principles of legal rights.

The next day, the government lawyers went to BC Superior Court to have a sealing order placed over the government’s legal arguments. As far as I know, that secrecy order is still in effect.

In September 2022, the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case brought forward by the St. Anne’s survivors. They gave no reason for this decision. By that time, the government had spent millions fighting people who could barely afford the bus fare to attend the hearings in Toronto.

The survivors were never looking for a big payout. They were fighting for acknowledgement of a fundamental wrong.

They put together a team, including retired Justice Stephen O’Neil, hoping to negotiate with the government on a way to resolve this miscarriage of justice. One of the ideas was to ask the government to invest in land-based programs that teach young people about their culture.

But Canada never blinked. Not once. In all the years I spent on the St. Anne’s file I could never understand why Canada consistently opted for the most nasty and petty roadblocks rather than to try and find a solution to an obvious wrong.

Every time I encountered a new minister of the Crown I reached out believing they would see the need to address this injustice. But I learned the hard way that the power of the colonial state was still present.

I am proud that young Canadians are learning about the residential school system.

I am proud that Orange Shirt Day is creating a way for people to build something positive out of a very dark time.

But that darkness remains when I think of the viciousness of the Canadian state in defending what it perceives to be its legal interests.

The children of St. Anne’s were stolen from their families by the state. They committed no crime but were subject to horrific abuse. The abuse has been perpetuated by government that believes it must protect itself from liability rather than engaging in the true nation building exercise of healing and reparation.

If only they could sit with the beautiful and proud survivors of St. Anne’s.

I wish I could say there was another outcome to this story. But that is how it went down.

I still believe reconciliation is possible. I believe that Canada is on a better road. But government pronouncements ring hollow to me when I know there is still no justice for the St. Anne’s survivors.

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Forget the longships: this is the overlooked story of how the Vikings dominated eastern Europe - HistoryExtra

2025-09-30T15:29:58.000Z

The Norse peoples of the Viking Age held much of western Europe tightly in their grip thanks to their imperious command of the sea.

Their prowess as seafarers let them strike their targets at speed and then slip away just as swiftly, in repeated cycles of relentless raids from the fertile shores of the British Isles to the harsher coasts of Iceland that brought wealth and power.

Viking longships carved with fearsome, dragon-headed prows crashed through imposing waves, delivering warriors to burn monasteries and terrorise prosperous lands. These vessels were key to their hit-and-run strategy, and to its eventual evolution into something more settled as the Norse forged enduring strongholds on hostile ground.

But for the Vikings who ventured east toward the Slavic and Baltic regions, the story unfolded very differently. Conquests there weren’t defined by ocean raids, but by a remarkable capacity for canny adaptation.

In the territories of today’s Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the Norse traded the open sea for winding rivers, turning inland waterways into vital thoroughfares of commerce, conflict and state-building.

“The rivers are absolutely critical,” explains historian Martyn Whittock, author of Vikings in the East, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “We need to envisage them as the motorways of the early medieval world, which allow people access deep into the heart of the European continent, particularly the east.”

When did the Vikings first head east?

Archaeological finds from the mid-eighth century (including Scandinavian-style burials in places like Staraya Ladoga, near modern St Petersburg) show that the Norse were already present on the Baltic-Russian frontier before the famous raids on Britain had even begun.

These early Norse pioneers were traders as well as warriors. They followed the Neva and Volkhov rivers into the interior, establishing bases like Ladoga and Novgorod. From there, they probed deeper, carrying boats and their cargo overland between river systems.

Read more | Norse gods and goddesses: 14 of the most important deities venerated by the Vikings

By the ninth century, Norse settlers were establishing footholds from which they could push further inland.

“We first see Norse settlements appear in eastern Europe along the southern shores of the Baltic,” says Whittock. “Increasingly they were utilising river systems which flow into the Baltic, and by following them along their courses into what is now northwestern Russia, they could then port ships across gaps in the river systems to connect with other river systems.”

Swapping longships for log boats

While the famous longships were ideal for crossing seas, they were less suited to being hauled over rapids or dragging across portages. So, in the east, Vikings turned to different vessels.

“To start with, we should be thinking of squatter, stronger and broader trading vessels than the dragon-prowed ships of popular imagination,” says Whittock.

The Norse also adopted local craft. Archaeological evidence shows they purchased huge unfinished log boats from Finnic and Slavic neighbours, later fitting them with sails. These sturdy ships could handle rapids and were easier to portage than larger ships.

Read more | The dark reality of Norse life on the edge

And in winter, transport shifted to sledges, which were ideal for gliding across frozen rivers and snowbound plains.

“We need to think of sledges, because we always think of summer transport,” says Whittock. “And yet in many of these areas, winter transport on frozen rivers or frozen, snowy landscapes would be on sledges. That's the kind of mental image we need to have: more of a mixed economy of transport.”

By log boat or sledge, the Norse moved steadily southwards through modern-day Russia, past today’s Smolensk, into Ukraine, and eventually to Kyiv. That city became the hub of a new and lasting regional power: Kievan Rus, the central hub of the Rus Vikings.

Who were the Rus, and where does the name come from?

The name ‘Rus’ itself may refer explicitly to this river-faring identity.

“It’s interesting that one of the possible word origins for the name ‘Rus’ is from a mixed Finnish, old East Norse word, which means rowers: those who row,” Whittock explains.

Before they were the inhabitants of Kievan Rus, they were Vikings of the kind introduced by Whittock, moving along rivers, rowing against currents and hauling boats across land. This eastward expansion would have been impossible without the rivers that stretched across the Eurasian plain like veins.

Read more | The truth about Viking berserkers

“Those rivers that flow north into the Baltic allowed access well into the heart of Russia. It was then possible to pick up other major river systems that then flow south into Ukraine and towards the Caspian Sea,” Whittock notes.

A closer look at the geography of eastern Europe shows the river system that made this possible. The Dnieper linked Novgorod and Smolensk to the Black Sea and Constantinople. The Volga carried Norse merchants towards the Caspian, opening routes to Persia and the Islamic caliphates. These rivers made Scandinavia part of a global economy stretching to Byzantium, Baghdad and beyond.

The rise of Rus

The Rus settlements steadily grew into a federation of principalities ruled by Scandinavian dynasties but populated mainly by Slavs.

Over generations, intermarriage and cultural exchange transformed the Norse elites. They adopted Slavic languages, Byzantine Christianity and local customs. By the late ninth century, leaders like Rurik (credited as founder of the Rus dynasty) and his successors, Oleg and Igor, were consolidating power in Novgorod and Kyiv, extracting tribute from Slavic tribes and expanding their authority through warfare and alliances.

By the late 10th century, rulers like Vladimir the Great were more Slavic than Norse in culture, even if their lineage traced back to Scandinavia. The Norse had become the Rus: a distinct identity forged by geography and circumstance.

Kyiv emerged as the heart of this world. Its location on the Dnieper made it a natural hub for trade flowing between Scandinavia, Byzantium and the steppe. From here, the rulers of Rus built a power that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

1066: The battle for England

Member exclusive | The year 1066 is the most famous in English history, but there's a lot more to the story than one bloody battle at Hastings. In this four-part series, medievalist Marc Morris talks David Musgrove through the full story of the Norman Conquest.

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A distinct Viking identity: the Rus vs the Icelanders

The Rus experience diverged sharply from that of Norse settlers in the west. In Iceland, Vikings recreated a Scandinavian society, carrying their laws, sagas and language with them across the North Atlantic. Isolation preserved their Norse culture in near-pure form.

Read more | 10 incredible Viking stories from Norse mythology

In eastern Europe, by contrast, the Vikings were absorbed into a much larger Slavic world. Over time, the Norse language faded, replaced by Old East Slavic. Pagan traditions gave way to Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. Norse sagas never took root; instead, the Rus produced chronicles and legal codes in Slavic style.

“This began as a Norse Slavic state, but it increasingly became a Slavic state with Norse echoes. There was an awareness of origins and a real awareness of connectivity to the northern world, but by the year 1,000 this was an increasingly a Slavic state,” says Whittock.

The Viking story in eastern Europe is one of adaptation and transformation. In the west, Norsemen dominated seas and coastlines. In the east, they turned rivers, frozen or flowing, into a tool of power.

In the process, they stopped being only Norse. They became the Rus: a people who built a state undeniably distinct from their cousins in Iceland or Norway.

Martyn Whittock was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

James Comey, the Fascist Playbook, and the Trail of Dirty Russian Money - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-09-29T12:03:35.000Z

Are you shocked by the arrest of former FBI director James Comey? Don’t be. It is the latest move from the fascist playbook and if you’ve been following my writing over the past nine months, you saw this coming.

The roadmap was obvious from the January 6th insurrection: from public rants about punishing enemies, to Elon Musk raising the fascist salute on the inauguration platform. But those responsible for maintaining the guardrails of democracy misread the signs, looked the other way, or were complicit in helping the playbook take root.

And so, the march of gangster fascism has unfolded as planned.

The Timeline of Authoritarianism

Within two months of taking power, we saw the arbitrary kidnapping of people off the streets. And they got away with it. So they went to the next step.

By month three, Trump’s ICE militia was so bold that they arrested a judge in a courtroom. When that provocation failed to rouse the U.S. judiciary, MAGA moved to establish the first concentration camp in the United States.

This was a mere four months into the reign.

This past week, it has been reported that 1,200 people who were sent to Alligator Alcatraz have “disappeared.” Were they deported? Have they been moved deeper into the emerging American gulag system?

Again, the fascist playbook in action.

Then Trump announced a list of political enemies that he wants prosecuted. He fired a top attorney for refusing to do his bidding. His handpicked Attorney General stepped in to satisfy his personal taste for vengeance.

And so now nine months into the Trump reign we have the first show trial. No wonder that will be the man at the top of Trump’s hate list: former FBI Director James Comey.

It’s part of Trump’s ongoing effort to rewrite the role of Russia in his rise to power. Because in 2017, Comey refused to back off investigations of Trump allies who were connected to Putin’s machine. So Trump fired him.

The Trump-Russia connection goes way beyond the hacking at the Democratic National Committee and the use of stolen emails to damage Hilary Clinton’s campaign. Trump is a creation of the Russian kleptocrats. He is their avatar.

Trump’s Dirty Russian Money Empire

Let’s look at the history of this real-life Manchurian Candidate.

In the mid-1980s Soviet gangsters clocked Trump as the perfect chump. They began funnelling money to his real estate empire. They invited him to the Soviet Union and feted him as they spied on his behaviour and built a dossier.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, a wholesale looting of the public infrastructure took place. Trump’s real estate empire was the perfect place to invest stolen money. By the late 1990s, a third of the luxury apartments in Trump Tower had been paid for with Russian money.

Trump was a business failure, owing over four billion dollars to seven different banks. Nobody would touch him. But the Russian oligarchs kept Trump afloat. Russian “banks,” which are notorious for laundering money for the kleptocracy, fronted him the money he needed.

Donald Jr. once bragged: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets. We are seeing a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

The Russians built Trump SoHo and handed Trump 18% of the profits even though he didn’t put up any money. But it was the Miss Universe Competition in Moscow in 2013 was where they landed their prize. Trump was paid $20 million for the use of his name – money that he badly needed.

That was when Trump saw his political future.

Russia was awash in kleptocrat money. It had become the nation with the greatest economic inequity in the world, with the United States a close second. Trump loved the way money flowed among the rich and how they flouted the law to build their own empires. This dog-eat-dog world was Trump’s idea of paradise.

Trump tweeted to the world that he was hoping to become Vladimir Putin’s best friend. He became their political patsy. All the while, being kept afloat by dirty Russian money.

While he was schmoozing at Miss Universe the FBI were breaking up a major gambling scheme in Trump Tower. They arrested 29 men. The leader of the operation was Alimzhan Tokhakhounov. He ran a money laundering operation in the condo directly under Trump. While the FBI were searching for him, Tokhakhounov was attending Trump’s Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. He sat just a few seats from Trump.

Preet Bharara was the U.S. Attorney who led the investigation into this scheme in Trump Tower. He was fired as soon as Trump became president.

Felix Sater, a convicted felon who had worked with the Russian mafia, lived in Trump Tower. He pushed a massive real estate project in Moscow, where he promised to secure Putin’s buy-in: “I will get Putin on this and we will get Donald elected.”

When Trump announced he was running for president, the team that quickly gathered around him looked like they had been put together out of an FBI dossier. They were a crew of pro-Russian dunces and criminals.

Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager. He had worked for Russian oligarchs and served as key political advisor to Victor Yanukovych, the Putin puppet leader in Ukraine. When the people forced Yanukovych was forced out of Ukraine, Manafort went to work for a pro-Russian party in Ukraine. From there, he jumped into the top spot on Team Trump.

Manafort was later convicted on eight felony counts and jailed - until Trump pardoned him.

Jared Kushner was Trump’s right hand. He had enormous contacts with Russia. He was involved in the meeting in Trump Tower with Russian operatives over sharing dirty information on Hilary Clinton.

Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisors were George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, both of whom had ties to Russian operatives. Both were involved in rewriting Republican policy on Ukraine and providing huge openings for Putin.

Michael Flynn, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the other key Trump advisor. Flynn was deeply compromised with Russia. After the election, Trump appointed him to his cabinet. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the president that Flynn was a prime target for Russian blackmail. Trump had her fired.

He then leaned on James Comey to back off the investigation. Comey refused. Flynn was jailed. Trump pardoned him and is now coming after Comey.

Trump wants to erase the historic record of the massive Russian interference that helped get him elected. But he is also using his growing power to move forward with the next phase of the fascist playbook – the arrests and show trials of enemies.

Even David Frum has warned that the Comey indictment is a glimpse of Trump’s roadmap for destroying what remains of the democratic system. Trump is now proposing targeted legal action against people who donate to liberal causes. His top spokesmen are now openly calling the Democratic Party an “extremist organization” that needs to be outlawed.

Still think that won’t happen?

Ordinary people get it and are marching in the streets. But the political class remain mostly on the sidelines.

Just this past summer, I spoke with a Democratic congresswoman who expressed her frustration that the big brains in the Democratic establishment were willing to wait out Trump. They were confident he would self-implode.

From my reading of the fascist playbook, there is a glaring truth - those who think they can wait on the sidelines as the cages are built will end up in those cages.

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Rethinking D’Arcy McGee in a Age of Political Violence - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-09-28T12:03:00.000Z

As the world watches the frightening spiral of political violence in the United States, I have found myself thinking a great deal about D’Arcy McGee.

In our nation’s capital, the name D’Arcy McGee makes people think of the famous pub on Sparks Street where all the political gossip goes down. If you want the scoop on politics on Parliament Hill, the best thing to do is to head there. Chances are, there will always be at least one group of over-refreshed political staffers who blurb something they shouldn’t while quaffing down pints.

In my years with the New Democratic Party, our crew tended to avoid D’Arcy McGee’s because as they say, the walls have ears. Our patch was Brixton’s, a competing bar at the other end of Sparks Street. That is where we spilled out our socialist gossip and secret plans over drinks and nachos.

D’Arcy McGee’s is prime political and commercial real estate - located at the corner of Sparks Street and Elgin Street. Few people make the connection that this is the street where Thomas D’Arcy McGee, father of Confederation, was assassinated.

McGee’s life and death can tell us a lot about how we came to be as a nation and why we took such a different path than our neighbours to the south.

McGee was born in Carlingford, Ireland, in 1825. Ireland was still nursing the wounds of the bloody and failed 1798 uprising. McGee was a revolutionary from a young age, having been raised on the stories of resistance and having witnessed the abuse suffered by the Irish people.

During the horrific famine, he joined a mass exodus of Irish to Boston. In the United States, he continued the cause of Irish independence. He was a fierce debater and agitator for Irish freedom.

At the time, the symbol of British power on the continent was in the neighbouring territories of the Maritimes, along with Upper and Lower Canada. McGee called for the expulsion of the British and the takeover of the territories by the United States.

“Either by purchase, conquest, or stipulation, Canada must be yielded by Great Britain to this Republic,” he stated boldly.

But as McGee travelled the United States, he witnessed the growing intolerance of the nation, particularly against the Irish immigrants. He began to question his allegiance. In 1857, he moved to Montreal. He became active in the politics of Lower Canada.

The colonies that made up British North America were deeply divided along religious and linguistic lines. The Orange Order was a powerful political force. Street battles between Francophones and Anglophones were common, as were fights throughout the Maritimes and Upper Canada between the Orangists and the Irish Catholic settlers.

And yet, McGee began to believe that despite these deep divides, the Irish immigrants stood a better chance in Canada, even though it was under the British flag, than in the American republic. It was within this evolving political worldview that McGee joined the political leaders in Charlottetown to discuss the possibility of building an independent nation on the American border.

The meeting was held in 1864, as the United States was tearing itself apart in the Civil War. McGee argued that the only way for the new nation of Canada to survive was to pursue a policy of compromise and tolerance.

The regions were deeply divided in terms of language, regional sovereignty, and over questions as to whether the power of the majority could overrule the rights of the religious and linguistic minorities.

McGee threw himself into the task of finding a compromise. His language was fiery and Elbows Up:

“The one thing needed for making Canada the happiest of homes is to rub down all sharp angles and to remove those asperities which divide our people on questions of origin and religious profession. The man who says this cannot be done … is a blockhead.”

The fierce Irishman D’Arcy McGee found common ground with the Orange Scottish leader John A. MacDonald.

The option before them was clear: either they found a way to work together or watch the territories be absorbed into the violence that was consuming the United States.

As the Americans sacrificed 700,000 of their young men on the killing fields of Antietam and Cold Harbor, the Canadian colonists were figuring out how to knit a new nation together despite their divides.

In championing this vision of a new Canada, McGee made enemies with his former revolutionary comrades. They resented how the rabble rouser had turned compromiser.

They particularly hated him for publicly stating that the Irish revolutionary cause had no place in the new nation. He believed that people who came to Canada had to find ways to put their enmity aside and work together.

The result was the agreement to make Canada a reality.

On July 1, 1867, the nation of Canada was born, and McGee was one of the men who made it possible.

But in 1868, the Fenians took their revenge – murdering him just outside his residence on Sparks Street. The killing shocked the nation. Over 80,000 people attended his funeral in Montreal, representing nearly 75% of the city’s population at the time.

McGee is rightfully remembered as a “Father of Confederation.” But he was more than that. He gave his life for a powerful principle: that politics must be about finding ways to bring people together rather than divide them. This willingness to compromise and avoid overly heated political rhetoric has defined Canada ever since.

His death played a role in setting the tone of political debate for the century to come. The young nation realized that we couldn’t go down the dark road of revenge and murder. It would be another century before our country was traumatized by another political killing – the murder of provincial minister Pierre Laporte in 1970.

And like McGee’s killing, the murder of Laporte shocked the nation and brought people back from the brink. People realized that we needed to find peaceful means to solve our differences.

A half-century on since the horrific death of Laporte, and memories were starting to grow short. A new generation of right-wing extremists was emboldened by the ability to make threats online and to use the power of intimidation. They had forgotten the lessons of McGee and Laporte. Threats against political violence weren’t just made against party leaders but against people in all manner of public life. I have lost count of the death threats made against me.

However, in some ways, Trump’s ascendancy has been a wake-up call to our nation.

He is showing us the dangers of giving in to the politics of rage and hate. Canadians are rethinking our nation and our responsibilities to one another. We are reminded that the values of compromise and tolerance aren’t signs of weakness, but rather a bedrock of strength.

This is why we need to rethink the role of D’Arcy McGee in the founding of Canada.

McGee’s is a great pub. Where all the political classes come together over drinks. I think D’Arcy McGee would have appreciated this pub as a great memorial. But as we watch a new civil war consume our neighbour to the south, let’s conjure the spirit of Thomas D’Arcy McGee and renew our commitment to this project called Canada.

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Who was Thorkell the Tall? The pragmatic Viking warrior who fought for (and against) all sides - HistoryExtra

2025-09-28T10:25:53.000Z

The late Anglo-Saxon period was defined by ever-shifting struggles for supremacy. Across Northern Europe, chaos collided with opportunity, and Thorkell the Tall was among the many figures who set themselves onto this stage; a Viking leader whose life and legacy are marked by extraordinary military and political achievements, and a talent for canny survival.

But despite his fame, the historical record leaves much about his life ambiguous. How can we separate fact from myth, while considering his significance within the context of the fading Viking Age? And, of course, just how much did Thorkell tower over his fellow men that he earned his name 'Thorkell the Tall'?

How tall was Thorkell the Tall?

There is no direct historical evidence that offers a precise height for Thorkell the Tall. His lofty height is only inferred by his epithet, which can also be translated as Thorkell the High.

His name could, in fact, be a metaphorical allusion to high-ranking status, or his dominant presence.

But, assuming that his name is a direct reference to an above-average height, it’s safe to estimate that Thorkell wouldn’t necessarily have had to be incredibly tall by modern standards to earn his title. This is because analysis of Viking skeletons suggests that an average Norseman stood at between 5’7” and 5’8” tall.

Thorkell could have been under 6 feet, and still have been considered tall enough to be given his moniker.

Thorkell’s early life and his links with the Jomsvikings

The son of Strut-Harald, a Danish chieftain, Thorkell was descended from a noble lineage; something that allowed him early access to prominence.

While he has no recorded date of birth, he first enters the historical record in the late tenth century – first recorded as fighting alongside the semi-legendary Jomsvikings (a fierce mercenary force of Vikings, deeply devoted to the Old Norse gods – though willing to eschew their beliefs for the right pay) in AD 986 during the battle of Hjörungavágr – an intra-Norse naval conflict.

Over a decade later, Thorkell is then noted again at the turn of the millennium, AD 1000, in a second such conflict, again with the mercenary Jomsvikings, at the battle of Svolder.

Read more | The truth about Viking berserkers

Thorkell’s role in these two battles – if he was indeed present in them at all – is indicated by his inclusion in the Sagas. It was during this period that Thorkell the Tall theoretically displayed his mettle, proving his talents as a warrior and strategic leader.

It’s not long after the turn of the millennium, and these battles, that Thorkell’s story converges with the Anglo-Saxons and the events that would form part of the buildup to 1066 and the end of the Viking Age.

1066: The battle for England

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Thorkell the Tall and Anglo-Saxon England

Thorkell the Tall appears in the annals of English history during the turbulent reign of King Æthelred the Unready, when Viking opportunism still dominated the affairs of the Anglo-Saxons, and the descendants of Alfred the Great scrambled to consolidate the king’s unification of England.

In 1002, Æthelred ordered the St Brice’s Day Massacre, a coordinated attack on Danish settlers in England following what had been a particularly intense decade of Viking aggression.

This act of brutality was unwise, in the end, as it reignited Viking fury, enraging the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard, spurring on a new series of Viking invasions aimed at punishing the English king. Thorkell played a leading role in these invasions.

In 1009, at Forkbeard’s behest, Thorkell commanded a massive Viking fleet that landed in southern England. His army rampaged across the countryside, burning towns and extracting tribute.

Thorkell targeted key locations, including Canterbury, whose archbishop, Ælfheah, was later taken hostage.

However, allegedly against Thorkell’s wishes, the archbishop was executed by Viking warriors instead of being held hostage, instigating the possible beginnings of a rift between the Thorkell and his compatriots.

Thorkell the Tall: a real-life Uhtred?

In 1012, in the aftermath of his revenge on England, Thorkell’s allegiances shifted – and radically so. Leaving his Viking comrades behind, Thorkell switched sides and entered the service of King Æthelred.

The reasons for this defection are unclear, but they may have been driven by political calculations or dissatisfaction with his Viking counterparts.

This might not be as shocking as it seems; as a Jomsviking warlord in his past, Thorkell’s loyalty had historically been pragmatic and available to the highest bidder, and his decision to ally with Æthelred fits within the context of this murky Anglo-Saxon and Viking period where allegiances were fluid.

And Thorkell’s role as an ally of England wasn’t simply tokenistic.

He was appointed to lead a group of elite warriors known as the ‘Thingmen,’ who served as a personal guard for the king. His knowledge of the Vikings and his reputation as a warlord would have made him an invaluable asset (in the same vein as Uhtred of Bebbanburg from the fictional The Last Kingdom, who joins the side of Alfred the Great despite a deeply rooted Viking background).

It was during this time that Thorkell forged even stronger links to the Anglo-Saxon cause by marrying one of the daughters of the king, with whom he possibly had his own children, including Edith Swanneck, the later wife of Harold Godwinson.

Nevertheless, Æthelred’s reign remained unstable, and Thorkell’s allegiance to England would soon be tested by new developments.

Thorkell turns cloak

By 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard had launched a renewed assault on England, and Thorkell found himself caught between his Danish roots and his new English allegiance.

When Sweyn’s son, Cnut, continued the campaign after his father’s death, Thorkell ultimately decided to revoke his new Anglo-Saxon fealties to align himself with the young Danish prince.

Read more | Your guide to King Cnut: the fierce Danish warrior who ruled England

Cnut’s conquest of England in 1016 (a crucial year in the building escalation toward 1066) marked the beginning of a new era. Thorkell was rewarded for his support with lands and titles, becoming one of Cnut’s most trusted advisors.

He was appointed Earl of East Anglia, a position that granted him significant power and responsibility.

And by shifting his loyalty once again, Thorkell proved himself as a canny and competent operator, with a keen ability to navigate the complex political landscape as circumstances demanded.

Without ever becoming a king himself, Thorkell the Tall had defined himself as – arguably – one of the period’s most successful figures.

The Vikings | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy

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How did Thorkell the Tall die?

Thorkell’s life after this remains obscure. He likely returned to Denmark at some point, perhaps to serve King Cnut in his broader Scandinavian empire, and by the mid-1020s, Thorkell disappears from the historical record entirely.

Modern historians rely on a combination of primary sources, including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Norse sagas, to piece together Thorkell’s story. However, these accounts were often written decades or even centuries after the events they describe, and are coloured by the biases of their authors.

And, crucially, as Thorkell passes out of their purview, knowledge of him and his actions fade too.

So whether he died in battle, or from some disease, or ‘retired’ peacefully back in Scandinavia, away from the turmoil in Anglo-Saxon England, his story, effectively, ends with the success of Cnut.

Trump Delivers Farmaggedon - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-09-26T12:02:29.000Z

I used to look forward to the first shipments of Iowa sweet corn at the grocery store. It was a sign that BBQ season had arrived in the north. Not this year. When I saw the big bins of MADE IN USA corn, I walked right past.

So did many others.

The days of looking for the easiest and cheapest deals are over. It seemed so much better to wait a few weeks for Canadian corn to hit the stores. This is the face of the anti-MAGA boycott at the micro level. And it shows no sign of slowing down.

Economic analysis indicates that the boycott has shifted from a protest action to a complete reworking of our economic relationship with the United States. Canadians have moved on, and they are not going back.

At the macro level, however, the boycott has become an existential threat to American agriculture. It is sending shockwaves through the MAGA voting base.

Consider the reports of huge containers of American grain left sitting on the docks of foreign ports. Once the port authorities see the MADE IN USA stickers, they want more documentation. Or they want the shipment to be subject to tests for potential pesticides. Or they simply say that the contracts have been cancelled. Turn it around.

Such incidents are occurring in ports worldwide. Markets that were dominated by American agriculture are shutting their doors.

This is a year of record harvests, and yet the United States farm economy is facing a stunning collapse. They are calling it “Farmaggedon”. People in farm country aren’t buying machinery or supplies. Farm failures are spiking. Suicides in rural communities are on the rise. This perfect storm has nothing to do with normal global cycles: it is the result of one man.

Trump promised to go after “migrants,” and so now there is no one to get crops off the fields in the peach and grape fields. He said the USA didn’t need anything from Canada when western American farmers are heavily dependent on potash fertilizer and supplies from their northern neighbours. He promised a big, beautiful tariff war that is creating chaos with the family farm’s tight margins and input costs.

But the most significant impact is coming from the sudden collapse of markets that have loyally purchased USA agriculture for decades.

In less time than it takes to say “Make America Great Again,” the world turned its back on American grain, soybeans, corn, vegetables, and fruit. Florida orange juice sales to Canada have collapsed, and Canadian consumers have quickly adapted to an alternate source.

The speed of the decline of American dominance in agriculture is unprecedented. But it was all so predictable.

In April, Trump promised “Liberation Day” with a 145% tariff on China. The Chinese responded with a total ban on soybean purchases. A $13 billion market evaporated overnight. Soybean farmers have been left scrambling to deal with the massive inventory they can’t sell.

Similar collapses are seen in corn and grains. In the market for fresh greens, the United States counts on Canadian sales. That’s over. Stores have learned that consumers want their produce sourced either locally or from countries like Mexico.

Pesticides are another reason for MAGA’s ongoing damage to the American brand. MAGA politicians were more than willing to bend to corporate lobbyists to loosen the regulations on agricultural pesticides. They pounded their chests and promised to “cut red tape” and fight “woke” environmental policies. Now they’re discovering that other markets, such as the EU, are unwilling to purchase their product.

Both Canada and Mexico have quickly stepped up to fill the void.

With promises of traceability and higher standards, Canada is reassuring international consumers by presenting itself as a reliable and democratic partner. A recent headline in The Western Producer noted that this is shaping up to be a record year for Canadian farm exports.

As the U.S. faces Farmaggedon, Canadian farmers are expanding corn operations to meet the increasing global demand. Canadian corn and other products are finding buyers in the traditionally solid US markets of Ireland, the UK and Spain.

American farmers voted in huge numbers for Trump. So far, they seem to trust his promises that his tariff war will somehow deliver for them. What they fail to realize is that while they might like their president, the rest of the world hates his guts, and that is not about to change. That is why their markets have abandoned them.

There is a huge opportunity for Canada if we play this right. As for the MAGA heartland, they need to wake up. Farmaggedon is here, and Trump delivered it.

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Elbows up, Pete - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-09-24T12:00:23.000Z

The MAGA ambassador to Canada is at it again — gaslighting our country and blaming Canada for the poor state of Canadian-American relations. He claims we are anti-American and points to our aggressive language with terms like "elbows up."

Seriously?

Of all the nationalist rallying cries, Elbows Up is hardly inflammatory. Not like "Give me liberty or give me death" or "the bloody flag is raised". The fact that it could become a rallying cry in a time of national crisis is just so typically Canadian.

Let me explain.

In the early days of Donald Trump's attack on our nation, Canadians were disoriented and freaked out. Trump was vowing to break us economically while musing about erasing our sovereignty by moving the border.

Then, on Saturday Night Live, comedian Mike Myers (a good boy from Scarborough, Ontario) appeared in the final scene with a Canada is not for sale t-shirt. As the rest of the cast waved goodnight, Mike looked straight into the camera, raised his elbows and mouthed, "elbows up."

Americans tuning in probably had no clue what Myers was doing. But every Canadian understood the marching orders.

It was an electrifying moment. Myers was invoking the spirit of the great Gordie "Mr. Elbows" Howe. Gordie was a class player, but God help the player who tried to go in close to get the better of him. Mr. Elbows would teach him a lesson. Myers was telling us to toughen up and be ready to defend our turf.

Suddenly, our nation had a rallying cry, something that was both defiant and cheeky. Even better, it was spoken in our own secret hockey code.

And this freaks out Pete Hoesktra?

But then he is also angry that we are describing the dismal situation with Washington as a trade "war". He thinks we're being aggressive. Sorry, Pete, but this is as polite as one can get when dealing with the relentless insults and attacks from Donald Trump.

Trump has claimed that copper from Canada represents a national security threat. He said the lumber we ship into American markets is also a national security threat.

I looked up the American definition of national security threat – it refers to terrorism, international criminal gangs, threats to infrastructure, and targeted violence against civilians. It is ridiculous to invoke such language over the price of Canadian 2x4s at the local Home Depot.

But it is typical of the elevated language of threat and menace from MAGA. The FBI director claims Canada is flooding the American border with terrorists. Kristi Noem says our border is a threat to the safety of Americans. Attorney General Pam Bondi says we are the cause of international human trafficking.

Over 150 Canadians are being held in detention camps without proper access to legal support and their families. Can you imagine if we were kidnapping Americans and throwing them in detention centres?

And yet Hoekstra's biggest bother is the phrase "trade war" or the fact that Canadians won't buy American booze.

This isn't the first time he has stepped up to gaslight and target Canadians. He has told us to "get over it." He says that Canada has hurt the United States. He repeats Trump's claims that Canada is the meanest and nastiest country the US has had to deal with.

His behaviour shouldn't come as a surprise. His record on international relations is dismal.

When George Bush Jr. was making the false case for the invasion of Iraq, Pete Hoekstra was one of his key cheerleaders. He made multiple false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Even after it was proven there were no weapons of mass destruction, Hoekstra held press conferences making bogus claims to keep the fiction alive.

In 2007, he made false claims about Iran's nuclear capabilities.

In his promotion of anti-Muslim conspiracies, CNN awarded him 4 Pinocchios.

And you don't need to take my word for this. It's all there in Wikipedia.

In 2017, Donald Trump chose him as ambassador to the Netherlands. This came as Hoekstra was stirring up anti-Muslim hysteria with bogus claims that Muslims were burning politicians.

When called out, he hid behind the line that the media was perpetuating "false news." But then the state department had to step in to say he was making this shit up.

Poor Pete was forced to make an apology:

"I've mixed up countries. I was wrong, and I don't know how that could have happened. I do know: it was wrong."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/12/us-ambassador-to-the-hague-apologizes-for-making-muslim-remarks-after-denial

He "mixed up" countries as he spread hate and disinformation. Good work, Mr. Ambassador.

But there is one fact from his previous time as ambassador that deeply troubles me.

Hoekstra held a fundraiser for the extremist Forum for Democracy party at the US embassy. The use of the American embassy to promote a far-right political party may be a violation of international law, but it fits a frightening pattern of MAGA politicians interfering in European nations to promote far-right extremist policies.

It shows a brazen willingness to undermine political stability in countries that should be considered allies.

The question I have is, how did Hoekstra get the job of ambassador? Is he truly here to work to build relations and trade with Canada or to sow chaos?

My fear is the latter. Maybe it's time we stood up to him like the people of the Netherlands did in calling out his bogosity.

Canadian officials need to understand that MAGA doesn't see Europe or Canada as allies. They believe that all relations are relative – a zero-sum game – where the powerful dictate arbitrary terms and national sovereignty means little.

When Hoekstra accuses us of being anti-American, we need to push back that Canadians are not anti-American; we are anti-authoritarian.

When he says we are mean and nasty, we need to state that we oppose regimes that kidnap people off the streets. We find it repugnant that the president brags about feeding people to alligators. We find it a stain on democracy that a convicted criminal is in the White House, a man who is so thin-skinned that he gets comedians fired for making fun of him.

And we need to remind Mr. Hoekstra that he needs to show a little more respect for the spirit and determination of the Canadian people. We paid a huge sacrifice to free his family from the Nazis.

Hoekstra is from Groningen, and in the spring of 1945, people in the region were starving. The Canadian 2nd Division was determined to get through to free the people. But there were so many refugees in Groningen that the Canadian military decided not to use air cover or artillery to protect our boys going in.

That meant our soldiers had to clear out the machine nests and snipers of the SS and panzer grenadiers without cover. We lost a lot of good young men in the brutal house-to-house fighting.

The people of the Netherlands have never forgotten the huge sacrifice we paid to free them. But Mr. Hoekstra seems not to have learned the lesson of the cost Canadians are willing to endure to protect liberty.

So the next time Mr. Hoekstra gets up in front of a microphone to call the people of Canada mean and nasty, people should point out to him that he needs to be thankful that the young men of the Fort Gary Horse, the Calgary Highlanders, Le Regiment de Maisonneuve and the Canadian Black Watch were as mean and nasty as they were. Otherwise, he would have grown up under the Nazi boot.

Canadians are nice - until we're not.

Elbows up, Pete. It's time to pack your bags and go back to MAGAland.

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On Genocide, Canada Doesn’t Get to Be a Bystander - Charlie Angus / The Resistance

2025-09-22T12:03:25.000Z

Some lives matter. Some don't.

That is the only way I can make sense of the comments by David Lametti, Canada's new ambassador to the United Nations, in his refusal to recognize that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.

He says that Canada must wait until all the evidence is in – including the findings of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

Apparently, after we have had time to assess all the evidence, Canada will determine if Israel is guilty of the mass killings of Palestinian families. This is how Lametti explained his position to the CBC:

"This is certainly what we've done in other cases where a genocide has been recognized. There is an international body of authority that rules in that manner, and then Canada moves to recognize it. This is the position that Canada has taken for a number of years, and we think it's the right position."

It's a lie.

Within two months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Canada's parliament unanimously recognized the attack as a form of genocide. Lametti was in the House of Commons then. His government voted to recognize genocide when the war was barely 70 days old.

In 2021, Canada's parliament overwhelmingly voted to recognize China's mistreatment of the Uyghurs. Although on that vote, Mr. Lametti skipped out.

The fact is, Russia and China are considered foes of Canada. Perhaps our rightful moral outrage was amplified by geopolitical considerations. When Russian atrocities were reported against the Ukrainian people, the Canadian government moved quickly to impose sanctions. We boasted of those sanctions and encouraged other nations to join us. Israel, on the other hand, has always enjoyed insider status.

Over the last two years, the world has witnessed brutal abuses by the IDF against civilians, journalists, doctors and aid workers. Canada has done little other than issue the occasional statement of concern.

No boycotts. No sanctions. No demands for the international community to take steps to stop the deliberate starvation of children.

Is the issue that the children being starved are Palestinian?

The message being sent is that some lives matter. Some don't.

It was astounding to hear Lametti say he was waiting for evidence from the United Nations when just over a week ago, the United Nations Independent Inquiry issued a report that found Israel guilty of four of the five acts that meet the test of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

This report had been two years in the making, beginning with the horrifying events of October 7. One of the findings of the report would be obvious to anyone with even a remote sense of what has been taking place: that Israel is guilty of "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part."

As the newly appointed ambassador to the UN, Lametti would be aware of this report. And yet he told Canadian media that he is waiting for the UN to provide a finding.

He's stalling.

Some lives matter. Some don't.

So far, Canada's most dramatic action on the nightmare in Gaza has been to join Orban's Hungary and Trump's America in banning the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap.

The Carney government falsely claims that Kneecap is "amplifying political violence."

It is total bullshit. They have become incredibly popular with young people for calling out the genocide.

The Canadian government's attack on Kneecap mirrors a pattern in the UK where artists who speak up against genocide are targeted as supporting terrorism, while the government provides cover for the terrorist actions of Benjamin Netanyahu.

In an earlier piece, I wrote about my concerns that Prime Minister Carney has refused to call out American threats against Canada's participation in the International Criminal Court. By failing to stand up for international law, Canada is undermining our longstanding tradition of calling out genocide.

It is good news to see that Canada, like Keir Starmer's UK, has moved to recognize Palestine as a state. However, if the West doesn't take active measures to stop the genocide, such recognition will be little more than window dressing on an atrocity.

As I write this, Gaza is being destroyed brick by brick. Starvation and mass killing of civilians are mounting. If Lametti is playing the long game, he is playing it in human lives and Canada's reputation on the international stage.

All lives matter, David Lametti. All lives matter.

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