Canada Compared to the Soviet Union

I love this documentary. So should you.

Though the documentary focuses on the absurd outcomes of Soviet central planning, it ought to put Canadians on notice as to the expected results of continuing Liberal hegemony in this country. And not just from the Carney politburo, but from all of the institutions that now derive all or part of their sustenance from the fucking government.

Perhaps, I have too vivid an imagination. I see so many parallels between the current state of Canada, and the historical record emerging from the Soviet Union.

"Hey buddy! You wanna buy some shares in some underground CO2?"

From the video transcript:

"So what does all of this mean? Not as history, as a lesson that applies to something larger than one city, one navy, one collapsed empire. What happened in Vladivvasttoc in 1979 was not a story about Soviet evil or communist incompetence. As satisfying as those explanations might be for people who prefer their history simple, it was a story about what happens to any large hierarchical institution when the incentive system inside it makes lying the rational choice and truthtelling the dangerous one. When the person who reports the fire on the ship is threatened with treason and the person who covers up the fire is promoted, you do not need to assume that the people inside the system are uniquely corrupt or cowardly. You just need to understand that they are responding rationally to the incentives in front of them. Normal people making rational choices inside a system where the rational choice was catastrophic. This is a pattern that is not unique to the Soviet Union (recall COVID), and it is not confined to military institutions or authoritarian states. It operates in every organization large enough that the people at the top cannot directly observe what is happening at the bottom. (Carney sips champaign, Trudeau cavorts with some rock star.) It operates whenever the cost of delivering bad news exceeds the cost of concealing it. It operates whenever the metrics used to evaluate performance can be manipulated more easily than the underlying reality can be improved." Hmmm. Where have I heard talk about the metrics of performance?

I mean, doesn't that resemble what we see going on in Canada these days?

More from the transcript:

"They could wear smuggled Levis's jeans and listen to Japanese cassette players and feel in their bodies the difference between a system that produced things people actually wanted and a system that produced things the state had decided they should want."

Fuck. Ain't that the truth? I don't know if it accurately describes the old Soviet Union, but it sure as fuck describes Canada. Instead of a system that produces things people actually want, the chicken dancers elected people who will produce what the Liberals have decided they should want.

They might get what they want, but sooner or later, they will get exactly what they fucking deserve.

===

The question that Vladivvastto in 1979 leaves you with is 37:48 not really a question about the Soviet Union. It is a question about every institution you have ever trusted to 37:54 tell you the truth about itself. When the cost of honesty inside a system becomes higher than the cost of silence. 38:02 When the person who reports the fire is the one who gets punished and the person who covers it up is the one who gets 38:08 promoted. How long does it take before the fire becomes something that cannot be hidden? And by the time it cannot be 38:14 hidden anymore, how much of the ship is already gone?

Woke Compassion

Woke 'compassion' always reminds me of Michael Stivik from 'All in the Family." That guy was overflowing with 'compassion' but it took me a few years before I realized the unspoken part of Stivik's noble proclamations - that Archie was the guy who should pay for it all.

I have a theory that the hordes of chicken dancing boomers in Canada had their political opinions given to them by assholes like Michael Stivik, and just about every rock and roll lyricist of the age.

Here are just a few examples:

Money - Pink FLoyd

Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.

I Don't Want Your Money - Chicago

"The song "I Don't Want Your Money" by the band Chicago is about rejecting material wealth, social status, and political influence in favor of personal integrity and authentic love."

If I remember correctly, the album contained a list of every venue Chicago played where they made at least $10,000.

Moody Blues - How is it We Are Here?

Em Am Em F
2)Men's mighty mine machines digging in the ground
Em Am Em F
stealing rare minerals where can they be found.
Em Am Em F
Concrete caves with iron doors bury it again.
Em Am Em F G7
While a starving frightened world fills the sea with grain.....

Five Man Electrical Band - Signs.

In typical Liberal fashion, that song contains a line about visiting a church service,

And the sign said "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray

But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all
I didn't have a penny to pay

So I got me a pen and a paper, and I made up my own little sign (virtue signaling)

I said "Thank you Lord for thinkin' about me, I'm alive and doin' fine"

When you take into account the fact that the Boomer generation has been absolutely marinated in woke anti-capitalistic propaganda, it's a wonder we have any remnant of a free market economy left at all. But don't worry, the Liberals are working hard to accomplish that end.

Definition of a Liberal:

Someone who would give a poor man the shirt off of someone else's back.

Ejaz Butt for Mayor

Ejaz Butt for Mayor.

I was watching a Youtube video about the Soviet Union's solutions to the homeless crisis. It contained some unexpectedly fascinating details. The video was something I intitally hesitated to watch in case it was just another exercise in wokery, but I watched anyway and I am glad I did. Because of my 'fringe' perspective, I often find things that other people would view with the utmost solicitude, strike me as being hilariously funny. Like the experiences of divorced couples in the USSR.

===

"The housing reality for divorced couples in the Soviet Union was notoriously difficult due to extreme housing shortages and wait times that could span 10 to 15 years. Because the state rarely provided a second apartment in a timeframe that matched the emotional reality of a separation, divorced couples were often trapped in the following situations:

Forced Coexistence: Former spouses frequently continued living in the same unit for years after their divorce.

Subdivided Spaces: In many instances, they were forced to share a single room, separating their personal lives with nothing more than a hanging bedsheet or a repositioned wardrobe.

Complex Living Arrangements: Some cases involved one or both former partners entering into new relationships, with the new partner moving into the same divided space. This setup trapped families in an inescapable cycle where legal divorce did not lead to physical separation, creating a high-stress environment that the state did not have the infrastructure to resolve."

===

Seriously. When you consider the misery some people are forced to endure as a result of political interference, it's not really funny. But, if you have a hint of Monty Pythonist appreciation of the absurd, you just have to fucking laugh at it all. (When you consider that "the state can be, and has often has been, in the course of history the main source of misery and disaster.")

And people beg for this shit.

Imagine that. Trying to get to sleep while your ex-spouse is on the other side of the blanket with his/her/her?/his? new partner doing, well, whatever is that people do these days when separated by a curtain or something. (Smoking?)

I have often been faulted for bringing politics into any conceivable discussion. How many divorced couples, (please pardon my biggoted assumption that only couples are impacted,) were inclined to trace their pain back to government policy?

I've noticed the same propensity among chicken dancers. They keep voting for the people who are fucking them up the ass!

I saw the same pattern of unacknowledged costs emerge during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Respecting high stress environments it reminds me of the reports of increasing domestic violence as a result of dysfunctional families being locked down together. Legislated cabin fever.

There was also a report on increasing stress on fire departments as a result of more people cooking at home.

And so on...

And speaking of being trapped in forced situations, how many people in Hamilton currently face the same circumstance due to the cost of rent? One way or another, communistic central planning, whether by the dictatorial Soviet dictator model, favoured by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or by the more weasely Mark Carney, is bound to have the same results. Well-placed individuals, like Pathways Project investors, will be handsomeley rewarded. Everyone else will be fucked up the ass... even the chicken dancers who are cheering it on.

Carney's Canada

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"So, here is the question that the Soviet housing system ultimately asks, not of the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, but of us right now, wherever we happen to be standing, when a government promises that something essential will be provided for free, and the official system for obtaining it becomes so slow, so opaque, and so captured (Think: migrant hotel owners?) by those with the most power that ordinary people begin paying for it through other means entirely. through time, through connections, through corruption, through desperation. At what point does the promise itself become the lie? And how long exactly are people willing to wait before they stop asking for the apartment and start asking a different question altogether?"

===

This evening on CHCH 'News' - "Job cuts at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton prompts union rally."

Also from that report:

ER Wait times 2024-2025 - 33.6 hours.

Five years ago - 30.8 hours.

How long exactly are people willing to wait before they stop asking for free colonoscopies and start asking a different question altogether?

Let me rephrase the question from above:

"So, here is the question that the Canadian system ultimately asks, not of the Canada, which no longer exists, but of us right now, wherever we happen to be standing, when a government promises that something essential will be provided for free, and the official system for obtaining it becomes so slow, so opaque, and so captured by those with the most power that ordinary people begin paying for it through other means entirely. through time, through connections, through corruption, through desperation. At what point does the promise itself become the lie? And how long exactly are people willing to wait before they stop asking for when Carney is going to deliver a better life and start asking a different question altogether?"

So, why Ejaz for mayor?

Because his prescriptions can hardly be worse than those of the other candidates. I know Ejaz, personally. And I can guarantee, that if Ejaz Butt were to become mayor, the hilarity of Hamilton politics would probably gain world wide attention. And, like the German POWs tossing the grand pianos into the ditch... if you know the country is fucked, why bellyache about it? Get drunk and join the party!

Addendum

Nikita Khrushchev’s mass housing project, launched in 1954, was a massive state initiative to resolve the Soviet Union's severe post-war housing shortage by providing every family with its own apartment. The program resulted in the construction of prefabricated concrete panel buildings known as Khrushchevkas, which were designed to be quick, cheap, and functional, featuring five stories (the maximum height allowed without elevators), small kitchens (6 m²), and combined bathrooms.

Between 1954 and 1964, when Khrushchev was ousted, approximately 54 million citizens moved into these new homes, a number that grew to over 127 million in the following five years. The buildings were originally intended as temporary housing with a lifespan of 25 to 40 years, but many remained in use for decades due to chronic housing shortages. In recent years, cities like Moscow have initiated large-scale demolition and resettlement projects for these aging structures, while other regions, such as Tartu in Estonia, are retrofitting them into energy-efficient "smart homes."

Russians at War

Inside a Russian Battalion on the Front Lines in Ukraine (Full Documentary)

WARNING" People smoking.

Russians at War | UNCENSORED | Rare Frontline Access Documentary https://t.co/spwJlexeFE via @YouTube

— Rob van der Starre Straatvlegel (@straatvlegel) May 16, 2026

Grand Pianos

This is a post about Hamilton because the person who originally gave me the idea for this post was a Hamiltonian.

Tonight I was thinking about a story my old man told me years ago. The thought arose in connection with the questions of what Canadians, who know the country is fucked, should do about it.

Well, I don't think anything can be done about it. The cancer that infects this nation has metastasized too deeply. There is no repairing it. It's terminal. "This ship is made of iron, Sir. This ship will sink. It's a mathematical certainty."

So, I was talking to a friend, whose son has a government job. (Right here in Hamilton.) His son believes, correctly in my opinion, that his government job is 99% bullshit. And the waste of public money is scandalous. He is tormented by what he sees every day.

One worry, for him, is that it can't go on forever, and sooner or later there will be a severe change of circumstances. Not for the better, for him. I feel his pain.

While my circumstances are a lot different in detail, one thing we have in common is the question of how long this fraud can be sustained. How long will we be able to survive on other people's money? Before the money runs out?

Dark thoughts, I know.

So, after a couple of beers and a brownie, a sudden thought struck me. 

Why not just have a good time?

I remember reading that during the black plague, circa 1347, there was a lot of debauchery. Why? 

Because everyone thought they were going to die soon,  so why not at least try to have some fun first. And when it comes down to a choice between indulgence in bodily pleasures and behavior involving sex, drugs, and alcohol, etc., WITHOUT wearing a mask,

OR,

one of the other proposed Back Death prophylactics - sticking your head into a latrine and inhaling the fumes, 

which would you choose?

So anyway, I was reminded tonight of a conversation I had with my dad thirty or forty years ago. He told me a story about some German POWs on the Russian front, who were ordered to unload a boxcar full of grand pianos. According to his version, the Germans were laughing their asses off as they listened to 'the splintering wood, and snapping iron strings with loud, metallic bangs.' I would have been laughing too. I mean, why not? You KNOW your future is looking pretty bleak, so why not have some ridiculous fun?

So, this evening, I decided to employ Google to see if I could find any corroborating evidence to support my father's story.

And fuck me! I found this....

===

The continuation of this story reveals the pragmatic rebellion of the frozen soldiers: the POWs intentionally shoved the grand pianos directly into the muddy ditch the moment their officers turned their backs. This act of defiance became a legendary example of Malice Compliance and desperate survival on the Eastern Front.

The Real Intent Behind the "Ditch" Incident

When a secondary shipment of looted grand pianos arrived at the railhead, the commanding officers were not present at the tracks to supervise. They had stayed behind in their warm, requisitioned quarters, merely radioing down the order to "clear the boxcars immediately" so the train could return west for ammunition. The exhausted prisoners realized two things instantly: The pianos were useless: They could not eat a piano, wear a piano, or shoot a piano to defend themselves against the bitter cold. The deadline was absolute: The train conductor was furious, demanding the boxcars be emptied immediately so he could clear the tracks before Soviet artillery zeroed in on the stationary locomotive.

The Execution

Instead of spending hours carefully lifting the heavy instruments down a makeshift ramp—which would have surely resulted in frostbite or dropped instruments—the POWs used the sheer weight of the pianos against them. They rolled the massive instruments right to the edge of the open Güterwagen (boxcar) door. With a synchronized heave, they pushed them straight out into the deep, snow-covered ditches running parallel to the tracks. The heavy instruments crashed into the frozen mud below, splintering wood, snapping iron strings with loud, metallic bangs, and burying themselves in the slush.

(This is where I would have been pissing myself.)

The Alibi

When the officers later demanded to know why the precious cultural cargo was destroyed and sitting upside down in a ditch, the POWs used the perfect military excuse: "We were following orders to clear the train immediately under threat of imminent enemy bombardment." Because the train had successfully departed on time, the officers could not punish the men for prioritizing logistics over luxury. The image of priceless, handcrafted German instruments left to rot upside down in the frozen Russian mud became a powerful, bleakly funny metaphor among the troops for the complete collapse of wartime priorities.

===

Wait until we taste the full measure of Mark Carney's priorities. You might have a pocket full of carbon credit certificates, but all you will be able to buy will be a defined quantity of submerged CO2. Good luck selling THEM when they reach their intrinsic worth.

So the bottom line is, if you're sitting back waiting for con man Carney to make your life better, you are dreaming. The rational course of action, right now, is to resort to unbridled hedonism.

Toss those fucking pianos into the ditch! 

Osmotic Thinkers

An osmotic thinker learns and gains insights passively by immersing themselves in high-quality environments, absorbing knowledge, habits, and perspectives from surrounding experts. This "learning by osmosis" is a form of unconscious assimilation—similar to picking up a language or company culture through daily exposure rather than formal, structured study.

I am reminded of a trip I took to Costco a couple of years ago with a neighbour. She brought another acquaintance, Bubba, from the cab trade with us.

While loading the car, I heard her say something to Bubba. I only caught part of it but it was something like, "I don't listen to anything Hans says." He replied, "Neither do I. I just filter it out."

Knowing that Bubba is a bona fide osmotic thinker with net zero interest in political issues, I asked him if he intended to vote in the next federal election. 

"Yes. I'll probably vote Liberal."

I wanted to punch the fucker in the mouth. "If you're that apathetic you shouldn't vote at all," I said.

"I don't give a shit," was his reply.

You know, I can't remember when I started using the term "osmotic thinker." I think I got the idea from Mr. Joose in our Gr. 9 science class back when science covered things like osmosis, precipitation, and gravity, etc. instead of 'global warming' and pregnant men. The earliest example I can find of my use of it was  back in 2020 in one of my rants. 

"And on and on it goes. A catastrophe driven by dishonest media, cowardly politicians, and a fatally naive public who believe everything they hear, and osmotically absorb every manipulative innuendo spewed forth on the six o'clock news."

I thought it was my own invention until I decided to google it a few weeks ago. To my surprise, it actually showed up.

"An osmotic thinker learns and gains insights passively by immersing themselves in high-quality environments, absorbing knowledge, habits, and perspectives from surrounding experts. This "learning by osmosis" is a form of unconscious assimilation—similar to picking up a language or company culture through daily exposure rather than formal, structured study."

I detect a typical Google slant to this description. Most of what the zombies I meet do not 'know' what they 'know' from immersing themselves in high-quality environments, absorbing knowledge, habits, and perspectives from surrounding experts. They 'know' what they 'know' by  immersing themselves in low-quality environments, like Junk News media, publicly funded indoctrination factories, and popular movies and songs, all pushing woke narratives. They aren't absorbing knowledge, habits, and perspectives from surrounding experts. They are absorbing knowledge, habits, and perspectives from surrounding idiots.

The part about unconscious assimilation is, unfortunately, absolutely correct.