I'm the curious witness trying to make sense of it. Pro democracy.
Ottawa
Joined February 2011
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Frank Poulin retweeted
When someone asks, “Why defend the rich when you aren't rich yourself?” they're doing the work of an authoritarian state.
They're accepting the precedent that individual rights depend on wealth, popularity, or membership in a politically favored group.
Once that precedent is established, the only question remaining is who's next.
You don't have to belong to a persecuted minority to understand why its rights must be defended. You only have to understand what rights are.
Frank Poulin retweeted
🇺🇸🛰️🇪🇺 Elon Musk, Monopoly, and Political Power. Does History Ring a Bell?
In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly broken up under antitrust laws. America recognized that allowing one businessman to accumulate enormous control over an essential industry was dangerous.
Now, more than a century later, look at Elon Musk, SpaceX, Starlink, xAI, and Tesla. (Soon, he wants to merge some of these to create a global, technocratic monstrosity.)
We’re watching one billionaire accumulate extraordinary control over satellite communications, technology that governments, militaries, businesses, and entire countries increasingly depend on.
And now, according to the Financial Times, the U.S. ambassador to the EU is threatening “devastating” retaliation if Europe restricts SpaceX from parts of its market.
What the hell? Since when is the United States government supposed to act as the enforcement arm of a billionaire’s business empire?
This is not just about market dominance anymore. It’s about economic power turning into political influence, and potentially using government power to protect private business interests.
Rockefeller had Standard Oil. Musk has Starlink, SpaceX, xAI, etc. Different centuries, different technologies, but some disturbingly familiar patterns.
This is supposed to be democracy, not a damn technocracy run by billionaires.
I am all for free markets and capitalism with social democratic guardrails, just like in this case (don’t confuse that with pathetic kumbaya democratic socialism, which will most likely lead to damn socialism, and communism is next), but I am also against monopolies, political influence, and intimidation in business.
Enough is enough, FFS!
Frank Poulin retweeted
Antifa is a good example. The name means anti-fascist, and who isn't against fascism? But in practice, parts of the movement use violence and intimidation against people they disagree with, and label them fascists to justify it. Once your opponent is a fascist, anything goes.
That is where it gets dangerous. A queer activist or a left-wing activist may see an Islamist movement as an ally against Western imperialism. But an Islamist regime can be a direct threat to their freedom, their rights and their safety.
That contradiction doesn't disappear because you stand side by side, each with your own sign.
That is how you end up a useful idiot. You help authoritarian forces forward because you are more occupied with their enemy than with their goal.
So we have to be sharp about who wants what, and make demands of those who call themselves our allies. Will they defend our freedom when we disagree with them? Accept an election loss? Protect the rights of women and gay people? Defend the right to believe, doubt, criticize religion and leave it?
The answers show whether you share values or just an enemy.
Calm on the streets until the next time is not enough. We have to solve the real problems and defend the foundation our freedom rests on. Violence must have consequences. Authoritarian movements must be met with criticism. And our freedoms must be defended, even when those who attack them call themselves freedom fighters.
This is the sickness of our time. And it is why I don't see what is happening around us as a problem in each individual country. Different flags, same fight.
It is something we have to unite around fighting, no matter what nationality we have.
That is also why I started writing in English and not only in my mother tongue. I saw the bigger picture early. This will not be solved separately. It will be solved as ONE UNITED TRIBE.
A common enemy does not make us allies.
Stand up, please.❤️🔥
Frank Poulin retweeted
Latest: Zelenskyy tells reporters over WhatsApp that restrictions on Ukraine's Starlink systems remain. Interceptor drones can't function, logistics and operations hobbled. The maximum speed is 161 kph; "exceeding this limit causes the Starlink connection to cut out completely, resulting in the loss of the drone."
He says Ukraine has done tests to determine whether SpaceX is truly facing technical issues, as has been told Kyiv by the US side, or if this is a "deliberate operation... to restrict us, cut us off, and prevent us from defending ourselves and protecting our people, both at the front and among the civilian population."
He says Ukraine "sent a couple of vehicles equipped with Starlink terminals into European Union territory."
"They moved at speeds exceeding 180kph, and the Starlink systems worked perfectly. We have the relevant logs and evidence to prove this."
He adds: "The conclusion is clear: the restrictions are in effect within Ukraine but do not apply within the European Union. In other words, this is a planned operation."
Frank Poulin retweeted
Mr. Trump! You say that Zelenskyy is not someone you can work well with. But Ukraine does not have, and never will have, a president you would want to work with.
Back in 1994, the Russians didn’t want to deal with Kravchuk either, so they supported Kuchma in the election. The Russians liked Kuchma. He spoke Russian, played the guitar on Russian television, and sang Russian songs.
But once he became president, he repelled a Russian attack on Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait and even wrote a book titled Ukraine Is Not Russia.
The second time, the Russians supported another guy they really liked in an election. That guy was… Volodymyr Zelenskyy!!
You won’t believe this, Mr. Trump, but this “Banderite” and “fascist” was once a fairly pro-Russian candidate. He said that to end the war, “we just need to stop shooting.” He was so willing to make a deal with Putin that he proposed “meeting halfway” over occupied Ukrainian territories.
Imagine that! The very same Zelenskyy was once so loyal to Putin and Russia that my friends and I even joined a “No to Capitulation!” march to prevent agreements that would have gone against Ukraine’s national interests.
But time passed, and now you claim that this man doesn’t want peace!
The truth is that no Ukrainian president will ever be acceptable to you. Unlike Russia and the United States, we don’t have tsars. And anyone who holds the office of president must defend Ukrainian interests or cease to be president. Just like Yanukovych.
Zelenskyy doesn’t reject peace. He rejects capitulation. Peace is not on the table. WE ARE NOT BEING OFFERED PEACE! Zelenskyy knows his people and understands that even if he agreed to capitulate, the Ukrainian people would never allow it, and he would cease to be president.
So, like any politician who understands his voters, Zelenskyy is not prepared to sign his own political death sentence along with Ukraine’s capitulation.
I’ve been reading the garbage you’ve been spewing lately, Mr. Trump, and it fills my heart with joy and warmth to watch you panic. You’re losing the elections, and it looks like you’re desperately grasping at straws by kicking Ukraine. But it’s not going to work!
American voters are wiser than you, and they will send you to the trash heap of history, along with your clownish dances, your lies, and your antics of an aging, bargain-basement Don Juan.
I wish you spend your final years in poverty and in prison
With no respect whatsoever,
Captain Marchenko, Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Frank Poulin retweeted
When we say socialism eventually runs out of other people's money, that applies consistently even by socialists' own standards.
They routinely complain that generations of taxation and redistribution have failed to satisfy their demands, yet their solution is invariably more of both.
And when an ideology focuses on redistributing wealth rather than producing it, running out of wealth to redistribute becomes increasingly inevitable.
An ideology that pursues equality by tearing down those at the top rather than raising those at the bottom faces another problem: once you've brought down the top, there's a new top to target.
The ceiling keeps getting lower while the demands from below keep growing, and the incentive to produce what everyone demands keeps shrinking.
It's a race to the bottom, with equality in poverty as its logical destination.
You cannot redistribute wealth that nobody produces.
Frank Poulin retweeted
Dear Mr. @elonmusk, why do you never call for Putin to go? He's ruled Russia as a dictator for 26 years. Isn't that enough?
You know, Putin thinks you are a fool. He thinks he has your number. Behind closed doors, they tell jokes about you. You do his bidding here -- calling for Zelenskyy to go -- and he doesn't even have to bribe you, like Schroeder or others.
I am a huge admirer of your work when it comes to making things that improve our world. Huge!
I find your judgments of Putin naive.
But I know I might be "biased." He has killed some of my friends & colleagues. My guess is he hasn't killed any of your friends.
Please spend some time in Kyiv. Meet some mothers whose kids were deliberately killed by Putin's drones. And then go to Moscow and try to meet some mothers whose kids were deliberately targeted by Ukrainian rockets and drones. You won't find any.
Putin is slaughtering innocent civilians in Ukraine on purpose.
Zelenskyy is not.
Frank Poulin retweeted
🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
According to CNN, Zelensky’s workday begins between 3 and 4 in the morning, when the first battlefield reports arrive.
He drinks strong black coffee, no sugar, to push through the early hours.
Even under constant pressure, he has not lost his sense of humor and still finds brief moments to reset.
The years of war, strain, and emotional weight are visible on him. No one carries that kind of burden without it showing.
And yet he remains standing.
Respect to Volodymyr Zelensky.
Frank Poulin retweeted
❗️I want to express my deepest gratitude to the Canadian people for their unwavering support of Ukraine. From the very first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Canada has stood firmly with us — providing substantial military assistance, including armoured vehicles, artillery, ammunition, air defence systems and training for tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers under Operation UNIFIER. Beyond the battlefield, Canada has offered billions in financial and humanitarian aid, helped keep our energy system and public services running, and opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians seeking safety.
Thank you, beautiful Canada and your wonderful people, for standing with us not just with words, but with real, consistent action. Your solidarity means more than we can say.
🇺🇦❤️🇨🇦
🤖 Made with AI
Frank Poulin retweeted
- Garry Kasparov:
“You cannot look at the images from Ukraine and say there is no pure evil. Mariupol destroyed, Bucha slaughtered, Kramatorsk massacred. This is Europe today.”
“This is not a battle between opposite colors, but of opposite values: freedom, life and love versus tyranny, death and hatred.."
.................
Very well said..
🫡
Frank Poulin retweeted
Actually, I think it's worth saying once again that we in Ukraine deeply appreciate all the Americans who, in one way or another, support Ukraine and sympathize with us. Who still do, despite everything, after all these years, sincerely and selflessly, simply because it is in keeping with their values.
We know and remember that there are very many such Americans, even a majority, up to 70%, across both parties.
These are the people working in the corridors of power and trying to make a difference, those who actively volunteer to help Ukraine, and simply those who care and stay with us all these years.
There are a lot of emotions, a lot of hurt feelings, and there may also be plenty of unfair and careless words directed at America. But we extend our hands in friendship and gratitude to everyone who has stood, and continues to stand, on the side of good amid all this madness.
And don't forget, we still have one hell of a massive international drinking party to throw together in Kyiv on the first Christmas time after the war.
Frank Poulin retweeted
1/2
Someone asked me on DM what roof tapping is. This is what it is.
Israel fires a small warning shot onto the roof of a building Hamas is using. No warhead meant to bring it down. Just the knock. Get out. Then the calls, the texts, and the leaflets.
Then, if the fighters are still in there, the real strike.
This clip is Al Jazeera, live from Gaza, a correspondent in a press vest, and the knock lands on the tower behind her while she is on air. She ducks. The building is still standing. That’s the whole point of the tap.
No other army does this. Not the Americans. Not the British. Not the Russians. Not the Arabs who spent the day firing the rockets. Hamas puts the launch sites and the commanders in the apartments, and Israel still knocks on the roof before it hits them.
Then the same footage gets played as proof of a war crime. Watch it again. The warning is the explosion.
Frank Poulin retweeted
Over 75 senior retired 🇺🇸U.S. generals, admirals, and military lawyers have signed a new open letter rejecting claims that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
The signatories include those who have commanded U.S. armed forces in combat, applying the laws of armed conflict.
Their conclusion: based on the facts and applicable legal standard, the conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas does not constitute genocide.
As the letter states, “Civilian deaths occurring during combat, however tragic, are insufficient, by themselves, to support a finding of genocidal intent.”
The standards used to judge military conduct matter precisely because war is tragic and imperfect.
“The precedent established today regarding Israel will shape the conditions under which American forces fight tomorrow. Protecting civilians and preserving the ability of our nation to defend itself requires us to defend the truth when the laws of war are being distorted to make false charges of genocide.”
This is not an argument for minimizing the suffering of civilians. It is an argument for applying the law faithfully and maintaining the distinctions that matter: between the tragic consequences of war, violations of the laws of armed conflict, and the specific crime of genocide.
Read the full open letter here: jinsa.org/open-letter-from-m…
Frank Poulin retweeted
“Nowhere has this moral confusion become more obvious than in a place called Gaza. A little strip of land that was not part of the original Israel, but which they won in a war launched against them, but then gave back as a peace gesture. Did they tell you that part on TikTok, kids?
And the people who run Gaza, Hamas, who you celebrate as a liberation movement but are really a terrorist mafia gang, just like the one that terrorizes Haiti, only ever used it to stage attacks on Israel.
I think Macklemore spoke for all clueless celebrities when he said: ‘I know enough to know this is a genocide.’ Actually, you don’t know sh*t. It’s not a genocide. It’s a counterattack in a war. A war that’s been waged on Israel since 1948 based on the ridiculous premise that Jews don’t belong in the one place on earth they are indigenous and indisputably their ancestral homeland. Hey geniuses, they’re the Indians in this scenario.
Any famine that happened in Gaza is because Hamas stole the food, just like the Haitian gangs do. Israel ran 94,000 trucks carrying over 1.8 million tons of aid into Gaza, and enabled over 36,000 patients to leave Gaza for treatment abroad.
‘Gaza equals genocide’ is a lie, and the fact that so many prominent Democrats go along with it is, to me, the party’s worst moment since they undid Reconstruction after the Civil War. Democrats are policing their candidates really hard on this issue. ‘Say it! Say it’s a genocide! Say it!’
You can’t just change the definition of genocide to mean counterattack in a war where people, including civilians, die. That’s every war. There have been about 73,000 deaths in Gaza, about 3% of the population. Tragic. Not genocide. Not close. There were 3 million Jews in Poland before WW2. After? 45,000. That’s genocide.
This explosion of antisemitism around the world that we see. This is where it’s coming from. Because if you really think someone is committing genocide, of course you have full permission to hate them, and history shows, for whatever reason, when it comes to hating the Jews, people don’t need a lot of permission.”
@billmaher , American comedian and political commentator.
Photo: Angela George / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0. Cropped.
The Nation of Israel Lives
Frank Poulin retweeted
So people keep going back to “Israel invaded the land” and “Israel stole the land” and “Nakba-this” and “Nakba-that” and all sorts of other stories about why they justify Oct 7 and why Israel is in the wrong.
Let’s clear a few things up.
The land that is now Israel was lived in by both Muslims and Jews for a long time. If you want to get technical about who was there first, it was the Jews. How do we know this for a fact? Well, first of all, Jews have been around for about 2000 years longer than Muslims.
Not enough for you?
OK. How about the fact that the word “Israel” is mentioned in the Quran about 43 times. Palestine? Never once.
Jewish people have been around longer than Muslim people have – fact.
Jewish people were living in the place where Israel is much longer than Arabs have – also fact.
In about 1250 BCE, the Jewish people went to what was then called Canaan – where Israel sits today. This is when they escaped slavery in Egypt, and wandered the dessert for 40 years. 1250BCE. About 1860 years before the founding of Islam.
Fast forward to modern times. 1940s. Yes, there were both Arab-Muslims and Jews living on the land that is now called Israel. And yeah, there was fighting. On both sides.
After the Holocaust, the push for the Jewish people to have their own country intensified. During WWII, too many countries turned their backs on Jews. A Jewish homeland would ensure that Jews always had somewhere to go. There could never be another Holocaust, another ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Additionally, the UK was tired of dealing with all the fighting in the British Mandate of Palestine (what Israel was called before it was Israel), and wanted to wash their hands of it.
So what did they do?
They offered to split the land amongst the two groups living there. The Arab-Muslims and the Jews. Sounds fair, right? Each could have their own State, completely autonomous. Pretty good deal, wouldn’t you think?
I think it was a good deal. The Jews thought it was a good deal. Do you know who didn’t think it was a good deal? The Arab-Muslims. Do you know why? Because they didn’t want the Jews to have anything.
So the day after Israel became a nation, the Arabs attacked. 5 Arab nations attacked, in what would be known as the Arab-Israeli war.
Do you know what else it became known as? The Nakba. Nakba for catastrophe. Because they lost. The Arab world says it’s because Arabs were displaced. But they chose to be displaced. Because they chose not to accept their own nation. They left. They ran away. Because they thought the Jews would lose and they'd be able to go back.
The Arabs have been fighting ever since. At some point in time in the 1960s, the Arab-Muslims who were trying to claim Israel as theirs, started to refer to themselves as Palestinians.
Land has been offered. A Palestinian state has been offered. All that the Palestinians had to do, was accept Israel’s right to exist. To stop attacking and trying to destroy them.
Why don’t the Palestinians have their own State?
Because they refuse to. They refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.
Muslim nations in this world, take up 29.13 million square km.
Israel is 21,671 square km.
Jews have 0.1% of the land that Muslims have.
And according to the Radicalized Muslims, that’s too much.
This isn’t about the land.
This is about Radicalized Muslims not wanting Jews to exist.
