News, Events & Comments

 Does art matter? There is no doubt that peoples are alive and strong when their art is as vibrant as was on  display at the Indignous art festival on the grounds of Fort York on the weekend of June 20-21, 2025. Reaching back to the time of Tecumseth the land that became Canada has stood against int U.S. aggression and for reconciliation. In 2025 TonntktheBetter was once again pleased to visit and stand with first nations in their witness to collaboration and inter-cultural solidarity,

# posted by Taodhg @ 6:33 pm 0 comments

With thuggish/fascistic regimes in power around the world in 2025 calls for resistance and prevention grow, but solutions are not obvious. Democracies have historically sometimes elected autocrats Ike Hitler and Trump, so democracy alone is not enough. In addition to democracy banning value  negligent  criminals from office is a basic requirement. This would disqualify Trump and  Netanyahu. Another key is wealth control, since impact requires ownership.This would prevent the influence of unaccountable capitalists like Elon Musk. Excluding illegality and vast inequality do not guarantee civilized society  but they are requirements of it. Together they contribute to humane society, while social economies optimize their durability. Here, then, are tools of prevention rather than after the fact resistance, though it too is necessary whenever damage has been done, and wounded victims  made revengeful. . 

# posted by Taodhg @ 6:54 am 0 comments

Tecumseth and Canada as a Social Economy

It is this sometimes hidden counter-cultural statehood that has ensured independence over time and the current upswelling of popular antipathy to recent attacks by the present leader of the republic to the south. In essence, by birth, therefore, Canada is a social economy. however complicated by its imperial origin,  and so supports the concept of social economics that was our mission when TorontotheBetter was founded: economic affairs dedicated to values other than purely mercantile self-advancement. If Canada’s development as a social state has often been ignored it has recently emerged as a powerful emotive factor in the cultural politics of 2025 and what is likely to be a foundational election of North American differentiation. By birthright Canada is a social economy amd it is this that is fuelling the most overt popular resisitance to American hegemony in recent times.

# posted by Taodhg @ 11:49 pm 0 comments

 No, Donald Trump is not a new Hitler, but he has the character of tyrants throughout history: punitive, egotistical and self-aggrandizing. One thing that unites Trump and other historical malfeasants is their love of pastoral retreats as a relaxing break from their serious work of control and predation. Mar a lago fits the Berchtesgaden model of anti-social economic zones. The implications are for viewers to puzzle over. 

# posted by Taodhg @ 9:10 pm 0 comments

If current tensions with Canada's southern neighbor seem unprecedented they are not. A set of  memorial stones in a park on Portland Street in downtown Toronto mark the graves of Canadians killed in the War of 1812. The war was with the United States. Like most wars it was about economic supremacy between the U.S,A. and British North America, now Canada,and ts indigenous partners. Through the war Canada retained its alignment, as a European counterweight to American imperial expansion of the time. If  Northern North America collaboration ensued in the 20th century European/world  wars,cultural distance nonetheless remains deep and its flare-ups should serve to remind Canadians and the world of the core differences that separate these North American neighbours. They make Canada with our national public health care service and third party a more European and social economic culture. Though some may see Trumpian outbursts as a social media artifact a profound values differential is the root cause and American style social media are, like Trump himself, a symptom of deep and dangerously insecure  isolationist instinct  in our deeply interconnected socio-cultural times.

# posted by Taodhg @ 10:29 am 0 comments