The politicians are on break (thank god) and so are we.
The Soapbox family and Rudy the rescue dog would like to wish you and yours a peaceful and happy holiday.
And here’s the traditional photo of the mutt under the Christmas tree. Those of you with a discerning eye will notice Rudy is plumper and furrier this year. But then again, aren’t we all.
Talk to you next year!
Susan on the Soapbox 
🤗🌲🥛🎄🍷Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
ymk: I noticed you included a glass of milk for Santa and wine for me. Very considerate. Thank you. 🙂
Season’s Greetings and all the best to you and your family Ms Soapbox — and to all your blog subscribers too!!
J.E. On behalf of my family and subscribers, thank you! May your holiday be a healthy and happy one.
Merry Christmas to you too.
Keep up the good work and your wonderful sense of humour. Both are much needed .
John
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Thank you John! All the best to you and yours this holiday season!
Merry Christmas and a 2020 healthy and happy
Thank you Carlos. I wish you and your family a peaceful and healthy new year. Lord knows we’ll have to keep our strength up given what’s ahead.
Merry Xmas to you and yours as well!
Thanks Gregory and the same goes for you and your family!
Merry Xmas to you and yours as well.
The traditional “photo of the mutt” is, as traditional, wonderful! Merry Christmas to you, Roy and the rest of the family and best wishes for a happy holiday season! 😀!
Sent from my iPhone
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Thanks Ken, we send you and your family all the very best this holiday season!
With love in our hearts and hope for a better future for all … the struggle continues; but first a bit of a break to remind us of what is possible, and to reflect upon how we might get there …
Happy Holidays Ms Soapbox, family, and one and all!
Well said Terry, well said. All the very best of the season to you and your family!
Rudy and my rescue mutt would get along fine. “Birds of a feather”. Best wishes to you and yours from Hal and pals.
Hal, what a lovely thought. I’m sure they’d get along beautifully. 🙂
Susan: Thanks for your great blogs. Hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Much appreciated Dwayne. Thank you for all your comments. I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year as well.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts each week!
Thank you for reading them Keith! All the best of the Christmas season to you and your family.
Merry Christmas to you and all your family. (mutt too!).
Sincerely,
Leila Keith
Leila, my family and I (and the mutt) thank you and wish you and yours a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Merry Christmas, Susan!! We are fortunate to have each other .. all of us ‘progressives’ .. and thankful that you have done such an incredible job helping us stay grounded and connected. Your blog respondents remain stalwart and dependable soldiers. Stellar team.
All the very best to you and your family … 2020 will be interesting, for sure. Rest up! Relax! The New Year is just around the corner.
Well said Jane. That’s the lovely thing about the “progressives”, at least the ones who support this blog, unlike the conservatives we rarely find ourselves in a situation where we’re forced to distance ourselves from some fanatic in the corner.
Great post 🙂
Thanks!
Best wishes to
You for a Happy New Year. I appreciate your analysis and opinions.
Thank you Linda, it warms my heart to know that readers appreciate what I’m doing!
You better believe we all do – I am sure that this blog is already in the spy list. So soon a ‘reporter’ from the war room will be intimidating you.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED HELP WITH THAT!!!
I do not like to brag but I am better than the Templars. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Like the ultra cheating mind of their guru, they are already using his strategies. There is one problem for him though – we have much better ethical ways of getting them under the bus. My objective for 2020 is to embarrass the War Room.
Your blog is the best in Edmonton.
Carlos what a lovely comment! In keeping with the Templar theme, stopping the War Room in its tracks would be an excellent objective for 2020. Given the multi-millions of dollars it has at its disposal I’m waiting for it to roll out a journalistic coup of Woodward and Bernstein quality identifying all those people Kenney said are trying to knee-cap the energy sector. So far, nothing, just screw ups on their logo and stories about chefs cooking with natural gas.
Perhaps they thought its mere existence would silence us. They were wrong. As you said, we have ethical ways of dealing with criticism. We start with the facts and tell the truth.
But I promise you this. If they do call me, you’ll be the first to know!
Thank you so much for your ongoing support!
I hope you’re enjoying a wonderful holiday season. Wishing you and yours all the best throughout the new year.
Thank you Carol. We’ve had a peaceful and loving Christmas. I hope it’s been the same for you.
It’s been nice, thanks.
Season’s Greetings to you & yours, Ms Soapbox. May 2020 bring you continued health, happiness, prosperity … & lots of fascinating Alberta political shenanigans for you to turn your laser-focused lens to ;-).
Indeed Jerry. Like many Albertans, I’m bracing for the next onslaught from Kenney and the UCP. It will be a disastrous 2020, especially in healthcare, but we’ll all be here to discuss what we’re seeing and why it has to stop.
Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Soapbox and the rest of your family too (a tad late 🙂
Thanks for all the important posts you share. I find them so helpful and they’re more necessary than ever before. All the best in 2020 (all things considered)!!
Thanks Mare, and the best of 2020 to you as well. I’ll be seeing you and many of our friends at rallies across the province. Jason Kenney says he doesn’t care whether we protest, let’s call his bluff.
I know it is still Christmas time but I cannot give them a break especially the War Room that they euphemistically now call the Energy Center.
The second logo is worse than the first. These people that keep questioning the Alberta Teachers Association cannot manage a war room with around 6 employees! It is so laughable.
Their aversion to teachers and anyone that can read and question them is phenomenal and usually a characteristic of intellectual envy.
I cannot wait for a court challenge to what they are trying to do. I thought it was illegal to spy on your own citizens or are we now trying STASI methods? Control of others is very enticing to these goons. For 43 years the conservatives have been promising that one more boom and we will be great again. So far we got worse and worse but hey we need it one last time. Sounds like any other addiction to drugs.
UCP fans must be very proud especially of the WAR ROOM – not energy center. There is nothing to do with energy but spying on those who disagree with the geniuses that are running this province.
Repeat one more time ‘WAR-SPY ROOM’.
Carlos, I don’t think it’s sunk in to most Albertans just how heinous the $30 million war room really is. The energy sector has loads of money to spend on public relations. Every company I worked for, be it in oil, natural gas, petrochemicals or pipelines had an in-house public relations group. They had the budget to hire big PR firms for extra help on tricky files. They belonged to CAPP and CEPA and other industry groups which also have a large PR function. The energy sector does not need the Government’s help to get their message out. So what’s the point of the War Room if not to frighten those who disagree with the Government (ie. not the energy sector) into staying silent. And that is using the power of the state to stifle the freedom of expression of its citizens. As we’ve already seen from the Medicine Hat newspaper and the young activist who “irked” a parent with a presentation on climate change.
Bottom line: we will not be silenced.
2020 is almost here and a while back we discussed about Radical Democracy – I have a suggestion for those interested in political theory
Chantal Mouffe – she is a Belgian political theorist that wrote several books, most recently ‘The Democratic Paradox’ and in 2019 ‘Left Populism’.
I really like her opinions especially on the neo-liberal and social democratic failures to not embed in the same ‘there is no alternative’ way of thinking. I quite agree with her especially in the so called ‘Third Way’ that in her view was a social democratic capitulation to neo-liberal influence and what she calls the social democratic implementation of neo-liberal ideology. Strongly used in the UK by Tony Blair and the reason why he is still so critical of Jeremy Corbyn’s real left wing politics.
She correctly analyses the idea of the radical center as being one of the causes of democratic deficit as the system leans more to liberalism and property rights and individual liberty rather than democratic human rights and equality.
Have a great 2020
Thanks for the referral Carlos. I’ll check Ms Mouffe’s book out. I think part of what we’re missing in the dumbing down of society is the ability to read and understand books that would give us a better understanding of what’s really happening to us.
She has a heavy French accent but it is an interesting speech – she has others of course and you will find them on You Tube.
Yes I agree with you about reading good books and I enjoy it so for me is my mental survival kit and also a hobby.
There is one negative side effect that is bothering me lately quite a bit and that is as one builds a picture of what is going on or what people are trying to do it makes me quite disturbed and reinforces the already imprinted belief that we are quite more close to raw animals than what we think. Predators of the highest kind we go about our lives pointing fingers and talk about especially the non-human world but in the end we are all the same except we developed a brain that allows us certain faculties that do not seem present in other animals that in the current environment favours our ability to survive. Taking full advantage of other human beings is the one that astounds me. Cases like Epstein just are completely outside my level of comprehension and others that I will leave for further discussions.
Like you say, and I fully agree, if one wants not only to survive but also have any kind of impact, it is certainly fundamental to learn as much as possible as to what mental trappers like Jason Kenney are setting out there to get us big time and impose his will on people.
The War room is especially bothering me and I am sorry I am not a lawyer because I would certainly try to bring him down.
I will use other means. To me anything is valid at this point because as far as I am concerned that ‘company’ is illegal. It is not any better than trying to get disadvantaged people to do dirty work for them. Instead, In this case they are extremely well paid.
We have one less doctor working and not sure how many nurses to pay the president of that company 200 thousand a year. Unbelievable. No concerns on spending as long as it serves the UCP mandate of getting rid of those who disagree with them and that have the same constitutional right to fight back and create a different kind of society that is not based on greed and fossil fuels.
Even more amazing is that he wants especially those that get funding from outside !!!
Well all the oil companies out if you are concerned with foreign investment on anything not just serious activism.
Last sentence missed the word ‘GET’
Well get all the oil companies out………..
Here is a video that will give you an idea who she is. An important person on our present debate