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That’s right. You’re doing it. Now.
Sorry, I can’t stay neutral any more. I can’t just write fun fan fiction about coffee loving aliens and remain silent about what’s happening. Because what’s going on is so extreme, so mind-boggling awful, that neutrality and lukewarmness is betrayal and cowardice.
This is not the time to be neutral or lukewarm.
Trump is threatening my country Canada, and attack other friendly allies like Denmark and Panama. And he’s attacking our NATO friends while cozying up to Russia who’s naked aggression against Ukraine is utterly disgusting and inhumane.
Many Germans in the 1930’s weren’t necessarily fanatical Nazi’s, they were just lukewarm and opted for a ‘neutral’ position on the political events of the day. They didn’t want to “get involved”, and thought they’d stay safe if they didn’t stick their necks out.
When dealing with fascists, that strategy doesn’t work, and it didn’t end so well for many of them …
From time to time I come across someone in my circle of friends, family, neighbours or church folk who are still sitting on the fence, or just otherwise lukewarm when it comes to politics, who haven’t yet grasped the gravity of the moment we are in.
So in this blog I’m offering a list of people who are doing a fantastic job of keeping us updated on the news of the day with informative and helpful insights on the day’s events. If you’re not sure what to make of today’s craziness, the best thing you can do is get informed.
I offer this list of recommendations to give those still on the fence, or who aren’t sure, a gentle nudge in the right direction. I’ve found these contributors to be extremely knowledgeable, informative, and well researched. They offer solid, useful information on today’s news and events, backed up with facts.
In the future I will be making updates to this list on substack here, rather than maintain this same list in two different places.
Recommendations & Links – Independent News Media
The Atlantic is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/
The Guardian is an independent paper, not owned by a billionaire: https://www.theguardian.com/world
The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com
Ground News: https://ground.news/ Based in Ontario Canada. Very balanced look at all the news around the world, reporting on what different news sources are saying about the same story to get a balanced looked between right, left, centre, liberal, conservative, etc.
MeidasTouch on BlueSky and YouTube is extremely good. Informative, fact-based coverage of the news, and they bring the receipts.
https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com
https://www.youtube.com/@MeidasTouch
On Substack:
The Contrarian https://contrarian.substack.com/
Charlie Angus / The Resistance https://charlieangus.substack.com/
Du Mez CONNECTIONS https://kristindumez.substack.com/, By Kristen Kobe Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne
Robert Reich https://robertreich.substack.com/
Letters from an American https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/, She does a daily roundup of the days news that is excellent and informative.
Juno News – Canadian politics: https://www.junonews.com/
Tim Snyder, author of On Tyranny, an excellent summary of fascism: https://snyder.substack.com/
BlueSky:
I find the following extremely informative, helpful and well researched on BlueSky:
You can also find most of these folks on YouTube as well.
The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com
Kristen Du Mez: https://bsky.app/profile/kkdumez.bsky.social
Rachel Maddow: https://bsky.app/profile/maddow.msnbc.com
Russell Moore, senior editor of Christianity Today: https://bsky.app/profile/drmoore.bsky.social
Charlie Angus, NDP MP: https://bsky.app/profile/charlieangus104.bsky.social
CAN – senior editor at MeidasTouch. https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: https://bsky.app/profile/aoc.bsky.social
Anne Applebaum, author of several books on autocracy: https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social
Get her books: Autocracy Inc. and The Twilight of Democracy https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/search?q=anne+applebaum&search-button=&lang=null
You can find me on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/mikemanto.bsky.social and Substack https://michaelmanto.substack.com/.
I’ve also got a list of substack recommendations on my Substack blog: https://michaelmanto.substack.com/recommendations
