The People's Cube Rolls Into Canada

UPDATE

1/3/2017 - the old link leads nowhere, but the article is still visible at web.archive.org

A syndicated Canadian columnist introduces the People's Cube to his readers:

A game that no one ever loses
makes a perfect statement about our times

John Martin, Special to The Province
Published Wednesday, January 16, 2008

~
Every era is partially defined by the popular culture that emerged during that period.

The Hula Hoop, the Pet Rock and the Happy Face Button were more than novelty items. They all said something about the current people and times during the height of their popularity.

And now there's a product that speaks volumes about today's particular point in time.

It's called the People's Cube, and it's featured in a satirical website (http://www.thepeoplescube.com) that pokes fun at the ludicrous extremes of political correctness.

The site cheekily describes the People's Cube as being "approved by the teachers' union" and a "model for progressive educational reform -- no more failing grades!"

What is it? Well, it's very much like the famed Rubik's Cube, except every part is completely red.

Whereas people spent hours and days trying to solve the puzzle of the multi-coloured Rubik's Cube, no such skill or effort is required with the People's Cube.

Everybody can solve it. It's impossible not to. No one is faster or slower than anyone else. And no one ever gets it wrong.

It is the perfect metaphor for these times.

Competition and merit have been consigned to the dustbin. Every kid gets a ribbon in every sports day event. Every team in a Little League tournament wins a trophy.

Current orthodoxy suggests we must never hurt anyone's feelings by allowing them to believe they failed. Everybody must succeed equally. And if they can't, we'll just pretend they did.

Schools are banning recess games as innocent as tag because of concerns that slower kids are more likely to be tagged "it"-- and their self-esteem will be crushed.

Kids who can't read, write or demonstrate any of the skills from the curriculum are congratulated and moved to the next grade.

An elementary teacher in Sooke was recently cheered by her peers for refusing to administer government exams that actually differentiate between students who have learned the material and those who haven't.

And it's not just in grade school. Long-entrenched, rigid standards at colleges and universities are being dismantled. Grade inflation is rampant and admission requirements are being lowered or scrapped altogether.

The University of Victoria just announced it is reducing the number of required provincial exams for entrance by almost half.

Polish Comrades Modify The People's Cube To Their Needs General Jaruzelski pushes boundaries of the progressive theory

Other institutions are preparing to do likewise.

Meanwhile, the brighter students are tuning out, because there's no advantage in applying themselves.

And all this is happening at a time when the Internet and technology have made learning and the acquisition of knowledge virtually effortless.

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to conceptualize a more appropriate leisure item for these sanitized times than a puzzle that guarantees perfect success -- every time.

Contact criminologist John Martin of the University College of the Fraser Valley at John.Martin@ucfv.ca
© The Vancouver Province 2008

* * *

Onward to new horizons!

 

A glorious day for the collective, comrades! Somebody throw some more dung on the fire and fresh borscht for all!

O, Canada....
 

Does Canada really need the Cube? They are already communists. Lenin be praised!
 

Who is that man in the red cape?
 

Re-enforcing the re-education in Canada Kommissar. We must not allow evil counter-revolutionaries a foothold as they gained in other areas.

When Communists take over an area, all talk of "tolerance" and "open-mindedness" cease. There is the Party and the Party alone defines the truth.

The People's Cube re-enforces Party Truth lest one of these sheeple gets some crazy idea about "individuality" and "free-thought".
 

Quote:

Who is that man in the red cape?



Pinkie, he's not wearing a red hat, so save yourself the heartache.
 

Commissarka Pinkie

Who is that man in the red cape?

He is spokesman/cosmonaut for future socialization of The Red Planet. I don’t know if he is single, Pinkie. Although I’m sure he has HBO.

Topic here
 

Ivan Betinov

Quote:

Who is that man in the red cape?



Pinkie, he's not wearing a red hat, so save yourself the heartache.

Now who made the rule that I can only bat my lashes at guys in red hats? Especially after that gallery of losers you guys dangled in front of me on the Continental Drift thread! (Which is not to say they shouldn't all be dangling from something.)

Maybe it's the cape, but unlike the red hats, this guy really gets my shovel swinging.
 

Commissarka Pinkie

Who is that man in the red cape?

That's Dennis Kucinich!
 

Wow, banning tag. Do these schools have anything better to do? Like teaching?
 

**Note to self: Buy red cape as soon as possi---** Oh, was I thinking out loud again?
 

Thinking? THINKING?!? Did I hear that right? I hope you packed your cold weather jar, because that slip up may have just cost you a trip to the re-education camps. Unless there is some kind of *cough* monetary compensation *cough* "favor" you could do for your premier....
 

Quote:

Unless there is some kind of *cough* monetary compensation *cough* "favor" you could do for your premier....



Wanna borrow my new red cape?
 

Does it come with superpowers?
 

Comrad Bubalasky

Commissarka Pinkie

Who is that man in the red cape?

That's Dennis Kucinich!

Well, crud. Why do the buff, good looking ones always have to be either married, gay, or Dennis Kucinich?
 

I have most encouraging news from The Islamic Multicultural People's Republic of Canadistan! Yesterday, Kommissar Vodkov posted a comment on that story in the progressive publication "The Province". This comment was evidently censored. That makes me happy. I mean, what is a society without censoring? Not worth living in I say!

I also noticed that if you hit the back button on the browser when you're on the main pace, the page reloads. So the glorious Province does not want you to stop reading it. That is most excellent! I felt delerious from collective joy when I realised that my power to leave the website had been taken away from me.

Unfortunately, by clicking the back button twice, this progressive thought control mechanism can be avoided. I suggest you fix that immediately comrades!

My dear Canadian comrades! You are the light of the world!
 

The only reason The Cube is going into Canada is to steal their Maple Syrup supplies .

The paper story is just a cover.

There's going to be a civil war after. French versus non French

I bet the cube doesn't even have an exit strategy.
 

There's always the cut and run option. A troop surge may not be a bad idea either, as long as it is not initiated by the Bush Administration.
 

Now that the Cube is in Canada, that means we now have the endorsement of Michael Moore! Maybe he will ponder the possibility of making a documentary on the Cube, and the corporate/ Bush lies surrounding it.
 

Kommissar Vodkov

IYesterday, Kommissar Vodkov posted a comment on that story in the progressive publication "The Province". This comment was evidently censored. That makes me happy. I mean, what is a society without censoring? Not worth living in I say!
We applaud the sentiment, but your comment is there now - it was probably on hold until it was reviewed by a moderator, since a newspaper can't afford unfiltered comments.

But of course, in the glorious utopia we are building, not only written comments, but also spoken words, unspoken intentions, and even gestures and body language shall be moderated and remain on hold until it has been properly reviewed by a Kommissar of Thought who shall diligently file the appropriate paperwork and issue a Thought Permit.
 

We could just invade Canuckistan. Who's gonna stop us? The Canadian military?

We are The Party™!!! And we do as we please!!!

[character off]
I sent a post in to that site. I'm awaiting editorial approval.
[character on]

--
 

Quote:

Does it come with superpowers?


Hyper flatulence and partial invisibility against red backgrounds of the same wavelength.
 

In Canada the Military comes for you



 

Red Square

We applaud the sentiment, but your comment is there now - it was probably on hold until it was reviewed by a moderator, since a newspaper can't afford unfiltered comments.


Ahh I don't know whether I should be angry or pleased. See, any decision is the wrong one! Or the right one! It depends on Kommissar Vodkov's mood.

Kommissar Vodkov in good spirits:

Censor the comment = Doing their duty as good socialists suppressing free speech.
Publish the comment = Doing their duty publishing party approved material.


Kommissar Vodkov in a foul mood:

Censor the comment = Not publishing party approved material. Off to the Gulag!
Publish the comment = Not suppressing free speech. Off to the Gulag!


Ahhhhh the beauty of relativism!
 

"Satirical website", eh?

An all-expense-paid weekend getaway at the Lubyanka Interrogation Center and Day Spa will fix THAT flavor of wrongspeak.

"Satirical website", indeed...
 

Ivan Betinov

Hyper flatulence and partial invisibility against red backgrounds of the same wavelength.


I already have one of those, but I do notice that I have trouble blending in to red backgrounds. Especially at Party meetings involving lots of alcohol and angry people looking for their stolen wallets.
 

Arkady Renkovich

"Satirical website", eh?

An all-expense-paid weekend getaway at the Lubyanka Interrogation Center and Day Spa will fix THAT flavor of wrongspeak.

"Satirical website", indeed...

They will pay for their right wing crimes.
 

Comrades,
I understand from my connections to the politburo in Canada that this man, Ezra Levant, is actually talking back to the party after being hauled before our excellent sensitivity board! Even after being accused of serious hate crimes by one of our Muslim travellers for having republished "The Cartoon"tm ; even after being forced to appear before a court of inquiry ; this uppity canucker has the temerity to actually call himself free! Perhaps he needs an honorary cube sent to him to remind him of his place as a low-level worker in the party...



After all, give a comrade an extra beet and he'll take a mile.
 

The Tsarevna

Arkady Renkovich

"Satirical website", eh?

An all-expense-paid weekend getaway at the Lubyanka Interrogation Center and Day Spa will fix THAT flavor of wrongspeak.

"Satirical website", indeed...

They will pay for their right wing crimes.


Instead of Luubyanka, perhaps 30 minutes in a cell at Abu Ghraib with Comrade Rosie O'Donnell. Just imagine the damage that massive gut could do to someone!

--
ZB
 

Pinkie - you've got your Mr. Right Guy!

I found him on a progressive dating site, and he's wearing RED SUSPENDERS! That's also his nickname on that site.

RED SUSPENDERS

- good with the shovel
- likes digging long trenches on the beach at sunset
- looks for someone to share his affection for government subsidies
- favorite vodka brand: Putinka
- got HBO

COME WITH ME TO MY SECTION 8 APARTMENT AND SEE MY POTATO RATIONS, BABY! HBO WILL NEVER FEEL THE SAME AGAIN!
In his profile he boasts to be able to dig longer, faster, and deeper than other contenders.
 

Oh, nice try, Red Square. Do I look like something that just fell off the back of a beet truck?

Do you think I'm just another slow-witted prole?Have you forgotten that, good Progressive that I am, I have an exceedingly suspicious nature?

Red Suspenders sounds too good to be true. He's probably forty years old and lives in his mother's basement. And of course he isn't going to put in his ad that his ideal woman "must like Space: 1999."

Guys like that can't achieve--ahem--"social utopia" unless I yell out "Sit up straight! Brush your teeth! She's nothing but a tramp, son! You hear me? A tramp!"

And what's beneath that non-red hat? How do I know I won't see eyeglasses, and that all-too-familiar sneery grimace, like he has something caught in his fly, or maybe he needs to try a new laxative? You know what (or who) I mean.

Certainly he has all the qualities I admire, but he has to have at least one weakness. I know my weakness is that (sniff) sometimes I think I care too much about (sob) The People and especially (sniff/sob/pull off red headscarf and hold against nose) The Children! (honk!)

Anyone have a mop?
 

Commissarka Pinkie

Do I look like something that just fell off the back of a beet truck?

Do you think I'm just another slow-witted prole?
Anyone have a mop?

We will mop for you!


 

Here's our Video!

http://www.jibjab.com/view/116001#login_popup
 

Is the guy on the left named "red butt floss"?
 

AbecedariusRex

Is the guy on the left named "red butt floss"?

As George Bush would say "For our Mexican Amigo's that's extremo rojo flos!"
 

We are making steps toward becoming international. Our great Progressive leader Stalin would be proud.
 

delete post
 

Those guys look constipated.
 

The People's Party of Canada has never yet won a seat in Parliament, but they're still around:
http://www.communist-party.ca/contact/contacts.html

Three counterrevolutionary conspiracies, also shut out so far:
http://www.thesexparty.ca/
http://www.worklessparty.org/
http://www.marijuanaparty.ca/index.en.php3
 

Adnan Hajj

http://www.worklessparty.org/


It’s poetic, or maybe just fitting that the last update for the work less party website was 8 months ago.
 

Comrades,

From its inception onwards, Canada has always carried aloft the Red Banner, its central maple leaf making the temptation to partake of the Marxism-Leninism-Trudeaupianism ever sweeter. Frankly, comrade, is not a hammer and sickle a tad offputting to the unwashed? Compare it to the maple leaf, which you unconsciously want to savor, to ingest and make part of you, body and soul, achieving a State of Earthly Satisfaction.

Moreover, the Canadian flag, unlike the gauche AmeriKKKan one, represents submission to a higher State: the UK--yes, the wrong one, but the idea is fundamentally correct. Not only does the Maple Leaf invite by its subliminal ability to embody the literal sweetness of social and economic justice, the flag also balances Red (revolutionary but, for the more sensitive capitalist pigs, reminiscent of blood and carnage that will be outlawed come the Final Revloution) with White, a soothing neutral color that nevertheless bears like a virus a destructive payload that suggests surrender to the State and correct thinking; it also recalls the Czar's reactionary White forces that once seemed in control but came to be boxed in--the outer red columns of the flag--and speared upon the merciless points of the Red forces' delicious win--the Maple Leaf--for the Common Good.

Comrades, I aver that Canada's role in subverting the oppressive capitalist and regressive individualist untruth fostered by its southern spouse, the practitioners of domestic violence against the international community, is deservedly underappreciated. Were it to be more widely acknowledged by the reacitionaries, Canada's subversive success might be undone.
 

Are these guys Canadian, too? Perhaps the Prime minister and the undersecretary of education?

While the minister of defense continues to highlight how Canadians took the toughest beach on D-Day


And the secretary of the exchequer insists that Canada is economically in the red:


Not to mention the secretaries of transportation


conservation


and foreign affairs (Canada is a very friendly country, I hear)


Though the minister of nuclear power is showing some signs of stress:

 

Are you sure this isn't the 1980 Soviet Union's swim team?
 

Quote:

Frankly, comrade, is not a hammer and sickle a tad offputting to the unwashed? Compare it to the maple leaf,


Quite an astute observation, comrade. Amerikkkans are such wage slaves, so mired in the consumer mentality that we may need to rethink our symbolism in order to <shudder> "market our product to the consumer." The Hammer and Sickle are tools. Tools denote work. Work denotes effort, or at least the semblance thereof. Yet we are trying to <shudder> "sell" our ideology as one in which no one really has to work or make a real effort and all will be provided to them by the benevolence of the state. Yes, we may need to rethink our symbolism here.
 

Comrad Bubalasky

Are you sure this isn't the 1980 Soviet Union's swim team?

I was thinking it was the East German swim team from 1972.
 

Did you know in Canada sharing mp3s and movies is not against the law? Great Communapster! Now I know where I will run when Bushitler announces a mandatory draft in his State of Capitalism address!
 

What a wonderful story to hit the news Comrades! I regret only now having seen it! We have much to be proud of Comrades!
 

Zampolit Blokhayev

The Tsarevna

Arkady Renkovich

"Satirical website", eh?

An all-expense-paid weekend getaway at the Lubyanka Interrogation Center and Day Spa will fix THAT flavor of wrongspeak.

"Satirical website", indeed...

They will pay for their right wing crimes.


Instead of Luubyanka, perhaps 30 minutes in a cell at Abu Ghraib with Comrade Rosie O'Donnell. Just imagine the damage that massive gut could do to someone!

--
ZB
Ourrah! Is good spirit herein! Remember heroic proletarian slogan about revolutionary justice: "better 10,000 innocents die than one guilty bastard goes free!" (Unless that guilty bastard is me...)



Do svedahnia tovarischie!
 

Adnan Hajj

The People's Party of Canada has never yet won a seat in Parliament, but they're still around:
http://www.communist-party.ca/contact/contacts.html

Three counterrevolutionary conspiracies, also shut out so far:
http://www.thesexparty.ca/
http://www.worklessparty.org/
http://www.marijuanaparty.ca/index.en.php3
Komrades! Do not underestimate tenacity of Canadian imperialism. They are devious in extreme -try to disarm greater historic forces with maniacs employing zany humour (Kanadians are zaniacs?) Second City TV was Kanadianski Imperialist plot. Hah! Sabotage -Hollywood makes funny film about US invasion of Kanada stars Bill "the Krazy Kanadian" Candy -laughs of heroic proportions. So -invading kolumns from Hollywood subverted within by crazy Canadian impersonating dimwit Amerikanski klown. This degree of subversion not seen since progressive socialist liberation epic "Viva Max!" (Mexican regular army guerrillas recapture Alamo --- even didn't have to swim Rio Grande!) Hah -some joke!



Be karefull Komrades -Obamunists and Hillaryites may get bushwhacked -biggest Kanadian kapitalist klan are McCains of New Brunswick -might not be koincidence!



Do svedahnia tovarischie!
 

Comrade Uncle....you look somewhat familiar to me, Seems my friend and confidant Leventry showed me some folder that I signed off on that I could have sworn had your picture attached to the sleeve, True, my eveys aren't as good as they used to be, but my memory is as sharp as ever.
 

Uncle Iosif

Comrade Uncle....you look somewhat familiar to me, Seems my friend and confidant Leventry showed me some folder that I signed off on that I could have sworn had your picture attached to the sleeve, True, my eveys aren't as good as they used to be, but my memory is as sharp as ever. You speak of sharp mamaries? Hillary jokes in other panel pleeze. OK family resemblance -Vasha maht jeeli rano kremel?

Neechevo -ya ne ponimayu neechevo!

Do svedahnia tovarischie!
 

Uncle Joe

[You speak of sharp mamaries? Hillary jokes in other panel pleeze. OK family resemblance -Vasha maht jeeli rano kremel?


Damn Putin is going to answer to me. He promised the renovations I asked for at Kuntsevo would be complete in short order. Ever since I started vacationing more at Sochi it seems State Security has been slack. OK, perhaps I am getting to easy in my golden years, and no doubt your collective thinks you are a fine comedian. But as for me, I still prefer my Dead Lenin vs Dead Trotsky fights. Perhaps you would like to join in?


 

 

How very odd to come akross this little item from waaaaay back... though this was posted during the time in 2008 when I was receiving free medikal kare in one of our state run hospitals (two-tiered pay-for-service medikal treatment being illegal in the Great White Red North)....

Oh, how things have changed in only three years... Our Konservative government has achieved a majority in the House of Kommons... our fabulous Kommunist (New Demokratic Party) Leader, Jack Layton, has passed away this past fall, leaving a large hole in the leadership of Kanadistan's most left of centre party, while Michael Ignatieff, the Great Ivory Tower hope of the Liberal Party has run back to Amerikan Akadamia with his tail between his legs, having left the party he drove into the ground to try to rebuild itself without his glowing intellekt... we have routed our first Kanadistanjian Occupy Encampment and it seems more will soon fall... Toronto, the kapital of the so-called Ekonomik Engine (Province of Ontario) of Kanadistan, has elected a knuckle-dragging, austerity imposing, gravy-cutting red-neck, kulture and handout hating fascist for a mayor... our beloved state-run media corpse (sorry... for those not familiar, The Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) is under fire from even some of the 99% for its unwillingness to open its federally funded books to the people or the Kandistanjian media and has been under fire from the afforementioned Ezra Levant (a stooge of the right-wing kapitalist Quebecor media empire, owners of The Sun News Network and many other fascist newpapers)... and only today we have heard that the proposed oil pipeline that would provide Amerika with a conflikt-free oil supply as well as creating over 20,000 Amerikan jobs south of our border has once again been put on hold by the Obama administration while they dither over whether or not it poses an environmental threat to the area of Nebraska through which is is proposed it should travel, despite said area already being kriss-krossed by may other similar pipelines which have been deemed environmentally safe and have the safety records to prove it ... While the head of the oversight committee to CSIS, our Canadian 'spy agency', has resigned as a result of skrutiny over his behaviour regarding his homeland-of-origin, Sierra Leone, and possible konflikts of interest and embarrassment to the Prime Minister's Office... and I could go on... and on and on and on...

How very strange that we should find our respektive countries in such very opposite positions than was the case only three or so years ago... perhaps Change is possible after all, if only for a little while...

Kisses
Sis... dizzy, up here, with altitude sickness, or simply politikal disorientation (which IS NOT a lifestyle choice, it being one of my basik human rights to marry in individual of the same politikal disorientation as myself! Thank you very much!) in the Great Red North... so thank goodness for our universal medikal kare system...

ps... Sadly, I cannot seem to access our Glorious Incarnadine Trapezoid Leader's appearance this evening, though I can say that his book is sheer brilliance... Klear, Koncise, and Keenly Aksessible...
 

Commissarka Pinkie

Anyone have a mop?

And BTW, Pinky... the Kanadistanjian has the mop... I am the Kommissar of Housekeeping, no? Though I know the place must be a disaster, my not having been around much lately...

... and yet... and yet, I just got The Laptop fixed! So, hopefully, I'll be back on duty, dusting, shredding, stuffing, and, yes, mopping up after the Disappearance Limo Squad, shortly... I am sorry for my absence, though I have missed you all something fierce.

Me
 

GOOD to see you back amongst us, Sis!
 

Commissarka Pinkie

Comrad Bubalasky

Commissarka Pinkie

Who is that man in the red cape?

That's Dennis Kucinich!

Well, crud. Why do the buff, good looking ones always have to be either married, gay, or Dennis Kucinich?

*ahem

Buff, single, good looking, STRAIGHT, SINGLE and LOYAL PARTY MEMBER!!!


 

Big Hat, take it from a Brain-in-a-jar, you are playing with some serious dynamite even thinking about propositioning Pinkie. Hope that hat is reinforced. Or at least insured.
 

What's this? Do I detect a green tint to the fluid in your jar, Betinov? And it's not even St. Paddy's Day!

You know how I am about comrades with hats, and Politsayski has one of the biggest I've ever seen!

Surely you also know what it means when a man has a big hat. Do you have anything to say about that, Betinov?

Anything?

Anything at all?
 

Ivan Betinov

Big Hat, take it from a Brain-in-a-jar, you are playing with some serious dynamite even thinking about propositioning Pinkie. Hope that hat is reinforced. Or at least insured. On the other hand, their ARE some women in the Kollektive who understand the place of Free Love in the people's politics, and are more accomodating in their taste of men. Or at least one woman.
 

Commissarka Pinkie

What's this? Do I detect a green tint to the fluid in your jar, Betinov? And it's not even St. Paddy's Day!

You know how I am about comrades with hats, and Politsayski has one of the biggest I've ever seen!

Surely you also know what it means when a man has a big hat. Do you have anything to say about that, Betinov?

Anything?

Anything at all?

Indeed, hat size denotes dedication to the progressive cause! As well as...other things. Which we will not discuss, because I do not want my...inches...being redistributed, as that would be both painful and and detrimental to my campaign to woo our lovely Commissarka.
 

Must you humiliate me so, Commissarka? Must you bring up that degrading, devastating St Patrick's Day incident? There I was, wearing a giant green leprechaun hat and a "Kiss me, I'm Irish" T-shirt, when you and Theocritus walked into the "Kiss the Barney's Stones" rally and re-election bash in Boston. I had been nurshing an O'Doull's, since I had been named designated driver (and because I had a green-friendly car...get it? Green friendly car on st Patrick's Day? Who says Prius owners don't know how to party?) but you and Theo barged up to my table with three pitchers of green beer, a funnel, some plastic pipe, and a plumber's helper.

While Mike, the plumber's helper (man that's got to be a dirty job) lined up a series of pints in a rowe, You and Theo started whipsawing me converstationally. Theo kept using big words I didn't uinderstand, and every time I turned toward him to ask "what does that mean?" you'd punch me in the shoulder and demand That I pay for the next round of Tequila Fannie-bangers, then I'd turn to you and try to explain it was St Pat's, not Cinco de Mayo, then Theo launched into some long justification for drinking Tequila Fannie-bangers because we were celebrating the candidate who was the Mac Daddy to Freddie Mac and Fannie May, and I got all confused. Sometime during this, somebody must have slipped a roofie into my O'Doull's, because the room started spinning.

And then I woke up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, no hat, no pants, and wearing a "Kick me, I'm Amish" T-Shirt.