American Ignorance About Canada

[Curiosity]

Juan let's be reasonably accurate here...

I have yet to read one sentence - or word - of respect for the U.S. in your posts concerning any subject - any subject - even those issues which have nothing to do with impacting Canada generally or you personally.

It is obvious you have absolutely no respect to write about.

 

[#juan]

W.C., let's be reasonably intelligent here... If it's not too much trouble. I presented my opinion to ITN. You are not bound to agree, or to even read it.

 

[jimmoyer]

Well #juan, you got a good tripartite of baby pictures ending in a universal smile.

You got some sense in a great way.

I'll agree with you about Vietnam. The truth for me
is that America's Best and Brightest were caught in
a bubble of thinking that prevented them from making
an ally out of Ho Chi Minh.

As a dishwasher in Paris, he approached Woodrow Wilson
for his country, but forgive our leaders when they're looking at a young man they don't know nor can predict
who they will be. And of course old Woodrow did have
to deal with the French controlling Indochina in the
Versaille Peace Treaty and then America at least refused the French request to drop the bomb at
Dienbienphu in 1954.

And then when Ho Chi Minh died, there laid on his
desk an unfinished open book on John Brown, the
guy who led a slave revolt.

We never knew he was more a nationalist patriot than
he was a Russian Marxist or a hater of China.

We did wrong there. Straight up. But NO soldier ever
dies in vain, for a metaphorical reason. Because any
soldier from the Western world fights for one thing
most of all and that's for his brother beside him, no matter what dirt or idiocy rules policy.

It got down to that for even our WWII soldiers complaining about lack of supplies and ill-considered
decisions of their generals.

We're all going to die, and how we do it, will be no
different than how a soldier gets it.

We might see some weird things with the drugs we
get before we pass on.

But all this crap about America being squeezed into
some narrow vision of yours is no different from the
narrow vision of people you condemn.

You notice how many Americans are on this board ?
For all this ignorance, what is this interest showing
itself here of all places ?

We know hypocrisy better than you.

And that makes us stronger.

 

[Outta here]

I'm learning alot listening to you guys. Especially those of you who post from the American side of the issues - you all speak eloquently enough for me to release a little of the fear (please note the difference between hate and fear) I've held towards Americans as a whole for their government's foreign policies.

It is far too easy to lose sight of the trees within the forest...

There are things about American policy and power that are just downright scarey to the rest of the world... we're talking about the capacity to create global anihilation here... it IS scarey stuff, and whether we or you like it or not, the big dogs are gonna be the ones that are watched most closely when the pissing starts... and held the most accountable to use their power wisely by the rest of us who will - whether we like it or not - also be impacted by the actions and reactions of this one segment of the world...

...this at least has been my concern, and I believe if I look back, it was this very thread that I outed my own ignorance of the situation. I came here hoping to learn more, understand better, maybe even find a little hope about how things will all turn out.

Can't say I've accomplished much in regards to understanding the political situation a whole lot. It still scares the bejeezeus outta me...

but I have learned one thing of worth... Americans are by and large good people just like the rest of us... they are real people with real concerns and facing real losses in their fight for what they believe is right... included in those losses is the respect and understanding of many in the rest of the world...and yet they continue to show up at places like this to share the experience and themselves with us...reminding us that is by no means an easy time to be a citizen in the country that holds such power either...

I appreciate that you must feel rather put upon by the attitude of fear and/or anger that gets projected towards Americans.... it isn't fair to expect you who come here in the spirit of sharing to justify all your government's decisions, nor hold you accountable to make more palatable to us that which we don't understand or downright disagree with...especially if you feel disprespected as individuals in the process of exchange.

I just felt compelled to write this because I could feel the frustration and yes, the hurt too - in response to some of the Canadian and global reactions that are expressed here sometimes... and I'm as guilty as any other in some of those thoughts .... silence is often the best I can do when I see points raised that I flatout disagree with or do not understand regarding American policy.

I'm no further ahead in determining for myself anything that makes any sense at all out of pretty much any of it - but I hold alot of respect for those of you who continue to stick it out here and share what is honest and true for you, and for the most part, :wink: do it with dignity and respect.

Thank you for opening my eyes a bit more, and for reminding me that human decency also doesn't belong to any particular passport.

Your presence is appreciated here - and I just felt that now might be a good time to say that...

 

[MagnoliaApples]

Well said Zan!

I agree with Zan. You can't blame the people for it's govenment and I think alot of times people tend to forget that.

 

[I think not]

ITN

I very much respect you and no doubt we could be good neighbors, but if you don't see that the American war in VietNam was an incredible cock-up from day one, you have serious case of moral astigmatism. That dirty war sent you back tens of thousands of emotional basket cases as well as all the names on the big black wall. All those men died. For what??

#juan, I appreciate the comment and of course I see the morality or lack thereof of going to war in Vietnam. But is morality always pragmatic? Does it reflect world realities? I don't think it does. Nor do I think (for most) is it applied equally.

Think of why the US was in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, there was no oil, nor were they strategic by any sense. So what was the reason? The big picture. That's all I am asking you to contemplate, nothing more.

 

[jimmoyer]

Very nice post Zan.

And MagnoliaApples, yours too is a nice statement,
but I can just see some more hardened heads thinking
the damn fools down there voted for that government !!!

 

[bluealberta]

ITN:

I hope you know there are many of us, especially in Western Canada, who do not have such animosity towards the US as some others do. We may not always agree with the US or their policies, but we also will not crap all over you when we do.

BTW, I have not seen any mention here about who was the first country to help in the tsunami a year and a half ago. Yes, it was the US, and it was helping a country and region who until then had not been very US friendly either.

Too many times there are too many people who forget the good the US does. There is an article written and broadcast by Gordon Sinclair, of Canada, about 30 years ago which mentions all the good things the US does in contrast with the crap they get from other countries.

I hope that our new PM shows you some courtesy and the appropriate amount of respect, and I hope that this courtesy and respect is given back from your President in equal amounts.

 

[bluealberta]

Here it is:

The Americans
Gordon Sinclair
Radio Station CFBR 1010
2 St. Clair Avenue West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

"LET'S BE PERSONAL"
Broadcast June 5, 1973(emphasis added by Bluealberta)
CFRB, Toronto, Ontario
Topic: "The Americans"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped.

http:/www.phillytalkradioonline.com/comment/usa.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[FiveParadox]

I think that it is quite important to note that while Canada and the United States of America disagree on many issues (sometimes on a fundamental level), we are neighbours, and we are always going to be neighbours. Citizens have come and gone between our two nations for centuries, and I don't think that this is going to change at any time in the future — both nations should acknowledge the good things that their counterpart to the North or South, as the case may be, may happen to do.

The United States has, and does do many good things for Earth; I would argue that while the mission sometimes falters (and sometimes quite seriously, at that), that the intervention in the Republic of Iraq, for example, is being exercised with the best of intentions. Just as we do here on Canadian Content, whereby members criticize each other's ideas rather than their persons, perhaps Canada and the United States should criticize each other's policies, rather than criticizing each other as nations.

 

[Curiosity]

Awwwwwright! That's a great start to the day!

Those were messages of hope for me - to know there are still seeds of desire to understand and continue the legendary friendship for the mutual benefit of both nations.

 

[Roger]

I'm sick of being asked if I am French. I tell them to take a good look at my WASPY name, and then I must reassure them that my mother wasn't an Acadian.

I'm sick of them asking for a Budweiser, even if they CAN buy one here. What's wrong with trying a "50"?

I'm sick of them making fun of me when I say "Eh?".

I'm sick of being asked how many States Canada has.

I'm sick of them butchering the word "Innuit" so I tell them they're really called Eskimos.

I'm sick of them looking at my fried baloney like it's a turd, and my yellow pea soup like it's peuke.

I'm sick of them romanticising a bunch of racist separatists.

I'm sick of explaining to them we didn't support the war in Iraq because we had everything with wheels and uniforms in a place already called Afghanistan.

I'm sick of them being able to come here and pull a salmon out of the river and cook it and I can't.

I'm sick of telling them why I don't want to become a part of "The States".

I'm sick of telling them how we're not all hockey players and whores.

I'm sick of telling them how not everyone goes outside to pee here.

I'm sick of telling them how I would prefer a paper dollar bill, rather than a coin that turns into a brass disc in six months.

I'm sick of telling them that I don't know why our oil from Alberta is sold to us for the same price as the crud pumped out of the ground in Arabia.

I'm sick of telling them I don't hang my food from a tree in a bag to keep the bears from getting it.

I'm sick of telling them that "Socialized Medicine" isn't what's it's cracked up to being.

I'm sick of telling them we don't have a PRESIDENT, and that a Premiere is the same thing as their Governor.

I'm sick of telling them the difference between the Prime Minister and the Premiere.

I'm sick of explaining that the Separatist Premiere of Quebec was NOT a Prime Minister, as he proclaimed himself some years back.

I'm sick of telling them metric conversions.

I'm sick of them thinking most of us are uneducated and unemployed.

I'm sick of telling them nobody here can understand their High School European French.

I'm sick of telling them that Biker Gangs and the Mafia actually control Quebec, and not the Politicians.

I'm sick of them thinking we wear our shoes on the wrong feet so that we don't piss on our toes......

Get The Picture??

 

[#juan]

Here it is:

The Americans
Gordon Sinclair
Radio Station CFBR 1010
2 St. Clair Avenue West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

"LET'S BE PERSONAL"
Broadcast June 5, 1973(emphasis added by Bluealberta)
CFRB, Toronto, Ontario
Topic: "The Americans"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped.

http:/www.phillytalkradioonline.com/comment/usa.html




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That little speech was from thirty odd years ago. Sinclair has been dead almost that long. America was taking a few well deserved hits because of the VietNam war. Gordon Sinclair knew what he was doing. Within a week or two he was lionized in the states as some kind of hero. Sinclair's speech bears no relevance to today. If people have to dig up stuff from thirty four years ago, they must be desparate.

 

[Curiosity]

Re: RE: American Ignorance About Canada

I'm sick of being asked if I am French. I tell them to take a good look at my WASPY name, and then I must reassure them that my mother wasn't an Acadian.

I'm sick of them asking for a Budweiser, even if they CAN buy one here. What's wrong with trying a "50"?

I'm sick of them making fun of me when I say "Eh?".

I'm sick of being asked how many States Canada has.

I'm sick of them butchering the word "Innuit" so I tell them they're really called Eskimos.

I'm sick of them looking at my fried baloney like it's a turd, and my yellow pea soup like it's peuke.

I'm sick of them romanticising a bunch of racist separatists.

I'm sick of explaining to them we didn't support the war in Iraq because we had everything with wheels and uniforms in a place already called Afghanistan.

I'm sick of them being able to come here and pull a salmon out of the river and cook it and I can't.

I'm sick of telling them why I don't want to become a part of "The States".

I'm sick of telling them how we're not all hockey players and whores.

I'm sick of telling them how not everyone goes outside to pee here.

I'm sick of telling them how I would prefer a paper dollar bill, rather than a coin that turns into a brass disc in six months.

I'm sick of telling them that I don't know why our oil from Alberta is sold to us for the same price as the crud pumped out of the ground in Arabia.

I'm sick of telling them I don't hang my food from a tree in a bag to keep the bears from getting it.

I'm sick of telling them that "Socialized Medicine" isn't what's it's cracked up to being.

I'm sick of telling them we don't have a PRESIDENT, and that a Premiere is the same thing as their Governor.

I'm sick of telling them the difference between the Prime Minister and the Premiere.

I'm sick of explaining that the Separatist Premiere of Quebec was NOT a Prime Minister, as he proclaimed himself some years back.

I'm sick of telling them metric conversions.

I'm sick of them thinking most of us are uneducated and unemployed.

I'm sick of telling them nobody here can understand their High School European French.

I'm sick of telling them that Biker Gangs and the Mafia actually control Quebec, and not the Politicians.

I'm sick of them thinking we wear our shoes on the wrong feet so that we don't piss on our toes......

Get The Picture??

Well Roger - I hardly think you represent Canadians at all, therefore why would anyone want information from you?

 

[FiveParadox]

I don't understand the frustration there, Roger. The differences between our systems of government in Canada and the United States of America are extensive — I don't think that it would be fair to judge that Americans should know everything about our own system, when so much of our constitution is unwritten. As for some of your comments, I'm not even sure where to start.

 

[#juan]

Well Roger - I hardly think you represent Canadians at all, therefore why would anyone want information from you?

Roger is a Canadian and he is certainly free to express his point of view. Like anyone else. I thought his post had a few humorous points.

 

[jimmoyer]

Roger is sick. - ------He says so.

Roger is funny. ---------------He really is.

Roger is a BIG BABY ------just for the fun of it.

Roger, are you sure you aren't French?

 

[jimmoyer]

You sure you don't have to hang your food on a tree ?

 

[Jay]

I'm sick of telling them how not everyone goes outside to pee here.

Is there a Canadian alive that hasn't whizzed in the woods?

 

[Said1]

Or in the parking lot, behind the bar.