Careful, King!
Those Americans are ruthless, wily and have no respect for decent folk.
Posted on 03/10/2005 10:32:04 AM PST by quidnunc
With President Bush focused on rebuilding U.S. relations with Europe, big problems continue to brew with a longtime ally much closer to home.
Canada: The new France?
Not quite, but from long-simmering trade disputes over lumber and beef to a spat in recent weeks over missile defense, Canada-U.S. relations are at their lowest ebb in decades.
"They're viewed as national, emotional issues there, that 'the Americans are out to get us,'" said David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which is in Washington.
A report issued last week by the American Assembly, a think tank at Columbia University, found "disturbing and persistent currents of anti-Americanism in Canada," while also decrying "the emergence on the American right of a troubling anti-Canadianism."
O Canada! Our largest — $460 billion in 2003 — trading partner! Supplier of vast tonnages of oil and natural gas, particularly to the Midwest! Where did it all go wrong? And could it get worse?
Even a recent episode of the television series "The West Wing" mocked U.S.-Canada relations, portraying the Canadian ambassador as slightly bumbling and thoroughly ineffective.
Speaking of Canadian ambassadors, the new, real-life one arrived in Washington last week. A headline in a leading Canadian newspaper said he would have to address "festering irritants" in the two countries' relations, which conjures decidedly undiplomatic images.
It's a long way from 1989, when Washington wags dubbed the new Canadian embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue "the Department of Canada" both for its location near other federal buildings and for Canada's relatively deferential attitude toward the United States.
Now, the American Assembly report said, "on important bilateral issues, Canada sometimes feels no one is answering the phone in Washington."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Some experts say healing the rift may have to wait until Bush leaves office, because the simple fact is that most Canadians have low regard for Bush, and Canadian leaders must respond to that.
One poll indicated that the Canadian antipathy toward the United States was Bush-centric: It found that 64 percent of Canadians had an unfavorable opinion of Bush, but only 18 percent of them had an unfavorable opinion of Americans in general.
And most of the other 46% who say they like Americans but hate Bush are lying through their teeth.
It Bus wasn't there they'd find some other bogeyman to justify their anti-Americanism.
/Social Security's National Sovereignty?
Let's just invade Canada and be done with it. It can be our 51st state. And there will not be one casualty as we topple its limp-wristed government.
"while also decrying "the emergence on the American right of a troubling anti-Canadianism.""
Taking the "trouble" to understand that Canada's political elite is inveigled with corporate interests so much it would make an American politician blush is "troubling?"
Wouldn't it be funny if there were actually a phone that Canada called which had caller ID that read "Canada" when it rung and because of that, the America simply never answered it?
Could our country handle that sized influx of pot?
Careful, King!
Those Americans are ruthless, wily and have no respect for decent folk.
51st State? Don't even joke about it.
They're not a real country anyway.
I say our first response should be to annex Nova Scotia.
DuuuuuuH!... <<-Awarding the Barney Fife Award for Geo-political Drooling and lazy tongue superciliousness of a serious subject..
Until then I'm deaf to the noise from the north.
Given the relative power and influence over the other country's prosperity, security, and well being, they should be aware and concerned that the longer they go out of their way to piss us off (not that their feelings have any relevance - it's just irritating to be treated this way by a people we used to trust and who we've kept safe for the last 60 years) the worse it's going to get.
What's funny to see is the look on their faces when it's explained that their population amounts to one of our larger States and that it's rare for most Americans to think of them at all. Irrelevance must be such a burden.
I recently read somewhere that the Canadians have two major disadvantages:
1. They are not American
2. They are Canadian
Seriously, though, from a psychological point of view, they do suffer from serious neurosis up there vis a vis America and American culture.
We need to invade Can-a-DUH for Oil!!! ;)
It is a mistake to confuse politics with reality. Canadians are not Anti-American, hell we are Americans, at least us English speakers here in Western Canada. Most Americans coming up I-15 to Calgary cannot tell any difference as they see "Old Glory" flying along side the Maple Leaf from farms and ranches along the way. This nonsense must stop before my New Jersey Grandkids get old enough to realize they are supposed to look at "Big Gramps" as some sort of three headed alien doofus.Or at least let me diguise that fact as long as possible.
Canadian liberals are really pooping their pants as they come to realize America had it right and they came down on the wrong side.This, however is not a good enough reason to trash 250 years of inter-familial relations.
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