Posted on 07/05/2005 6:51:18 PM PDT by quidnunc
Did you hear I made the Canadians mad at me again?
In honor of Canada Day, July 1, I was asked by Maclean's magazine, one of Canada's brightest lights, to write a few words on the state of Canada's relations with the U.S. It came out on Friday.
I said the relations stunk because we had figured out how anti-American Canadians had become over the last few years. The quote from me they put on the cover of the magazine was, "Canada is a vast ice-encrusted wasteland dedicated to beer and America bashing."
As you probably could figure out, that didn't go over big with a bunch of Canadians and the proof was in the letters to the editor.
-snip-
Well, that's nice. Anyway, I had some fun needling our friends, the Canadians. Boy, are they thin-skinned. They say the most awful things about us, as if it were obviously true to everyone, like the government official calling George Bush a moron. And you say you don't envy Canadians for their fabulous country and you don't really wish you were Canadian so you could be like them: wonderful, thoughtful, peaceful, generous? Just say that once. Just think it, and they bite your head off.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yes 49%
No 51%
Question of the week comments (week of June 27)
• It's just so hard not to hate them. – Mike Kennedy, Ottawa, Ont.
• We need to be a little more vocal about our Big Bully neighbours to the south. We teach our children to speak up about bullying -- we should do the same. – Jan Piller, New Hamburg, Ont.
• I am appalled at the level of anti-Americanism in this country. We claim to be a tolerant people except where the Americans are concerned. We had no end of sympathy for them after 9/11, but not for their right to defend themselves. We offer comfort for the victims, but do nothing to prevent a future occurrence. That's the Canadian way. We have become a nation of grief counsellors. – Alan Sevigny, Ottawa, Ont.
• As a loyal Canadian living in the U.S., I can't tell you how many times I've heard comments made by Canadians about Americans that smack of smug arrogance. But it's the same sort of arrogance I hear when America refers to Canada as the 51st state.
My experience here, as in other countries, has been that the American people are every bit as complex, interesting and original as Canadians. America has a rich and diverse culture that extends far beyond the media stereotypes Canadians accept so easily without knowing the real thing. Americans are no more or less noble than Canadians, and their leaders are no more or less moronic. Both countries share greatness and mind-numbing stupidity. High-minded breakthroughs in arts, business and science are coupled with lame ideas like Freedom Fries.
I too often hear Canadians mouth off about the U.S. only to recognize that they are commenting about the stereotypical U.S. and not the real one. – John Mathewson, Westport, Connecticut
• When I read John Gibson's article, it made me remember why I am proud to be Canadian and not afraid to say I am anti-American. When someone calls my country "a vast ice-crusted wasteland" that offends me. Mr. Gibson should look at his own country. How many times have I heard American society make fun of Canada? Are we supposed to just sit and take it? Sorry, but the Canada I am growing up is finally getting a backbone. – Jo-Anne, Calgary, Alta.
• Yes, it has gone too far. Americans are not evil. That said, your guest columnist demonstrates the worst of America: bigotry, self-centredness, oversimplification and distortion of cross-border issues, lack of understanding of others, lack of understanding of themselves (how many Americans are now against the war, Mr. Gibson?)...the list goes on.
It's like watching a friend tackle addiction: you can try to help them, but until they hit rock bottom, there isn't much you can do. As the American Dream continues to implode and China continues to emerge as the world's dominant economic force, I suppose the U.S. will hit rock bottom and will then see itself in a new way. No doubt, Canada will be there to help our friends in the U.S., as we were on and after 9/11. Until then, Mr. Gibson expressed it himself: why should the U.S. care what harm it does as long as it gets what it wants? – P. Warren, Duncan, B.C.
• Thanks for publishing John Gibson's essay. Will this wake-up call jolt us Canadians out of our smugness and unmerited sense of superiority? Let's hope so. – Nina Green, Kelowna, B.C.
• Anti-Americanism in Canada is a national embarrassment. The people of the United States are by far our best friends. They are a compassionate, generous people whose chief crime, in the eyes of far too many Canadians, is that they love their country and aren't too mealy-mouthed to say so. In this country, any unseemly signs of patriotism are viewed as an affront to our multiculturalism and overall world-class goody-goody nature. Let's grow up and realize that just because Americans don't go around apologetically in sack cloth and ashes doesn't mean they aren't as decent as we are. – John Jeneroux, London, Ont.
• I immigrated to Canada from England over 17 years ago and have been shocked by the continual and increasing anti-Americanism by Canadians. It's nothing more than jealousy. It's sad really, because you're all North Americans, meaning you're all pretty much the same. – Gillian Foster, St. Catharines, Ont.
• Canadians are not anti-American, but we are anti-Republican. – Tony Clemens, St. John's, Nfld.
• Back at you, John Gibson: un-happy birthday America! Canada should be grateful we have such a loving big brother who will protect us, employ us and buy our exports? Yeah, right! That's the same big brother who periodically takes us behind the garden shed and beats the snot out of us for expecting a fair say in how we get protected and a fair price for what we produce. If you want Canadians to become pro-American, you have to do something to deserve it. – Simon Turner, Quesnel, B.C.
('Canada Switchboard' in Maclean’s Magazine, July 2, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here
dedicated to beer and America bashing."
Well, that's pretty much all that we hear from the Canadian press. For what that is worth.
I liked the comment about canada getting a backbone. Bwahahha thats truly funny. They had one once but its long gone.
Canada: America's hat.
I don't care how much they spout off at the mouth, Canadians are not going to be bombed by the USA utill after France gets bombed.
Sheesh...
Yeah, I was worried about those Canadian armored divisions dashing across the border in a "Thunder Run" to DC, backed by well supported wings of the Canadian Air Force, roaring overhead.
Then I woke up.
I read somewhere that 80% of all Canadians live within 50 miles of the US border. I don't know if that's true, but it's probably not far off. It gives you a feel for who is actualy providing for Canada's defense and allowing them the luxury of being so independent.
We made one jump with some Canadian ANG training at FT Bragg.
They put us right in the trees.
I too am dedicated to beer. Does that make me half Canadian? Or just my Irish and German heritage?
Or maybe its my hometown of New Orleans :)
This should be posted regularly, both for Canadian and U.S. America bashers to read from time to time and reflect on just what a benevolent "super power" the United States is and how much worse off Canada- and the world - would be if it wasn't for that benevolence.
"LET'S BE PERSONAL"
Broadcast June 5, 1973
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.
HAHAHAHA!! I love that description! And what a crappy hat it is
Does anyone remember the last time the United States invaded Canada and "beat the snot" out of the Canadians?
Back during WW2 Canada was a strong neighbor with a great military. Today they buy 2nd hand submarines that are death traps. Pitiful. And they did it to themselves.
There are a lot of smart, decent Canadians. Then there are the Canadians who harbor the crazed poisonous thinking in the "Simon Turner" quote. "Fair say" - "fair price" - lol if it weren't so offensive. They've gotten so much from us for so long, for so little...
That's because the rest of the country is...well, a vast, ice-incrusted wasteland.
"That's because the rest of the country is...well, a vast, ice-incrusted wasteland"
But with alot of undevelop resources.
BTT.
We'd better send Triumph the Dog back up there. They'll probably declare martial law.
"I too am dedicated to beer. Does that make me half Canadian? Or just my Irish and German heritage?"
That actually sounds just like me...part Irish, part German, with part of my family making their first New World stop in Canada.
Conan the Barbarian
A hand puppet yanks Quebecois' chains.
By Carl Schrag
Posted Monday, Feb. 16, 2004, at 10:23 AM PT
NBC late-night talk-show host Conan O'Brien took his show to Toronto last week, and Canada's newspapers treated it as a huge media event. What began as national pride—exemplified by the Globe and Mail's Jan. 21 announcement of the upcoming broadcasts—peaked with a weeklong love fest as the comic highlighted a wide range of north-of-the-border culture broadcast from Toronto's Elgin Theatre.
Inspired by a desire to show the world that there's more to Toronto—and Canada—than last year's SARS epidemic, the effort to bring O'Brien to town was spearheaded by a Canadian businessman who hatched the plan while talking to two native sons who have made it big in Hollywood: Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels (who discovered O'Brien a decade ago) and Mike Myers of Austin Powers fame. "His show is seen around the world and it will just show people that in the middle of winter we can have a lot of fun in this country," the businessman told the London Free Press a few weeks ago.
Unfortunately for the Canada-boosters, you can bring a comedian to Toronto for four nights, but you can't predetermine the kind of publicity he'll generate. By the time O'Brien returned to New York, the English-language Canadian press was embroiled in an uncharacteristically ugly spate of soul-searching, finger-pointing, and brow-beating, as they heaped scorn on those responsible for inflicting the "racist" comic on the country.
Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, one of O'Brien's recurring gags. Triumph spreads bad cheer and ill-will wherever he goes, but when O'Brien let the hand puppet loose in Quebec City on Thursday night, his antics caused the normally serene Canadians to pop a few blood vessels.
"So you're French and Canadian, yes?" the puppet said in one of the offending segments. "So you're obnoxious and dull." If anybody missed the subtle humor, it was followed with these gems: "You're in North America. ... Learn the language!" and "I can tell you're French. … You have that proud expression, that superior look, and I can smell your crotch from here."
The (English-speaking) audience in the Toronto theater loved the routines, but French Canadians were not the only ones who weren't amused.
"That's not something I would have laughed at," the Toronto Sun quoted the premier of Ontario saying in reaction to the sketches. Federal lawmakers also decried the foray into the sensitive quicksand of French-English relations. The National Post reported a torrent of condemnations by MPs in Ottawa. "The whole point of trying to help deal with the devastation of the SARS crisis on the city of Toronto was to attract tourists," one said. "How it got morphed into this kind of garbage I don't know."
O'Brien "threw oil and matches down our national fault line," wrote a commentator in the Montreal Gazette. "I wonder how he'd feel if we let Canada's Insulting Beaver Puppet loose on U.S. TV to yuk it up about Sept. 11."
The outrage grew when media reports stressed that Canada had actually paid for the privilege of being insulted on U.S. television. "Your tax dollars at work," was the headline on a Winnipeg Sun article revealing that the federal and provincial governments paid $1 million (Canadian) to underwrite the cost of bringing the show to Toronto.
Surely the government officials who cooked up the subsidy thought it was a good move at the time. The Toronto Star was typically over-the-top in its editorial that gently chided the city and its residents for being "more star-struck than SARS-struck"—but went on to conclude with its own softball sendoff: "Thanks, Conan. Come back soon."
That was Friday's editions. Saturday's paper lamented that the previous day's editorial went to press before the true nature of O'Brien's Canadian dalliance had been revealed. " [W]e spoke far too soon," the editors said. "Had we known the mean-spirited content of … NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, we never would have invited him to return anytime." The editorial went on, "It wasn't just poking fun, it wasn't clever—it was hateful and, yes, racist," and it concluded "Goodbye Conan. Don't come back soon."
Condemnation wasn't the only reaction in the press. A columnist in the Toronto Star wrote "I can't believe this country was successfully baited by a damn hand puppet. … [I]n the end, the reaction to Triumph says more about Canada than America."
In the end, perhaps the Gazette columnist drew the most telling conclusion of the O'Brien follies: "Calling Dr. Freud. We've got a big city in our midst with an even bigger inferiority complex."
Carl Schrag, formerly the editor of the Jerusalem Post, is a writer and lecturer.
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