Canada (or America Jr.)

[cannon_fodder]

I read an article over the weekend that was very amusing... basically a Canadian calling BS on the rest of his countrymen.  Where hating American's is as popular as curling yet the average Canadian:

quote:
Watches American movies and television, wears American jeans, listens to American music, reads American books and magazines.

"He drinks coffee at Starbucks, eats hamburgers at McDonald's and ice cream at Ben and Jerry's," Cohen notes. "He aspires to the American Dream, whether it is represented by minivan or an SUV, and the greatest obstacle to achieving it isn't desire but money.

He address some point by point issues that are interesting also:

- As they make fun of our perceived lack of multiculturalism they make fun of La Quebeque and resist forced integration of French... even as we American's voluntarily convert ATMs to English/Spanish and governmental signage.

- They rant about how great their universal health care is, until they are sick and come to the USA to get higher quality treatment.

- They call American's warmongers and tout their own peacekeeping efforts - even though American shoulders and funds more UN sponsored peacekeeping missions than any other country (even as we fight in 2 additional theaters).

- The US has no environmental awareness because we refused to sign Kyto - even though Canada's carbon emissions rose nearly twice as fast as the USA (SIDE POINT:  Kyto is a joke, everyone that signed it just ignored it anyway.  Funny that we still get grief, I'd think signing it and ignoring it is worse than being honest and just saying it 'aint gonna happen.')

"We're all 'American-Canadians' now,"  The Hamilton Spector, Dianne Rinehart, 5/12/2007.  Last visited 5/14/2007.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1178944256928&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112188062620


I thought this was an interesting commentary that would be applicable to much of the world.  While America clearly has faults and has made some serious domestic and foreign gaffs that ring true with consequences today - the major cause for Hatred of America is that it has become popular.  It is far easier to hate what is bad about America than defend the positive influences we exert.

[Conan71]

Canadians all look alike, eh?