''From a Canucklehead to a knucklehead''
Date: Monday, November 04, 2002 @ 13:44:51 EST
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
(YellowTimes.org) – It's early on a Saturday morning and I have a migraine; I have a forty-year history of the damn things. They can be very debilitating, requiring hours curled in a fetal position waiting for the incessant pain to stop or finish you off (and you don't always care which), vomiting, visual and aural disturbances, and so on. They can last for days but they're not life threatening and, so far as afflictions go, I would certainly choose it over many more horrible things. And this one's not really a bad one.
But since I'm feeling lousy already, it seems natural to write an article about Pat Buchanan.
Now I know what you're thinking: if this guy is intelligent enough to be able to write and use a computer, then he is obviously at least sentient and that means attacking Pat Buchanan is very much like making fun of the handicapped. Well, call me cruel if you wish, but this is a turkey who simply cries out to be ridiculed.
A couple of days ago, Patrick made some remarks about us Canadian "whiners." It seems a little disingenuous for a man who has perfected the art of whining to suggest that someone else doing it is a bad thing, but perhaps he has a patent on the process. He initially made his comments on the television show, Buchanan and Press, the allegedly adult version of the Jerry Springer Show. You know, where opinionated bigmouth blowhards go on television and spend a little quality airtime trying to shout each other down in an effort to bolster their already unjustifiably bloated egos.
His remarks have been repeated and I was greeted this morning with a front-page article in my daily rag entitled: Buchanan trash talks Canadian 'whining,' and a subtitle of "Failed presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan says Canadian carping sticks in his craw." (It was interesting that the article on the front page just below this one is entitled: Canadians go out of their way to lend hand in Third World. So while we may be whiners, I guess we aren't all bad.)
What has Patrick's craw all in a tizzy is a complaint by the government of Canada that U.S. immigration authorities want to target Canadian citizens visiting the United States. This is to apply if they visit from Canada and if they happen to have been born outside of Canada in one of a few specified countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. Buchanan says that: "Post 9-11, we've been making a tremendous effort to try to secure the American people. And to hear this kind of carping criticism from north of the border, from folks whom we give a $30-billion trade surplus each year and whom we defend while they have been in some ways freeloading off the United States, got a little into my craw. We exercise occasionally the right to criticize Canada and what I hear from up in Canada is some juvenile whining."
So how valid is his criticism? Let me start with his last point:
Do Canadians whine. As the expert (and perhaps patent holder) I will accept Patrick's view. We whine.
Has the U.S. made tremendous efforts to secure the American people: absolutely. Although in the same interview Buchanan criticized the Bush government for not doing enough.
Does the U.S. 'give' Canada a $30-billion surplus every year: Nope. We trade. You sell us stuff; we sell you stuff. At this point, we're selling more than buying so we're coming out ahead. But that is quite different from 'giving' us anything.
Does America defend us? Well, that's a tough one. Certainly we would derive some benefit from the North American defense shield that is largely U.S.-based. But we also contribute a great deal to it; we jointly operate security facilities on U.S. soil, you operate on ours; we do participate in some of America's military junkets around the world. His complaint certainly is valid in the sense that we do not contribute the same level of military might that the U.S. does, but we are a heck of lot smaller in all ways except geography. I suppose we can be legitimately criticized for under funding our military (even most Canadians make that complaint).
Does Canada freeload off the United States? Not even slightly.
Does the United States 'occasionally' criticize Canada? Actually, you should probably do it more. At least then we would know that you're aware we are up here, shivering, and hoping you'll notice us.
Now this is going to annoy Patrick, but the United States government has apparently agreed that their proposed practice was a little draconian. They will still continue to exercise vigilance at the border but they will forgo the idea of fingerprinting and photographing all of those Canadian citizens who might have been born in one of the proscribed countries. No one would argue that the U.S. should not have the right to secure the border but targeting people because of their heritage is a throwback to the days of separate washrooms and drinking fountains.
By the way, this is the same Patrick J. Buchanan who wrote in his 1999 book: "A Republic, Not an Empire" that "Canada is the most important country on earth for us."
Now let me be clear: nobody in Canada really gives a tinker's damn what Buchanan says about anything. He is irrelevant, and even he must know that, but something he said did stick in our craws. He referred to Canada as 'Soviet Canuckistan.' That is a well-known epithet applied to Canada by a virulently racist, anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi hate mongering group based in the United States. The fact that he would choose that phrase says a lot more about Patrick than it does about us.
[Paul Harris is self-employed as a consultant providing Canadian businesses with the tools and expertise to successfully reintegrate their sick or injured employees into the workplace. He has traveled extensively in what we arrogant North Americans refer to as "the Third World," and he believes that life is very much like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Paul lives in Canada.]
Paul Harris encourages your comments: pharris@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, yellowtimes.org. Internet web links to yellowtimes.org are appreciated. |
