Not posting this "to" you Snowshoe, but I want to comment on a few thing and am going to quote from something in the article you just posted.
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It takes a lot for Canada to make the papers, but this was a good one. Last week at a NATO conference Francoise Ducros, a top aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, was overheard calling President George W. Bush "a moron." Out loud.
Actually, I was kind of amazed at how much mileage the "moron" remark got. I have to admit that the fact that it pissed people off so much made me laugh. It also made me think that, with all of the other "Canada-news" that could have or should have been in papers in the U.S. before this, for this one story to make the news when others couldn't is absurd. Illustrates to me how little substance and how sensationalistic the media has become... and also just how lazy and how screwed up things are when that nobody bothers to look at real issues and is just interested in tossing around a few bombshell words to infuriate the masses. Rather pathetic state of affairs, IMO.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the case in many things these days -- people have a reductionist attitude towards just about everything. I guess it's unfair to blame anyone for grasping for cliché-riddled stereotypes, and of trying to classify the world into "right" or "left; "socialist" or "capitalist"; "savior" or "demon". But when it comes down to it, the truth is that nothing is so simplistic, and that to believe so is to succumb to a lazy attitude.
I rarely bother to post an "op ed" piece on S.I. Basically, I can't usually be bothered as I'm more of a "do-er" and I just come here to share a bit of info and post the odd yarn for a few friends. However, lately, I feel motivated to say something about this Canada-U.S. "stuff" that seems to be flying around on these discussion boards. Yes, I've done a bit of lurking around on various threads. Frankly, I have to say I find myself oscillating between being amused and appalled by the crap that keeps being posted concerning Canada. Honestly, I get the impression that more than 90% of the people on S.I. have never even been to Canada (not talking about you, BTW, Snowshoe, but about the "average" posters that I keep encountering). I guess that my problem with this is, that I see people expounding all kinds of bullshit about our politics, our politicians, our culture, our borders and so on. If any of them get pinned by someone to say what they know about Canada, they always fall back on having some relative that lives up in the Frozen North, or maybe they flew over one corner of Canada one time on their way home from Europe. I mean, honestly, you can't know anything about a country without visiting and hanging out in it for awhile. May as well ask a blind man to describe an elephant.
One very typical piece of crap that I keep seeing being posted is this bit about "Canada's porous borders". Oh, gimme a break! I wonder just how many of S.I. self-appointed armchair experts on Canada know anything about our borders and the fairly first rate policing that is done of our coastlines, which, to be more specific, are a damned difficult territory to police. Bet very few of them are aware of just how "porous" some of the other borders are down in places like Arizona and New Mexico. Hell, 2 years ago when I was down hiking in southern Arizona, it was obvious that there was a problem based on what we saw. This year, I was checking out potential hiking spots and came across a series of articles called "Perilous Parks" in the Arizona Daily Star on-line edition. Guess what? The situation is getting worse. The Park Rangers sound like they're getting thoroughly pissed off with having to deal with drug runners and the influx of illegal immigrants. First of all, they're greatly understaffed, and secondly, they don't really feel that it is up to the Park Rangers to try to control drug-trafficking and illegal immigration. And why shouldn't they be pissed off about the situation? One of their rangers was gunned down during a shoot-out with drug runners in Organ Pipe Cactus park in September. Anyhow, just check out this little excerpt about the parks in southern Arizona.
azstarnet.com
The influx of border crossers has prompted some increases in law enforcement on Arizona's public lands. But by virtually all accounts the mobilization has been grossly inadequate. Taxpayers stand to foot the bill to further step up the policing. In their report to Congress, federal agencies in southeast Arizona said they need 93 more employees - about half in law enforcement - and $62.9 million over the next five years to repair damage and protect workers, visitors and property. In grainy videos made by U.S. agents with night vision technology, the border crossers glow green and really do look like "illegal aliens." At times, the camera catches so many people it looks like a wildfire is burning.
Dan Wirth of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association shows those images in a PowerPoint presentation on the border that begins not in cactus-studded desert, but at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. This, he says, is really a homeland security issue. In one video, a long line of smugglers glows in the night, lugging big backpacks.
"Which backpack," he asks, "has the biological precursor or weapon of mass destruction?"
BTW, you can read much more about the situation in a recent series of articles called "Perilous Parks" in Arizona Daily Star.
azstarnet.com
Considering that I like to go hiking in several of the "Perilous Parks" mentioned thoughout these articles, I'm not feeling too damned impressed with the "porous border situation" down there. Hell, if I want to be shot at, I'll go hike in one of my forests up here wearing a deerskin jacket during hunting season.
Anyhow, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. Every country has its own unique problems. But I think that it might at least help things along in the Understanding Department if people wouldn't go around acting like they are an AUTHORITY on another country they haven't even spent a good deal of time visiting. I have visited the U.S. for extended periods of time on many occasions and I just can't get over how little most people "down there" know about us "up here". In fact, I'm actually pretty shocked by that. Scary thing is, that in all of my many conversations with people from all walks of life that I've met in the U.S., the three people who knew the most about Canada, Canadian politics, economy, geography, etc.. were... a Hopi Indian grade 3 school teacher that I spent some time talking to while in Phoenix; a woman in Vermont who runs a B&B, but who is a native of the Philippines; and a wonderful older gentleman I met in California, who told me of his travels across Canada in his motorhome about 20 years ago.
Obviously, I don't think those are the only 3 people in the whole U.S. who know anything about Canada. There have to be at least a couple of dozen more Americans who do, don't ya think? Problem is, they all seem to be well-hidden. Instead, I seem to keep meeting the ones like the gang of travellers from Atlanta, GA, who sat around out on the lawn of a Victorian B&B, one fine summer evening, in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, discussing which flak jackets protected you the best if you took a bullet, and which were the preferred handguns of the hour. Mind you, this was a police detective and a school principal and a couple of school teachers, so I guess they had their reasons for finding this topic of discussion to be enjoyable while sipping beer and shooting the shit with the rest of the Canadian guests at the inn. However, I'm afraid that none of us could contribute much to the conversation...
Or maybe the bright young couple from Buffalo, NY, met at a wonderful country B&B on the side of a mountain in Vermont. They locked up their car and their bedroom out in the pool cabana every time they came in the main house for even a minute -- seeming to be unable to shift mindset from being in some suburb of Buffalo, to the reality of being up in a secluded private home on a mountainside. Guess maybe they were afraid that the raccoons and skunks are into B&Es out in the sticks. Same folks didn't have a CLUE that the capital city of Canada was Ottawa and not Toronto, even though, comparatively speaking, they lived almost across the river from both cities and at quite a substantial distance from their own national capital. In fact, they had never even heard of Ottawa -- which is probably good as that means that the American army, should it ever invade with intent to take our capital, will go directly to Toronto and possibly get lost in the subways there (yep, believe me, those subways are mighty scary and easy to get lost in).
Anyhow, well, I will probably get flamed for posting this -- Yeah, yah, I know, no doubt someone is gonna post the standard crap... "What a whining Canadian!!! blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.." Hey, don't bother, okay?. I've probably already read it a couple of hundred times elsewhere on S.I. Seems like it is the standard chant posted by people who can't come up with anything better than blaming us for being a pack of whiners. Big deal. Call us whatever you like. Most of us don't actually care anymore, despite what the press and the tv news is telling you down there. Oh yeah, right, you actually BELIEVE that crap they say about us. I forgot. Oh well, If you want to be like that and see it that way, that's your call. However, if you don't mind a bit of advice from someone who enjoys travelling all over, meeting people, staying with them for awhile, and hearing what they have to say about the world, their lives, their "reality", then perhaps you'll just listen and not go off your stick and start complaining. The truth is that you don't get much of a true picture of another country by sitting around on your butt watching television newscasts and reading op-eds in newspapers and magazines. All you get is a ridiculously filtered line of bullshit. You want to know about other parts of the world and what people are doing and why they are saying what they are saying, you get your ass in gear and go visit and stay for awhile...and talk to the people there... and whatever you do, don't hang out in some four-star hotel. And don't be like the crazy buggers from Atlanta and try to "do Canada from one end to the other in 3 weeks"... oh, and leave the stretch-Econoline at home..you know the one that is equipped with a TV, giant boomerang antenna, and a Nintendo game, so that you can you can boot along the highway from city to city while playing games and listening to the "reality" on your news broadcasts. (And, Yep, that's just how they "did" us when they were passing through).
Do yourself a favour and go see some more of the real world. |
