(no subject)

[electricland]

So I have learned, thanks to moonlightjoy and MSN, that my latest icon may simply be a reflection of a somewhat mean-spirited national zeitgeist.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.

Actually, it's a weird article. (Anyone know anything about this Jonathon Gatehouse person?*) I would like to have a closer look at Maclean's' (? where the hell do I put the apostrophe?) polling methodology:

Do I believe the global reputation of the U.S. has worsened over the last decade? Hell yeah. I'm not even sure that counts as a belief. (Why are they polling us about other people's opinions?)

Do I strongly support immediately committing Canadian troops to defend the U.S. in the event of another terrorist attack? How can you even answer a question like that? It asks you to speculate about (a) another terrorist attack on the U.S., nature and severity unspecified; (b) all the surrounding factors that would go into making that decision. I'm amazed that 44% of Canadians actually said yes to that one. And then this gets called animosity towards the U.S. WTF?

Has my animosty towards Americans increased? Towards specific Americans, well, yes. (George Bush and henchpersons, take a bow.) And, now I've read the article, certainly towards these guys:

That's not to say there aren't Americans with similarly passionate opinions about Canada, and the current state of cross-border relations. A Maclean's poll published this winter detailing Canadian antipathy towards George W. Bush ("Hope you lose, eh," Feb. 9, 2004) elicited several thousand responses from U.S. residents, mostly outraged that their neighbours would even dare to have an opinion of the President, especially such a negative one. And although this new survey indicates the number of vocal critics of Canada remains relatively small, many Americans are convinced their ranks are growing. "Canadians have lost their manhood," says Fred Edwards, a 56-year-old construction supervisor from Tucson, Ariz. ("Socialized, homosexualized, feminized, gutless wimps," he specified in his original e-mail to the magazine.) Edwards, who has four children in the U.S. military -- including a son who's just returned from Iraq and another son and a daughter preparing to ship out -- is particularly incensed that Canada refused to join Bush's "coalition of the willing." "It's like being in a bar fight with your friends," he says. "You expect them to back you up."

Others focus on our perceived ingratitude for decades of comfortable living under the shelter of the American military umbrella. "Because we spent the money on the military, you don't have to carry an English/Russian or English/German dictionary," says Mike Rodgers, the 50-year-old pastor of a fundamentalist Baptist church in North Highlands, Calif. An air force veteran, Rodgers admits that Americans don't always stop to consider the views and sensibilities of other nations, but argues his country deserves at least as much thanks as criticism for taking on weighty global responsibilities. "Because we're so powerful and have such a free press, everybody around the world knows us -- warts and all," he says. "But if there's a terrorist threat, it's always America that is expected to respond."

I'm also not entirely convinced that this statement is true:

Most Americans remain sincerely convinced that the aims of their government in the Middle East are noble, and their cause -- preventing further terrorist attacks -- is just.

Can this be? Are all the Americans on my Friends list, or at least the ones who post about politics (you know who you are), really just a pack of curve-skewing freaks? Does this poll really show that Canadians hate the U.S. and all its policies? And if we're really being lumped in with Belgium on the allies list, is that such a bad thing?

Maybe I just need a new icon reading "Socialized, homosexualized, feminized, gutless wimp".

*Much becomes clear. Observation reveals that he spells his name funny. Cursory Google search (a) reveals that he is a former National Paste writer; (b) suggests that he is somewhat obsessed by this cross-border relationship thing.

Comments

[wanderingaengus.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, please remember that we did not elect the bozo in the White House. It's not so much that of us on your friends list are curve-skewing freaks as that the bell curve of American opinion is pretty flat. Not so many people in the middle, and a lot of distance between the extremes.

Juan Cole had a great post this weekend about how American has become split -- we now have not just a two-party system, but a "two-party epistemology":

… as of mid-March, 57% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had given substantial support to al-Qaeda. Worse, 45% actually say that "clear evidence" has been found in Iraq to support this allegation! As for weapons of mass destruction 45 percent say they believe Saddam had them before the recent war, and 22 percent say that he had a major program for developing them.

There is no documentary or physical evidence for any of these assertions.

…

Why would so many Americans cling to patently false beliefs? One can only speculate of course. But I would suggest that the two-party system in the US has produced a two-party epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. If it were accepted that Saddam had virtually nothing to do with al-Qaeda, that he had no weapons of mass destruction (nor any significant programs for producing them), and that no evidence for such things has been uncovered after the US and its allies have had a year to comb through Baath documents-- if all that is accepted, then President Bush's credibility would suffer. For his partisans, it is absolutely crucial that the president retain his credibility. Therefore, rather than face reality, they re-jigger it to create a fantasy world in which Saddam and Usamah are buddies (as in the Jimmy Fallon/ Horatio Sanz skits on the American comedy show, Saturday Night Live), and in which David Kay (of whom respondents say they've never heard) never recanted his earlier belief that the WMD was there somewhere.
…

…

If nearly half the country cannot even see that things are going badly wrong in Iraq, one despairs that anyone will work up the political will to try to fix the problems before it is too late.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Point, and interesting post... thanks!

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

no, the majority of Americans don't feel the way the ones selected for the article do, but then, that would deprive the rabble rousers on both sides the ability to write salacious articles about how US and Canada hate each other. I suspect it's not much more than the usual cross-border antipathy, and the latest poke in the eye on both sides is the war, and the war effort, so that's what people mention when asked.

Of course, my nation is capable of some serious hedgemonic myopia, so what do I know.

I don't hate Canadianlanders. Well, maybe you people in the back there. And anyone who tries to force poutine on me.

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

It might sadden you to know that poutine is practically a food-group in my area of university. It's almost the only thing you can get to eat at the caf for under $4, and certainly the only thing that weighs 1/2 a kilo.


As to the article: I was most engaged by your footnote. It might just be me, but the Pissed has never seemed the most spot-on of employers. I mean, yes, Christie Blatchford, but .... yeah.

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

It has just occurred to me that poutine consumption may actually be to (male and female) Canadian uni students what drug use (and possibly, lesbianism) is supposed to be for US uni students.

I.e. Something you experiment with and enjoy while in school, but pretty much turn your back once you start your serious adult life.

We are a generation of PEUGs.

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

:snickers: Now I have to swipe and share that with everyone I've ever talked to (read: Sniped with) about BUGs.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, poutine.

At least the NP isn't dull, even if their hiring choices sometimes amuse and appall.

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

True. The endless amusement, with all the chops of the Weekly World News plus a massive dose of self importance, keeps me going.
Last summer there was an interview with... er. What's her name, Sex In The City. Blondie. The Fla- Ah! Candace Bushnell.

She compared herself to Tolstoy.

mmm... poutine!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right. I should not be spending this much mental energy on this particular article. (I'd still like to have a look at the methodology, mind you.)

Incidentally, it took me 11 years to learn to love poutine, but I succumbed, and so will you...

[ladyjestyr.livejournal.com]

But if there's a terrorist threat, it's always America that is expected to respond.

I could contradict this assertion two ways. One, the pedantic way: There's a difference between expecting someone to do something, and wanting them to, though. I may expect that my bosses will give me extra work to do this week, but that doesn't mean I want it to happen.

Two, the blanket-statement way: No, the rest of the world doesn't expect America to respond. America takes it upon itself to respond. (Incidentally, when was the last time the USA stepped in to help out against the IRA or the Basque separatists?)

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, when was the last time the USA stepped in to help out against the IRA or the Basque separatists?

Or the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

[john-d-owen.livejournal.com]

Hey, Americans stepped in frequently to help us Brits out with our little IRA terrorist problem: trouble was, most of it was in the form of funds to buy arms for the IRA (gotta make sure its a fair fight, eh?) Thanks guys, really appreciated that. Yet when the US is attacked, all us friends are supposed to come running. Nice double standard you've got going there. Shame your government can't figure out HOW to fight terrorism, and that our dumbcluck of a PM hasn't the bottle to tell you that you're doing it all wrong. You have to REMOVE the causes of terrorism, not INCREASE them. Otherwise it kind of snowballs out of control, just like it is in Iraq.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

ooooh, don't get me started on Iraq. Such stupidity as has been going on there. Once you're in, at least make an effort to understand the other guy's point of view -- don't just get all wounded and baffled because people don't all like you.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I wonder if the writer had to work hard to find those two dingbats?

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what poutine is....

Oddly enough, I was just wondering today how long the Bushies would have to be in office before they resurrected the long-lost plans to invade Canada.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

You rename French fries "freedom" fries. We smother them in cheese curds and drown them in gravy. That's poutine.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I just learned that the Bush administration has a "Freedom Fuel" (http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenfuel/) initiative, at which the mind boggles somewhat.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the top-secret plans are already out there...

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

We're not poll skewing freaks. It's a big country with a lot of people in it. In some places, I'm totally in the majority in thinking Bush is a dangerous psychopathic bloodlusting lunatic who wasn't elected and is a bigger disgrace to this nation than McCarthy. But in some areas, I'm dangerously in the minority.

I think a lot of the people who believe Bush is in the right are just blissfull optimists. I think for most of them believing that the president of the united states would go to war and kill innocent people for no logical reason other than to dole out a couple billions in contracts here or there, is just not possible. It'd be like asking you to believe that down is up. It's much easier to believe that there must be a good reason, even if I don't understand it, than to believe that these horrible things are happening for no reason.

Also we're just plain pissed off and scared about 9/11 and want to lash out at someone. I think the fear is stronger than the sense of vengence. But it's there and palpable. Especially when we get constant terror alerts and learn more and more how un-defended we really are.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Well said.

(Also, the writer of this particular article may well be a shit-disturbing nitwit.)

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

May do a longer post of my own about this business, but I'll chip in with the following now.

For about a week, I've been lurking at freerepublic.com--not for the faint of heart. (I went there after overindulging on aljazeera.com's "Ask Dr. Kareem" and "Conspiracy Theories" area).

So here's the thing: looks like a lot of Americans actually believe they're in a Culture War--which is to say, a civil war, house divided, etc. There seem to be enough people on either "side" who subscribe to this view (and FWIT, who view their respective political parties as capitulators) that it makes the idea seem more convincing to moderates of both stripes.

This is completely unlike anything I've ever seen in Canada, and a quick visit to (boring old) freedominion.ca, plus a regular perusal of, say, NOW and The National Post, convinces me that this attitude _is_ totally alien.

I think what has happened a little in the States is that the "Left" (ha!) keeps pointing to Canada as a shining example of XY and Z (think Michael Moore), which of course makes the culture warriors in the opposing trench assume we have fallen to the enemy. Neither side is talking about actual Canada, they're talking about Imaginary Canada.

(Of course we do this with the States, too, but the dynamic's different).

This causes the right wing warriors to notice the childish name-calling we have always indulged up here in as our birthright, which spures them to say nasty things about Imaginary Canada, which occasionally get reported up here because it makes good copy. Which makes us more prone to resort to childish name-calling*, and the circle of life continues.

For what it's worth, when an American says Canadians are "Socialized, homosexualized, feminized, gutless wimps" it's not an opinion, it's pure cant, a tourettes-like ejaculation, repeated because it's been heard so often. It's about as meaningful as saying the Chinese are inscrutable.

(The gag, of course, is that for a significant fraction of Canadians, the only potentially insulting part of that phrase is "gutless wimps".)

Upshot: of course your icon is a reflection of an SMSNZ! That's what makes it so tasty. The thing is, in most other parts of the world (in mty experience) a casually mean-spirited view of the folks over the (given) border is natural and probably healthy.

In other words, despair not.

*My current favourite name for USians is "Napoleon's Stooges", which is 1812 vintage. I would like to promote its widespread use.

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why I put an "e" in "spurs". :(

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

(The gag, of course, is that for a significant fraction of Canadians, the only potentially insulting part of that phrase is "gutless wimps".)

Indeed, because all those beer-drinkers will protest that they have guts!

*My current favourite name for USians is "Napoleon's Stooges", which is 1812 vintage. I would like to promote its widespread use.

Oooh, what's the story behind that one? I tried Googling, to no avail.

(And I am an ex-Laura Secord employee and a Farscape fan, so 1812 holds a special importance for me.)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I think the "Two Americas" notion is probably correct.

It did occur to me that perhaps the very very politicized nature of life in the US is responsible for some of this. I'm just not sure how.

I think if I'm going to do anything about this particular article, though, it should be to smack Maclean's upside the head for giving this guy a look-in.