(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.