Canada, anti-Americanism, and Me

Canada, anti-Americanism, and Me 2009-Mar-24

Posted by jcentury in Uncategorized.
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Fox News, once again, spoke for America. Set your watches, ladies and gentlemen:

I’ve long had an interest in Canada, and have been trying my best to form some kind of assessment of the country to the degree that is possible. I’ve visited Canada only four times, and each for a short visit. My first road trip in college was a drive to Montreal up through New York state, and then I visited Winnipeg 3 times on business, which is not a good way to get acquainted with local culture but as I am one of the three Americans to have ever traveled outside of the United States, I take pride in it nonetheless.

Canadians, understandably, seek to define and bring into stark relief any differences with the United States that they can find. What I noticed as a traveler was the way their media was saturated with American news coverage. The immediate assumption many people make about Americans is that we are ethnocentric and that we believe the world really does revolve around us. From this, one might extrapolate a theory that an American would expect the foreign press to be focused on American news and culture, but this wasn’t my expectation in the slightest. Nor was it my hope. I am absolutely giddy to be out of the United States, and want to hear as little about it as possible when I am abroad. I always chuckle a bit at the complaints I hear from foreigners about American cultural saturation (or imperialism if they’re really pissed). If you live in, say, Europe, and you think it’s bad there…well, imagine *living here.* I am not one of these people who just routinely trashes my own country to ingratiate myself with foreigners who, many self-styled American intellectuals at least, perceive to be “more intelligent.”

That said, I really hate Hollywood, most American television, our government’s foreign policy, our consumerist culture…

Err…where was I? Oh yeah, I was in the process of not trying to ingratiate myself with foreigners by going on an anti-Yankee tirade. Don’t mistake it for that, really. I love my country but it is the most painful love imaginable. Prison love, really. Dyspeptic love. High stomach acid love.

Back to Canada…

Sure, I expected some mention of major American news stories or American stories which specifically affected Canada (logging, waterways, trade, etc.), but I was unprepared and a bit shocked at the amount of coverage of things happening in the United States. My initial impressions were a bit skewed, I was later to discover, as the hotel I was staying at in Winnipeg unceremoniously shoved the Daily News and Mail under my door each morning. Wikipedia says:

The Globe and Mail is a Canadian English language nationally distributed newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of 935 000,[3] it is Canada’s largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star. The Globe and Mail is widely considered to be Canada’s newspaper of record.

and

Even before the Globe merged with the Mail and Empire, the paper was widely considered the voice of the Upper Canada elite—that is, the Bay Street financial community of Toronto and the intellectuals of university and government institutions.

and

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the paper generally supported the policies of Liberal Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. In the 2006 federal election, the paper turned away from the Liberals to Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party of Canada. Once again, in the 2008 federal election, the paper’s editorial board endorsed Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

Each time I was in Winnipeg, this newspaper and the CBC were my primary conduits (along with talking to Canadians) for understanding the way Canadians perceive themselves. Subsequent conversations with Canadians about the Daily News and Mail indicated a kind of disgust over this newspaper, mainly from those who sympathized with the Left. I was told, basically, to disregard any impressions I got from it. Whether or not this is fair advice remains to be seen, except to say that I typically like the folks I’ve met on the Canadian Left – that is, if they can refrain for ten seconds from telling me what’s wrong with my country to tell me something about themselves.

So what are the flaws with the United States? We’re all stupid, fat, and uneducated, to begin with. We’re ignorant racists. Moreoever, we’re xenophobic and particularly ignorant of anything that goes on outside our borders. We love war. And guns. And violence. We’re bullies. Moreover, we’re arrogant, and we really don’t listen to or care what anyone else in the world thinks. I have come to understand that everyone in the world understands America but Americans, who not only do not understand America, but don’t understand anything else, either.

I have been informed of this fact repeatedly by our friends abroad via numerous internet communications, and it has given me much to reflect on. In my trips across the deep South, the desert Southwest, and major US cities like New York and San Francisco, I was unable to put together such a concise analysis of 300 million people, but apparently this is something those abroad have been able to do for years. In terms of taking a kind of cultural assessment, it seems, other countries are light years ahead of us. We may not understand ourselves in terms of there being a united “us,” but the more educated and svelte abroad certainly do. If you’re an American and want to understand America (by which for the purposes of this article I mean the United States), all you need to do is find yourself a 23 year old with an Internet account in some other country. They will give you a rundown on America in the space of the few hundred characters alotted for a YouTube comment.

I’ve learned a few other things from our critics in Canada but even more so from Europeans and Australians. I am always interested to hear the opinions of people abroad, and these are some the facts I’ve learned:

When Fox News says something, that means “Americans” – 300 million of us save the 4 or 5 good ones, are “saying it.” Which seems remarkable on the surface until I reflect upon the fact that I’ve never heard an American disagree with anything Fox News says, period.
When our government does something, that means we “do it.” Although there is contempt for the American “obsession with guns,” the fact that we have not launched an armed revolution against our government makes us culpable for things like the two wars in the Middle East. We are each personally responsible for every bomb that falls on other countries or anyone who loses money or a home because of the US banking disaster. And we really need to stop being in denial about this and just kill ourselves.
Although we are “uneducated idiots” it does not in fact make one an uneducated idiot to follow other uneducated idiots like ourselves into war, or buy our products (including high tech space age weaponry that, like a million monkeys at typewriters writing Hamlet, we have, in our slack-jawed ways, created “by mistake”) thereby enabling the aforementioned uneducated idiocy through tax revenues and tariffs, corporate campaign contributions, and so on. Nor can foreigners be held culpable for their assent to American leadership in ridiculous foreign wars. The responsibility for all of this lies squarely with us and the armed revolution we should be undertaking with guns idiots like us should not be allowed to have. In no way does the support of the leaders of allied countries condone, legitimize, or otherwise enable the foreign adventurism of the United States.
Our primitive understanding of honor and personal responsibility is apparently too underdeveloped and backward to understand that indeed there is a kind of honor and dignity in refusing to take individual responsibility for the leadership of one’s country, unless you’re an American. So if you’re British and really pissed off about Tony Blair or Gordon Brown playing kissyface with George Bush, well, obviously you can’t blame British voters. Chrétien, Martin, and Harper? Not the fault of Canadians if these men committed Canadian soldiers to some other country’s stupid and pointless war. Bush, however, whether we as Americans voted for him or not – completely our fault, personally – each one of us. American presidents are like pipers and the leaders of other countries are like charmed snakes who cannot resist the pull of throwing in with the Yankee pigs. The sins of Blair, Brown, Chrétien, Martin, and Harper are marks on the soul of every American. And it’s our fault for not having prevented it. This would be the principal complaint about Americans. I make sure to write down the various grievances people have with the United States each time I encounter someone with an opinion so I can give them to the President next time we play golf or get together for a jamboree.
Americans are horribly racist, and when not racist, they engage in insulting stereotypes about people from other countries. This off-putting characteristic of Americans cannot possibly be understood by Americans, because stupid fat uneducated arrogant Americans are never stereotyped themselves, nor can they understand what it is to live in a society completely free of racism like Britain or Canada. We should accept the counsel of America’s critics, who have demonstrated their credibility in this regard by schooling stupid fat dumb uneducated arrogant Americans in their tendency toward groupthink. That is, if we can hear them over the sound of gunfire Americans are always ducking.
Canadians really kicked our ass in 1812, so we should fucking know who the real boss is if push comes to shove. Americans, still smarting from 1812, overcompensate for their weakness by pretending to have a really powerful military (LOL, as if a bunch of dumb idiots like the Americans could build a submarine or a missile!), but if the shit hits the fan, the Canadians, who kicked our ass in 1812, will have to put the smackdown on the United States. Did you hear that story about the American navy and the Canadian lighthouse? Besides, in a war between the United States and anyone else, the USA would probably show up late like they did in WW2 and by that time Canadians would have burned Washington DC to the ground and escaped with all of the wealth, technology, and gold that the Canadians and, okay, some Scots, actually invented or created themselves.
The Canadians would really really really like to remind the United States that they really pasted us in 1812 because Americans seem to have forgotten because they are dumb and uneducated. Seriously, we got our asses beat and we know it. And they will remind us of it whenever they get really upset about the power dynamic between our two countries. Just to be clear – they beat the crap out of us in 1812. Just absolutely destroyed our dignity and we carry this as a kind of victimization syndrome and inadequacy complex into the present day. Those three or four Americans who do not obsess on this daily really ought to. 1812 FEVER: CATCH IT. Besides, Canada should pay more attention to what really matters: ‘We done bailed all yer asses outta WW2!’
American television, music, and movies, are really, really stupid lowbrow shit, and we ought to really dip our cups deeper into the well of world culture. With the Red Green show (produced by the same people who produced the American Hee-Haw, incidentally), Celine Dion, Benny Hill, the Eurovision Song Context, Avril Lavigne, the Spice Girls, the Beckhams, and so forth, we have no excuse. Unlike the United States, both Britain and Canada have things like microbreweries and independent cinema for those who really look for quality – a concept completely foreign to those in the US. As fat dumb uneducated Yanks, we are stuck with Budweiser and The Dukes of Hazzard for the time being, and it suits us, because we’re fat dumb and uneducated. And oh, I bet you never heard this one: Do you know how American beer (the one we all drink, Budweiser) is like sex in a canoe? It’s fucking close to water! LOL!
Some of the more enlightened abroad think we “deserve to be nuked” because all 300 million of us failed to prevent the rise of George Bush. That’s just deserts, because many of our soldiers have killed innocent people abroad. This is a minority view which you will often find upvoted or upmodded on message boards, but you really can’t hold others from the same country as the poster responsible, because that would be a kind of unfair collectivist stereotyping, which is completely different than when Fox News says something reprehensible and 300 million Americans are called to answer for it. But that makes sense, because there is and never has been any opposition in the United States anyway. Canadian opinion or British opinion or opinion in the Netherlands is often divided over serious issues but in the United States, we’re basically a one party system where everyone agrees with everyone else and gathers togethers to eat junk food together while lamenting the fact that we have no universities or other institutions of higher learning in the United States.
America has never actually invented anything. Ever. The US Constitution? Written by a Swede. The US flag? Invented by a British Canadian. Baseball? French. Space Shuttle? New Zealand. We are far, far too stupid, dumb, uneducated, and slothful to invent anything. And it’s true to some extent: we ought to be glad that the rest of the world lets us use their Internet – a joint international project of various industrialized countries except the United States, unless you count the stealth Dutchman who posed as an American to make us feel better about ourselves, Vint Cerf (an alias). It is a wonder we figured out how to hook up our tubes to the world’s tubes at all.
The United States never shows anything but American programming on television, nor can you find, for example, literature or books written by foreign author. While full of flags, the United States does not actually have any maps, and so its fat dumb uneducated citizens may have heard of Canada or a “country called Europe,” but are not aware of where they are. Rick Mercer has proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt in his comprehensive sociological studies called “Talking to Americans” which was a real eye-opener for Canadians, who don’t get all of their impressions about other countries from television like Americans do. Do you know how tiresome it is when Americans think all Canadians basically resemble Bob and Doug McKenzie? We really need to all stop being like Larry the Cable Guy and read some books, provided we can figure out a way to struggle toward literacy.
One time, like, this guy, had a cousin, who once was in France and heard an American say something like, “Oh mah gawwwd why don’t you just speak ENGLISH already” from an American tourist. If this doesn’t prove that Americans are such arrogant, dumb, uneduated morons, I don’t know what will.
Alberta is not “Canada” but Kansas is “America.”
Americans really need to shut their damn mouth about other countries, because they never travel outside of the United States and know fuck all about another countries. We Americans should just shut up, sit down, and listen to foreigners tell us all about our own country from abroad instead.
It is amazing we can reproduce at all given not only our girth but our fear of sexuality. There is no pornography or even dirty jokes in the United States because Americans fear sex. Hugh Hefner (born in Kitchener) moved to the US as a missionary attempting to educate Americans as to the beauty of the female form and sexuality in general. He failed, of course, and the US birthrate has been falling ever since, except of course for inbred births which have risen ever since Americans mistook an unpublished Far Side cartoon as a literal instruction manual for reproduction.

The Internet has been an educational experience and I have learned much in recent years.

Of course my own travels in Canada reveal something fairly remarkable. And that is that while all Canadians hold all of the opinions I listed above, they tend not to quite put them that way to you even when you’re on their turf. They tend to do completely batshit crazy things like obey yield signs, even if you’re sporting an American license plate. They’ll tell you if you dropped something and didn’t notice. They’ll welcome you warmly into their establishments and the one time I drove across the border, the attendant at the border gate smiled, offered me maps and advice on good places to eat (I was an American and clearly her motivation was that she knew we really really really like to eat.) One time I was even hugged by a Canadian. If that’s not some sneaky bullshit, I don’t know what is. I had a friend check for knife marks in my back (or a sign that says, “Kick Me if you still remember 1812!”) but I couldn’t find it. Canadians display affection and friendliness just to fuck with us. They’re sociopaths, but they have us over a barrel, and they know it.

It’s disappointing the way Canadians hide their consuming hatred of Americans. Behind the smiles, superior diction, and hospitality, you might even be led to expect that somehow the impression you get of Canucks is inaccurate. But I know better. I look at that Canadian $5 bill and while others see a nice winter scene of people playing hockey on ice, I see, basically, Nazis plotting to come ransack my country (like they did in 1812.)

As an American I know the consequences will be bad for me personally if y’all come down in hordes, rosy-cheeked, betoqued and crazy-wired on double-doubles, hockey sticks a-blazin, sayin “eh” after every sentence and going ABOOT ABOOT ABOOT and hurling poutine at American rednecks who are spraying you in turn with automatic gun fire and mashed potatoes. I, for one, do not plan on being able to even understand the situation, and it is in my fear of you that I shall, in anticipation of your arrival, demonstrate my marginal sapience by doing the one thing I know how to do: clean my gun.

One final, barely relevant thing — there is, it is rumored, a segment of the United States who would like to see Fox News burned to the ground and its television personalities drawn and quartered. This same crowd of marginal anarchists is said to be completely appalled and ashamed by the comments regarding the Canadian military – they have made similar statements about the British in the past – but you can safely dismiss this as a mere rumor. Here in the States, we just like to make up a bunch of shit to try to confuse foreigners who all plot and scheme against us because it’s all we’ve got left, really. In all of our hearts, we’re hoping for the return of Dick Cheney and puttin’ our boot in yer ass cos it’s the American way and all that.

We have nothing in common and you have nothing to offer me. We are as different as night and day and no kind of bridges can be built here. You might as well be aliens – aliens with a superior intelligence.