Blame Canada: The rise
of state sponsored Anti-Canadianism.
By Will Cumberland
2001
“Damn Canadians, if they didn’t let in so many of those
foreigners, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I about spit my Labatt’s across the table, no matter, I had
plenty of Crown Royal left. What the
heck was this guy saying? Blame Canada?
For what, not putting up with our crap anymore?
Before I asked him why he hated Canada
so much (while we were ironically drinking Canadian whiskey), I tried another
approach, suggested to me by my old college roommate:
“Ok, so who’s the Prime Minister in Canada?”
I asked, baiting the conversation.
“What’s a Prime Minister?” He responded, while giving me a
blank stare and scratching his head.
Then he responded, “Sounds communist!”
For those of you that may not know, Jean Chrétien (at the
time of this writing) is the current PM of our great Northern neighbor. This isn’t uncommon that he didn’t have a
clue about Chrétien; most Americans don’t even know their own president. I didn’t believe this one until I actually
saw random street interviews on one of the late night TV shows (Leno). The purpose of the segment was to ask
Americans to identify the current president.
Of the people that they asked, about a quarter of the Americans asked
couldn’t identify the prez, and one of them that misidentified Bush was an
elementary school teacher.
Honestly, I didn’t even know Canada
existed until about the fifth grade of middle school. Pretty much all that I
knew about Canadians was that they liked maple leafs, brewed whiskey and played
hockey. That was it. I even remember asking my teacher what they did up there
for fun, since we were taught that it snowed a lot and knew they had to get
bored. She piped up that they were
socialist, plus for the most part and they lived in the woods. (Now what that
had to do with fun, I don’t even know. I
could only imagine random people in the woods, socializing, beating folks up
with sticks in the snow and getting drunk on whiskey. I don’t know, sounded good to me.)
The concept that an entire nation, with cities, existed up
there had eluded me until I got into high school. No joke, we really didn’t study Canada
until my fourteenth year while taking mandatory US History and Social Studies
classes. (For any Canadians reading
this, don’t worry, we didn’t learn too much about the Constitution in those
classes either.) Once again, the concept that they were flaming socialists was
repeated over and over again by our teacher. (See a trend here?) I really didn’t sit down and to think about
my own misperceptions of Canada
until my friend at the bar started cussing Canadians.
Suddenly, it dawned on me why he called them
Communists. In a good many American
minds, socialism is just as despised as communism. Can’t say that I blame them, I don’t like big
government either. However, both of
these attitudes are the result of our culture and our hidden love of
Neo-McCarthyism. When I worked in
banking for a major firm out of Charlotte,
even in the Corporate American sectors, Canada’s
policies on social welfare and corporate control are deemed heinous. (Heaven forbid an American company actually
offer its good’s and services at a fair price … that would ...well be, uh,
Un-American!)
I’m not a socialist, and for the most part, neither are most
Canadians. (Also, it may surprise some
readers that Canadian citizens are more politically active than the normal
American populace.) If anything, there
is a group of Canadians working to keep their gun rights, extend property
rights and establish a constitution similar to our own. So no, I don’t think that blindly labeling
most Canadians ‘communist’ helps out anyone, however both Clinton and Bush
supported laws that actually make America more socialistic than Canada.
It doesn’t shock me
that most public school kids here don’t know much about Canada
until they develop a love of hockey or sports.
Even then, their view of her is very limited to what they see on TV for
the most part (and…I won’t go there.)
The reason this comes as no surprise to me has to be the fact that I
didn’t know the real history of the United
States or the South, until I was well into
college and someone put a Howard Zinn book into my hands. Even though I don’t agree with Zinn on every
point, he raises various issues about American history that our public school
system fails to fathom.
(Sadly, it wasn’t until I was out of college that I began to
understand the depth of my own Native American heritage and its rich
history. Why this wasn’t covered as deeply
in college or grade school here in the States, one can only guess.)
As an old Grecian man once told me, the fish starts stinking
at the head, so it doesn’t surprise me that our educational leaders have
abandoned logic for fancy when it comes to history.
It’s easy to blame bad education for our ignorance of
history, ill equipped classrooms and under paid teachers, but the real source
of this new wave of distrust comes from our leaders. They’ve been carrying a big grudge since most
of the anti-war protestors hiked it up North back in the days of Nixon and
Johnson. It’s only natural that they are
using their political and cultural influences to hurt relations between out two
countries. It’s also obvious that
American companies are using their monetary clout to further damage Canada’s
ability to become an economic powerhouse.
Even from our home state of North
Carolina, Senator Jesse Helm’s sponsored a bill that
restricts Canadian businessmen and their families from entering the country at
the border. In response to the loss of
land experienced by the Cuban Revolution, Helms introduced a bill that allowed
Cuban Americans to sue foreign companies that bought their land after Fidel
took power. If you are sued under this
bill, you can’t enter the US. Ironically, some of the companies, and
executives, that are affected by the bill are from Canada.
Now, the ‘Drug Czar’ proposes more trade tariffs against
Canadian imports, if Canada
moves to legalize marijuana. I can't
fail to mention that we’ve already damaged their logging industries through
these tariffs and slowed down the entire Canadian economy. These tariffs left many Canadian forest
workers jobless and hurt our own mill industries in the States. (Of course, it didn’t hurt the big paper
firms’ profits. They are now getting
most of their timber from re-stripping the South East’s already desolated
wildernesses and also plundering more of the South America’s
rain forests for new sources.)
Now, if Canada had been sending special Royal Canadian
Mounted Police agents into the country (while working with corrupt American
agencies), for the sole purpose of stopping public sponsored legislation and
undermining democracy, you’d probably be ready to grab your musket and head up
North. That would make you mad wouldn’t
it?
Well that’s exactly what the DEA is currently doing in Canada. It's no secret that the feds spend way to
much time meddling in our private affairs here, but it should be a revelation
to people that our own government is actively using espionage to enforce our
out-dated sense of prohibition in Canada. They've done this using the same 'good ole
boy with a badge' technique (by making fellow cops believe that their goals are
our goals simply because they wear a badge) and by infiltrating Canada's
RCMP. Once that’s done, they begin to
ask factions within the Canadian police force to squelch civic debate over
legalization.
Sadly, neo-conservative globalist forces within the RCMP
have bought into this plan. Instead of
working for the people they are protecting, they are contracting out for the US. They are essentially working for foreign
government acting against the will of the Canadian people. Don't we call that treason here? (Most
Canadians support legalization for medical purposes, so why are our
governmental agencies trying to deceitfully influence policies there?) * Poll
Survey, Robert Cowan*
This is wrong, un-democratic, despotic and downright
silly.
If anything, our agencies should be worried about domestic
issues and catching 'terrorists'. The
DEA has had no reason to become involved in Canadian politics, nor (and this is
my personal belief) does the DEA need to pay for informants or spies on
Canadian soil. (They do enough damage
here without getting another country involved.)
The only way the DEA can get the American people to back
this illegal and secret police force is by swaying the American public opinion
about Canada. Our nation's intelligence agencies and old
European families are extremely skilled at infiltrating and overthrowing
governments, but I'm pretty sure most Canadians are wise to this by now (i.e. South
America). I predict that
stress between our two countries will escalate unless we the People (you
included) stand up for democracy and say something.
The Bush Administration is not separate from this new wave
of anti-Canadianism and has even sent a couple folks by the names of Mel and
Betty Sembler to Canada
to help bring 'assistance' to the prohibitionists' battle. This older couple will be heading up an
American sponsored organization to help re-criminalize medical marijuana in Canada. They both have a long history with the Bush
family. Mel, ironically, has served
overseas in Italy
for G. W. and Jeb even has a day set aside in Florida
for Betty (No joke). * www.pot-tv.net *
I would dare the wrath of the Almighty if I called these two
impartial to wishes of the Canadian or American people. In fact, they are going to do exactly what
the president and DEA want them to do; mettle in the affairs of another, albeit
partially, democratic country and do so in the name of 'freedom and democracy'.
Ironically, the same agency that is sponsoring illegal
activities of the espionage kind, is also heckling Canada
for the return of medical marijuana advocates that had to flee the US
for providing herb to the sick and dying.
One such case involves Renee Boje, an American activist who
was busted for her work with medical marijuana in California.
(By the way, California has
legalized herb for medical uses under prop 215.) What she did is not considered a crime in Canada,
and it's the author’s opinion that it shouldn't be a crime here either. Regardless of how you look at the situation
with Renee, I find it a little comical that DEA and policy makers such as
Robert Maginnis (who is also involved in the Religious Right as well as
domestic drug policy) are threatening Canada
with tariffs. They are threatening to
use these nasty national level extortions, unless they return people like Renee
to US soil and ease
off of medical marijuana legislation.
Now, isn't this a lot of trouble to go through for one dang
plant? What's the deal here?
The DEA is so serious about it that they tried to kidnap one
guy to bring him back to the US. His crime: using herb for his pain and
cancer, with ‘felony’ charges relating to said purposes. Are our American tax dollars paying for this
state sponsored game of ‘pay back’? You
betcha! Is this American? Hell no it
isn’t, this is true Stalinist Communism.
Well, I hope that the Canadian government has the common
sense to keep Renee in Canada
where she is safe with her husband and child.
While the Canadians are at it, they need to look at what is the proper
discourse of action between the RCMP and DEA before it's too late.
America
is the first country to fight back when the UN and EU tries to mess with our
sovereignty, so shouldn’t we also in turn, respect Canada’s
right to make her own laws?
The point is most Canadians aren't evil pot smoking,
peace-loving hippies. Mostly, they are
just like you and me. (Minus the evil part.) If anything, they love freedom
with a ferocity that hasn't been seen here since ...err, 1776. They get up in the morning, put on their
pants just like you and I do (we wear the same brands by the way), plus they
speak the same language (yeah, I know, some speak French too). Does that mean we have to start believing
the same things and act like a politically correct global village? No it
doesn't and I’m not a Globalist, I’m a Constitutionalist. However, cultural diversity makes the world a
very interesting place to live.
Canada
is currently working its way towards a true democratic society, not a socialist
one. My point is, we share this land together and we should try to get along
with them because it's the right thing to do.
Plus, it's only proper that democracies respect each other. If we can’t
live in peace with other democracies, then how can we expect to live with
ourselves?
I, myself, am not impartial to the situation. My boss, my old college roommate and a good
deal of my friends are from Canada
or they still live there. I love
Canadian people as much as I love American ones. Besides, my nationality does not determine my
individuality, or my independent free thoughts.
I’ve served my country during times of war and also during times of
peace, so I speak from the heart on these issues. We need to quit messing in the affairs of
other countries that aren’t harming us, or our society. (Plus, God help them if they cut off my Crown
Royal supply and put additional tariffs on Canadian whiskey. Damn the man.)
Speaking of whiskey, back at the bar last night I tried
enlightening my friend to the whole Canadian / US
situation. Some people don't want to
listen, and he decided to hop into that category. In the normal, programmed fashion, he
robotically tells me: "Hey! It’s America
son, if you don't like our ways, love it or leave it!" He smirked, thinking that he had me over a
barrel, and soon went back to drinking.
It was at this point I winked at him and said, "I'm
Native American, if you want to get technical about it..."
He looked down at his drink and nodded, it had finally sunk
in. With that, I didn't utter another
word, but he understood exactly what I meant and we left it at that.
Will Cumberland
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DO NOT POST, THIS ARTICLE HAS NOT YET BEEN EDITED, NOR HAVE
SOURCE CREDITS BEEN ADDED. Thanks – C. A.
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Will’s views and opinions do not represent the AMFP’s
views. Will’s other columns appear at
freakinasheville.com and Jambase.com. If
you would like to contact Will, email him at willcumberland@yahoo.com or visit
his site http://www.oocities.org/willcumberland.
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