good article about canada-us relations - GoFuckYourself.com

MrPopup · 04-06-2003, 11:51 AM

******************************

Get ready for the full grovel
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...d=970599119419
RICHARD GWYN

It's hard to think of anything more irrelevant and time-wasting ? far worse, more toe-curlingly embarrassing ? than the motion on Canada-U.S. relations that the government will bring down next week.

After the usual paeans about multilateralism, the motion will express the hope that the U.S. "accomplishes its mission (in Iraq) as quickly as possible" and declare that "unbreakable bonds of values, family, friendship and mutual respect" characterize Canada-U.S. relations.

In diplomatic circles, that's known as the full grovel.

It's the ineffectiveness of the grovel that concerns me here rather than its abjectness. The Chrétien government appears to have realized belatedly that it's poor business practice for a merchant to pick a quarrel with his most important customer.

There's the obvious ineffectiveness of coming out with this kind of statement when the U.S. appears to be on the verge of military victory rather than at the war's start, when any sympathetic words would have evoked responsive smiles in Washington.

If our timing is terrible, our public relations are pathetic. It was not our failure to provide any (non-existent) military support that offended Americans, but the self-indulgent criticisms of the U.S. by such as Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal and backbench Liberal MPs. Far more offensive, still, was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's failure to crack down on these verbal idiocies.

The motion's true ineffectiveness is that it puts off till another day our dealing with the core issue in Canada-U.S. relations. This is, that the U.S. is now Rome, a global empire, not just dominant but almost omnipotent.

(National Post columnist Andrew Coyne argued recently that the U.S. isn't an empire because, unlike empires from Britain's back to Rome's, it does not have legions and proconsuls patrolling its colonies. Coyne should spend more time looking at television and at his laptop. Thanks to technology, and also to its cultural, financial and economic weaponry ? never mind its long-distance military capability ? Washington can control its global empire from Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley).

Wishing that the U.S. were not now a global empire won't change the fact that it is so. We're going to have to come to terms with this, figure out how to accommodate it and also how to exploit it and capitalize on it.

To this task, Chrétien is irrelevant. So is the entire governmental apparatus in Ottawa. Thus, Paul Martin, the almost certain successor, has so far uttered only platitudes.

We're in a box and we need to think outside the box. Maybe we need the equivalent of the B and B Commission of the mid-1960s, out of which came bilingualism, or of the (Donald) Macdonald Commission of the mid-1980s, out of which came Canada-U.S. free trade.

I can at least suggest two aids to fresh thinking. One is a forthcoming book, While Canada Slept; How We Lost Our Place In The World by Andrew Cohen, a former journalist who is now a professor at Carleton University.

I've read only the advance blurb. But it hits the right note: "We can remain mediocre in the world. We can accept the equivocal existence of small steps and narrow minds that the culture of decline is forcing on us. It isn't hard. We have only to do what we're doing now."

Just one example of our decline: We think of ourselves making our contribution to multilateralism as peacekeepers (rather than as warriors). In fact, as contributors to U.N. peacekeeping we now rank 39th, behind tiny Nepal and bankrupt Bangladesh.

The other useful catalyst for new thought is the article in last February's edition of the magazine Policy Options by Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian-born scholar now at Harvard.

Canada's great foreign policy challenge, writes Ignatieff, "is staying independent in an age of empire." This won't be easy because "We have too deep an inferiority complex to operate effectively in an empire. We have to be tougher."

Toughness will require us to significantly increase our military spending and, as critical, develop the will to use it for peacemaking in "failed states," as in Kosovo, and not just for "easy" peacekeeping.

We must continue to be multilateralists, Ignatieff argues. But we must become effective multilateralists, and earn the U.S.' respect by what we do rather than by what we preach. This will require, "moral authority, military capability and international assistance capability" ? the first of which we have a fair bit of but the last of which, like our military, we've cut to the bone.

No certain solutions exist. The single certainty is that we have to start thinking hard, starting by stopping the wishful thinking that prattling about "unbreakable bonds" will accomplish anything.

Fletch XXX · 04-06-2003, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrPopup

The motion's true ineffectiveness is that it puts off till another day our dealing with the core issue in Canada-U.S. relations. This is, that the U.S. is now Rome, a global empire, not just dominant but almost omnipotent.

just keep burning our flags.

it motivates us.

The article above basically points out the medicority of being a non existant, non-empire.

In a world of empires, you cant simply be peacemakers.

'Just one example of our decline: We think of ourselves making our contribution to multilateralism as peacekeepers (rather than as warriors). In fact, as contributors to U.N. peacekeeping we now rank 39th, behind tiny Nepal and bankrupt Bangladesh.'

Bangladesh above our closest ally?

Simon-interaid · 04-06-2003, 12:13 PM

We are your largest Energy provider.

STFU and bow down

MrPopup · 04-06-2003, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch XXX

Bangladesh above our closest ally?

just keep hating and stay in your little box.

Fletch XXX · 04-06-2003, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrPopup

just keep hating and stay in your little box.

why do you even think I hate canada?

ive only said I hate texas on this board. Box? im moved 2100 miles before I was 20.

In fact, ive said Canada rocks because of the marijuana laws.

You just let me being american get in the way of the facts.

As a Canadian you dont think being behind Bangladesh is insulting?

i would.

Seriously get off the Fletch Hates Canada shit, its old and dumb. I have nothing agasinst your commonwealth, just some of the hippies who inhabit it.

All that weed got you scared to fight.

I was simply agreeing with the Article YOU posted, and im the hater?

MrPopup · 04-06-2003, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch XXX

why do you even think I hate canada?

ive only said I hate texas on this board. Box? im moved 2100 miles before I was 20.

In fact, ive said Canada rocks because of the marijuana laws.

You just let me being american get in the way of the facts.

As a Canadian you dont think being behind Blangladesh is insluting?

i would.

Seriously get off the Fletch Hates Canada shit, its old and dumb. I have nothing agasinsdt your commonwealth, just some of the hippies who inhabit it.

All that weed got you scared to fight.

I was simply agreeing with the Article YOU posted, and im the hater?

Well i overeacted a bit.

But you and others like you always paint Canada as "insignificant" and its such a tired and uneducated act.

Its an arrogance that goes unmatched anywhere in the world. Now you've got 80% of a country puppeting this "every other country but AMERICA is insignificant" routine. Its pretty scary to anyone outside of your country.

The real danger in that is that once you remove the rest of the worlds desire to emulate America (which is happening worldwide as we speak), you'll lose the pop cultural appeal of your nation. Do you really want to be responsible for contributing to the death of the American dream? Thats whats happening now. If I was American I'd do anything I could to prevent this from taking place (here comes the LETS BRING DEMOCRACY TO IRAQ card right?).

Its the dream of those outside America that keeps America alive and fucking kicking. Immigrants come to your country, do the dirtywork, and then they themselves get a crack at the dream. Thats how it works and thats how the America that I love was built.

Its wrong to hate anybody. Unfortunately you have an entire administration saying the opposite, and its' infected the whole country.

You come off as someone who might be enlightened but all that peels away once the old jingoism claptrap starts up again.

Fletch XXX · 04-06-2003, 12:42 PM

the american dream?

all i want is to do is tear it down.

im against everything most americans stand for and follow. i refuse tv and radio. i have refused their sugar abnd caffeine. i have shown a discipline to exist solely based on my own philosophy and challenge all thats here.

i am still pissed about the small pox blankets these fucking americans gave my family members in the native american slaughter days.

my blood itself is anti american dream, since both the native side, and pagan side were slaughtered by the so called fathers of this land.

you again let me being 'american' get in the way of facts.

i want to burn hollywood down.

i just dont like hippies.

MrPopup · 04-06-2003, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch XXX
the american dream?

i want to burn hollywood down.

well now we do have a problem

its a shame your so bitter that your version of the american dream has been fed to you buy the elitist Adbusters rhetoric.

the american dream is about being able to make it against all obstacles. thats it. it isnt about a product or a skin color or a movie...its about success - personal, financial, emotional. america is the only place in the world dynamic enough to take the phrase "You cant do that" and turn it to "prove me wrong". i dont want this all to slip away...and it is...

still....im all for subverting the dominant paradigms. just not the ones that involve my goals...

Fletch XXX · 04-06-2003, 12:55 PM

its a shame your vision of the 'american dream' is been fed to you.

the american dream has become american idol.

the american dream is survivor.

i want to burn hollywood down.

you can run circles around it all you want, are you trying to have a conversation or piss?

we finally agree on something and you turn the corner.

hahah

MrPopup · 04-06-2003, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch XXX
its a shame your vision of the 'american dream' is been fed to you.

the american dream has become american idol.

the american dream is survivor.

i want to burn hollywood down.

you can run circles around it all you want, are you trying to have a conversation or piss?

we finally agree on something and you turn the corner.

hahah

no we didnt agree. adbusters is so five years ago. who's the hippie now?

Remember....

the american dream has become american idol to you.

the american dream is survivor to you.

Fletch XXX · 04-06-2003, 01:17 PM

Quote:

who's the hippie now?

classic response, you avoid and jab. Avoid and jab. avoid...

Quote:

Remember....

the american dream has become american idol to you.

and the countless zombies watching it, and rewinding it on their new 4 head VCR on sale, they are fueled by media and fear, not by an american dream.

you cant even go without a chemical they have fed you since birth and you claim to know what the american dream is? if you cannot live without sugar you are already a slave.

sure there is a fantasy of moving to the US and starting a family, and that dream will never die.

but it slowly fades as their mediocrity sets in as it always does.

in a soceity that kills its own over race, how can you say the american dream is even barely alive?

we come from totally different places. my family has inhabited the same area of New orleans and the surrounding areas since before the War of 1812 and the Battle of new orleans literally took place in my backyard.

My family fought for this 'american dream' you speak of.

In fact many of my family in the Battle of Chalmette and new orleans was fighting the british out of new orleans, were not even soldiers, no different than the Iraq people fighting today.

they fought for america, and the land where i literally grew up. 6 miles from the battleground.

my love for america is strong, its the zombies she creates that are the problem.

Quote:

the american dream is survivor to you.

do they show survivor on that state run tv station you get your propaganda?

anyway, time for weed and lunch.

maybe even a beer, fuck its Sunday.

uh oh, the corona virus is creeeping up me again... beer...

04-06-2003, 11:51 AM	#1
MrPopup Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: on the internet Posts: 3,783	good article about canada-us relations ****************************** Get ready for the full grovel http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...d=970599119419 RICHARD GWYN It's hard to think of anything more irrelevant and time-wasting ? far worse, more toe-curlingly embarrassing ? than the motion on Canada-U.S. relations that the government will bring down next week. After the usual paeans about multilateralism, the motion will express the hope that the U.S. "accomplishes its mission (in Iraq) as quickly as possible" and declare that "unbreakable bonds of values, family, friendship and mutual respect" characterize Canada-U.S. relations. In diplomatic circles, that's known as the full grovel. It's the ineffectiveness of the grovel that concerns me here rather than its abjectness. The Chrétien government appears to have realized belatedly that it's poor business practice for a merchant to pick a quarrel with his most important customer. There's the obvious ineffectiveness of coming out with this kind of statement when the U.S. appears to be on the verge of military victory rather than at the war's start, when any sympathetic words would have evoked responsive smiles in Washington. If our timing is terrible, our public relations are pathetic. It was not our failure to provide any (non-existent) military support that offended Americans, but the self-indulgent criticisms of the U.S. by such as Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal and backbench Liberal MPs. Far more offensive, still, was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's failure to crack down on these verbal idiocies. The motion's true ineffectiveness is that it puts off till another day our dealing with the core issue in Canada-U.S. relations. This is, that the U.S. is now Rome, a global empire, not just dominant but almost omnipotent. (National Post columnist Andrew Coyne argued recently that the U.S. isn't an empire because, unlike empires from Britain's back to Rome's, it does not have legions and proconsuls patrolling its colonies. Coyne should spend more time looking at television and at his laptop. Thanks to technology, and also to its cultural, financial and economic weaponry ? never mind its long-distance military capability ? Washington can control its global empire from Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley). Wishing that the U.S. were not now a global empire won't change the fact that it is so. We're going to have to come to terms with this, figure out how to accommodate it and also how to exploit it and capitalize on it. To this task, Chrétien is irrelevant. So is the entire governmental apparatus in Ottawa. Thus, Paul Martin, the almost certain successor, has so far uttered only platitudes. We're in a box and we need to think outside the box. Maybe we need the equivalent of the B and B Commission of the mid-1960s, out of which came bilingualism, or of the (Donald) Macdonald Commission of the mid-1980s, out of which came Canada-U.S. free trade. I can at least suggest two aids to fresh thinking. One is a forthcoming book, While Canada Slept; How We Lost Our Place In The World by Andrew Cohen, a former journalist who is now a professor at Carleton University. I've read only the advance blurb. But it hits the right note: "We can remain mediocre in the world. We can accept the equivocal existence of small steps and narrow minds that the culture of decline is forcing on us. It isn't hard. We have only to do what we're doing now." Just one example of our decline: We think of ourselves making our contribution to multilateralism as peacekeepers (rather than as warriors). In fact, as contributors to U.N. peacekeeping we now rank 39th, behind tiny Nepal and bankrupt Bangladesh. The other useful catalyst for new thought is the article in last February's edition of the magazine Policy Options by Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian-born scholar now at Harvard. Canada's great foreign policy challenge, writes Ignatieff, "is staying independent in an age of empire." This won't be easy because "We have too deep an inferiority complex to operate effectively in an empire. We have to be tougher." Toughness will require us to significantly increase our military spending and, as critical, develop the will to use it for peacemaking in "failed states," as in Kosovo, and not just for "easy" peacekeeping. We must continue to be multilateralists, Ignatieff argues. But we must become effective multilateralists, and earn the U.S.' respect by what we do rather than by what we preach. This will require, "moral authority, military capability and international assistance capability" ? the first of which we have a fair bit of but the last of which, like our military, we've cut to the bone. No certain solutions exist. The single certainty is that we have to start thinking hard, starting by stopping the wishful thinking that prattling about "unbreakable bonds" will accomplish anything. __________________ <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1" bgcolor="#008000"><tr><td><font size=3>Gone</font></td></tr></table>

04-06-2003, 12:42 PM	#7
Fletch XXX GFY HALL OF FAME DAMMIT!!! Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: that 504 Posts: 60,840	the american dream? all i want is to do is tear it down. im against everything most americans stand for and follow. i refuse tv and radio. i have refused their sugar abnd caffeine. i have shown a discipline to exist solely based on my own philosophy and challenge all thats here. i am still pissed about the small pox blankets these fucking americans gave my family members in the native american slaughter days. my blood itself is anti american dream, since both the native side, and pagan side were slaughtered by the so called fathers of this land. you again let me being 'american' get in the way of facts. i want to burn hollywood down. i just dont like hippies. __________________ Want an Android App for your tube, membership, or free site? Need banners or promo material? Hit us up (ICQ Fletch: 148841377) or email me fletchxxx at gmail.com - recent work - About me

04-06-2003, 12:55 PM	#9
Fletch XXX GFY HALL OF FAME DAMMIT!!! Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: that 504 Posts: 60,840	its a shame your vision of the 'american dream' is been fed to you. the american dream has become american idol. the american dream is survivor. i want to burn hollywood down. you can run circles around it all you want, are you trying to have a conversation or piss? we finally agree on something and you turn the corner. hahah __________________ Want an Android App for your tube, membership, or free site? Need banners or promo material? Hit us up (ICQ Fletch: 148841377) or email me fletchxxx at gmail.com - recent work - About me

04-06-2003, 12:13 PM	#3
Simon-interaid Confirmed User Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Vancouver Posts: 814	We are your largest Energy provider. STFU and bow down