The Unravelling of America
August 10, 2020 11:48 AM Subscribe
As they stare into the mirror and perceive only the myth of their exceptionalism, Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country.Activist Anthropologist and Public Ruminator Wade Davis discusses the decline of the American Empire. But his former colleague at UBC Deanna Kreisel counters with her own attempted take-down of smug Canadian exceptionalism.
The Problem with the New American Exceptionalism, from all the way back in the ancient mists of 2012:
posted by Rhaomi at 12:22 PM on August 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
Deanna Kreisel's rebuttal rings true: Davis's "We all shop at Safeway" is so West Van privilege it hurts.
Never trust a country that can't even decide on a standard for screwdrivers.
posted by scruss at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2020 [22 favorites]
Never trust a country that can't even decide on a standard for screwdrivers.
posted by scruss at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2020 [22 favorites]
Eventually, the elections become electronic Kabuki.
creating the executive baka- roo.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 PM on August 10, 2020
creating the executive baka- roo.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 PM on August 10, 2020
Tell Deanna never to visit San Francisco! Oh I forgot she moved to the egalitarian stronghold of Mississippi.
posted by Max Power at 12:46 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Max Power at 12:46 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
Deanna Kreisel's rebuttal rings true: Davis's "We all shop at Safeway" is so West Van privilege it hurts.
QFT!
Never trust a country that can't even decide on a standard for screwdrivers.
You'd have to pry my colour-coded Robertson screwdrivers from my cold, dead hands.
posted by bcd at 12:49 PM on August 10, 2020 [20 favorites]
QFT!
Never trust a country that can't even decide on a standard for screwdrivers.
You'd have to pry my colour-coded Robertson screwdrivers from my cold, dead hands.
posted by bcd at 12:49 PM on August 10, 2020 [20 favorites]
I'm Canadian, and I sometimes wonder what would have happened had the pandemic occurred while Stephen Harper was prime minister. Would he have kept the border with the U.S. open? He spent ten years ignoring climate change, preferring to grow Alberta's economy; he might have ignored the pandemic as well.
I can't help but think that one reason why Canada has dealt with the pandemic relatively well (besides good old luck) is that the Conservative party is currently changing leaders, so they have been silent throughout. They'll have a new leader at the end of this month, and he'll start spewing the usual nonsense that Conservative leaders spew. And since much of the Canadian press is pro-Conservative, the party will have a platform. (I freely admit to a bias here.)
Also: Canada's case count is likely to go up when we open the schools up in September. Most provinces don't have a particularly well thought out plan for this. I'm pretty much planning on returning to a Phase 1 lifestyle in the fall.
I feel terrible for the majority of Americans that didn't vote for Trump and are busy doing the same sort of sensible things that most Canadians are doing (wearing a mask, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, and practicing physical distancing). It must be like being in some sort of horrible hostage situation. I have family and friends in the U.S., and I fear for them. Stay safe, everyone.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [80 favorites]
I can't help but think that one reason why Canada has dealt with the pandemic relatively well (besides good old luck) is that the Conservative party is currently changing leaders, so they have been silent throughout. They'll have a new leader at the end of this month, and he'll start spewing the usual nonsense that Conservative leaders spew. And since much of the Canadian press is pro-Conservative, the party will have a platform. (I freely admit to a bias here.)
Also: Canada's case count is likely to go up when we open the schools up in September. Most provinces don't have a particularly well thought out plan for this. I'm pretty much planning on returning to a Phase 1 lifestyle in the fall.
I feel terrible for the majority of Americans that didn't vote for Trump and are busy doing the same sort of sensible things that most Canadians are doing (wearing a mask, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, and practicing physical distancing). It must be like being in some sort of horrible hostage situation. I have family and friends in the U.S., and I fear for them. Stay safe, everyone.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [80 favorites]
The paragraphs about Canada felt out of place in this piece.
posted by shenkerism at 12:55 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by shenkerism at 12:55 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
I wonder whom he blames for the election of Doug Ford — a buffoon’s buffoon in the true Trumpian mold — to the premiership of Ontario in 2018?
Heh. Fair point. As an Ontario resident, I blame Ontarians.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:00 PM on August 10, 2020 [21 favorites]
Heh. Fair point. As an Ontario resident, I blame Ontarians.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:00 PM on August 10, 2020 [21 favorites]
Canada is probably not a perfect state, but then who is?
American Exceptionalism, on the other hand, has become a disease, rather than the aspiration and dream it once was.
One of the things Trump was right about during his 2015 campaign, in a wrong way, is that the US in many ways resembles a "third world" country more than the leader of the world. I remember taking a wrong turn in Houston and arriving in something much more like the favelas of Brazil than even the poorest areas in Paris. This was during the 90's, when Clinton was president. Trump blames the poor for their poverty (or more likely, for their skin color), but that doesn't take away the fact that parts of the US suffer from squalor one normally wouldn't expect in a wealthy country.
One of my friends was infected by the corona virus, and has quite severe late effects. She is a school teacher, and her employer has accepted that she will be on half time indefinitely. To compensate for the rest of the time she will have sick benefits. Her treatment is free, obviously. Since she is a low-income worker, her taxes are low, we tax the rich to provide for the poor.
We also have decent roads in every corner of our country, and great hospitals that are sought out by billionaires from less fortunate places.
Still, some people are very rich in this country and have huge estates and private planes.
Right now, we have a Social Democratic government and I can be as smug as ever. But if our former corrupt government had been in charge, we'd probably been like the UK. Still better than the US, but not at all safe.
posted by mumimor at 1:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [15 favorites]
American Exceptionalism, on the other hand, has become a disease, rather than the aspiration and dream it once was.
One of the things Trump was right about during his 2015 campaign, in a wrong way, is that the US in many ways resembles a "third world" country more than the leader of the world. I remember taking a wrong turn in Houston and arriving in something much more like the favelas of Brazil than even the poorest areas in Paris. This was during the 90's, when Clinton was president. Trump blames the poor for their poverty (or more likely, for their skin color), but that doesn't take away the fact that parts of the US suffer from squalor one normally wouldn't expect in a wealthy country.
One of my friends was infected by the corona virus, and has quite severe late effects. She is a school teacher, and her employer has accepted that she will be on half time indefinitely. To compensate for the rest of the time she will have sick benefits. Her treatment is free, obviously. Since she is a low-income worker, her taxes are low, we tax the rich to provide for the poor.
We also have decent roads in every corner of our country, and great hospitals that are sought out by billionaires from less fortunate places.
Still, some people are very rich in this country and have huge estates and private planes.
Right now, we have a Social Democratic government and I can be as smug as ever. But if our former corrupt government had been in charge, we'd probably been like the UK. Still better than the US, but not at all safe.
posted by mumimor at 1:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [15 favorites]
I'll give Kreisel this: it's not easy to find someone who hates living in Vancouver, and less easy yet to find someone happier living in Mississippi. To be fair, she had to escape all that Canadian gun violence, crime, prejudice and poverty.
posted by Italian Radio at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
posted by Italian Radio at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
I wonder whom he blames for the election of Doug Ford — a buffoon’s buffoon in the true Trumpian mold — to the premiership of Ontario in 2018?
I certainly blame Ontarians, but Ford was unexpectedly lucky - he became leader of the Progressive Conservatives (under questionable circumstances) just before the election.
For better or worse, the voters of Ontario were fed up with the Liberals, who had been in power for eons. The situation was so dire for them that virtually anybody could have won the election as leader of the PC party.
Ford was an unknown quantity in most of Ontario, and many parts of the province tend to vote PC reflexively by default. We in Toronto tried our best to jump up and down, yell and scream, and warn everybody as loudly as we could, but to no avail.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 1:06 PM on August 10, 2020 [12 favorites]
I certainly blame Ontarians, but Ford was unexpectedly lucky - he became leader of the Progressive Conservatives (under questionable circumstances) just before the election.
For better or worse, the voters of Ontario were fed up with the Liberals, who had been in power for eons. The situation was so dire for them that virtually anybody could have won the election as leader of the PC party.
Ford was an unknown quantity in most of Ontario, and many parts of the province tend to vote PC reflexively by default. We in Toronto tried our best to jump up and down, yell and scream, and warn everybody as loudly as we could, but to no avail.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 1:06 PM on August 10, 2020 [12 favorites]
Kriesel’s takedown is pretty thorough and cogent, Max, and deserves better than to be simply brushed off based on the author’s residence: the sadism of modern capitalism has me stuck in fucking Texas, which I would rate slightly below Cocytus in terms of places I want to live (even moreso, now). For reasons of family or employer (clearly the latter in Kriesel’s case, and my own) we don’t all get to pick where we live, and based on her expressed political views if she left Vancouver for Mississippi then it probably wasn’t because she considered it an upgrade either in real terms or her political proximity to the median voter.
Italian Radio: she’s pretty clear that she loves Vancouver but thinks it’s overpriced and not statistically better than most major US metros, and she provides a lot of solid documentation to that effect. The claim that she prefers Mississippi is wholly your invention, not something borne out anywhere in the text.
I get it: we all hate what America has become, or what we have become aware of it always having been, but Davis’ piece was both intellectually lazy and shockingly disingenuous, and piling on someone for rightly calling it out as such and providing copious statistics to prove her point doesn’t demonstrate our virtue, it demonstrates our own intellectual sloth. We can do better than this.
posted by Ryvar at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [42 favorites]
Italian Radio: she’s pretty clear that she loves Vancouver but thinks it’s overpriced and not statistically better than most major US metros, and she provides a lot of solid documentation to that effect. The claim that she prefers Mississippi is wholly your invention, not something borne out anywhere in the text.
I get it: we all hate what America has become, or what we have become aware of it always having been, but Davis’ piece was both intellectually lazy and shockingly disingenuous, and piling on someone for rightly calling it out as such and providing copious statistics to prove her point doesn’t demonstrate our virtue, it demonstrates our own intellectual sloth. We can do better than this.
posted by Ryvar at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [42 favorites]
This is a very white vs. white conversation, but I'll scooch my Latino ass in here for this: the only issue I'd take with Kreisel's rebuttal is the underlying implication that anti-Americanism is misplaced and mistaken, rather than richly earned by the USA itself.
My parents fled two different Latin American countries that were perennially experiencing CIA/School of the Americas-style "regime change" and US-supported dictatorships. They fled to Canada, while other branches of the family fled to the US, and some stayed behind. All of us suffered and struggled and survived in different but comparable ways.
From our not-fully-post-colonial perspective, it is entirely possible that both of these statements are true:
a) Canadian smugness is The Literal Worst
b) 'anti-Americanism' deserves as much sympathy as 'reverse racism'
posted by LMGM at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [70 favorites]
My parents fled two different Latin American countries that were perennially experiencing CIA/School of the Americas-style "regime change" and US-supported dictatorships. They fled to Canada, while other branches of the family fled to the US, and some stayed behind. All of us suffered and struggled and survived in different but comparable ways.
From our not-fully-post-colonial perspective, it is entirely possible that both of these statements are true:
a) Canadian smugness is The Literal Worst
b) 'anti-Americanism' deserves as much sympathy as 'reverse racism'
posted by LMGM at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [70 favorites]
I kinda nodded along when the original article came out, but I'm going to give this one to Kreisel.
There are salient differences between the US and Canada and Davis does a poor job of surfacing them and drawing causality with current issues.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
There are salient differences between the US and Canada and Davis does a poor job of surfacing them and drawing causality with current issues.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
c) …and both built their empires on stolen land.
posted by LMGM at 1:23 PM on August 10, 2020 [46 favorites]
posted by LMGM at 1:23 PM on August 10, 2020 [46 favorites]
I'll give Kreisel this: it's not easy to find someone who hates living in Vancouver, and less easy yet to find someone happier living in Mississippi.
It may have been meant as a rebuttal but it actually perfectly encapsulates American exceptionalism: all the bad parts of what happens good Americans are not responsible for - Trump, non-voters, the electoral college - it's their fault, not ours - we are the good ones. Even if it happens in America.
it’s overpriced and not statistically better than most major US metros, and she provides a lot of solid documentation to that effect.
She actually really doesn't. She conflates medians and averages across an entire metro, and uses that to make some point about inequality of Vancouver, which is exactly what hides the inequality present in a place like Mississippi, which is probably statistically worse than Vancouver, or at best about equal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:30 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
It may have been meant as a rebuttal but it actually perfectly encapsulates American exceptionalism: all the bad parts of what happens good Americans are not responsible for - Trump, non-voters, the electoral college - it's their fault, not ours - we are the good ones. Even if it happens in America.
it’s overpriced and not statistically better than most major US metros, and she provides a lot of solid documentation to that effect.
She actually really doesn't. She conflates medians and averages across an entire metro, and uses that to make some point about inequality of Vancouver, which is exactly what hides the inequality present in a place like Mississippi, which is probably statistically worse than Vancouver, or at best about equal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:30 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
This is not a indicator of a healthy macro economy.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=tYSp shows real GDP/capita allegedly doubled 1980-2020, yet the average wage is only up 30% after inflation (and housing, higher education, and health care easily eat that meager gain).
Since Carter left office we've had 8 years of Reaganism, 12 years of the Bushes, 16 years of Clinton-Obama (with just 4 of that with any control of the legislative branch), and, what, 30 years of Trump & Co since 2017.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:38 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=tYSp shows real GDP/capita allegedly doubled 1980-2020, yet the average wage is only up 30% after inflation (and housing, higher education, and health care easily eat that meager gain).
Since Carter left office we've had 8 years of Reaganism, 12 years of the Bushes, 16 years of Clinton-Obama (with just 4 of that with any control of the legislative branch), and, what, 30 years of Trump & Co since 2017.
Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country.We're also back to 19th century "Nation of Immigrants" levels of immigrant populations, https://jobmarketmonitor.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/capture-d_c3a9cran-2018-02-09-c3a0-08-19-47.png?w=1500&h=1132.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:38 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
I'm glad to have read Kreisel's shocking expose of Vancouver, a city so uniquely corrupt it is surely the only place on the planet where... (checks article for damning anecdote)... rich people would be vocally upset at a proposed increase in their property tax bills.
[note: she doesn't mention it, but despite the "near riot" of 100 rich people standing in a field and yelling -- I guess Trump isn't the only American who overstates riots -- the property tax increase passed and is now law.]
posted by Superilla at 1:48 PM on August 10, 2020 [22 favorites]
[note: she doesn't mention it, but despite the "near riot" of 100 rich people standing in a field and yelling -- I guess Trump isn't the only American who overstates riots -- the property tax increase passed and is now law.]
posted by Superilla at 1:48 PM on August 10, 2020 [22 favorites]
And Canada Border Services Agency documents say seizure amounts of fentanyl from China have surged since three years ago, with 7.2 kilograms seized in 2014, that rising sharply to 58 kilograms in 2015, and 20.5 kilograms seized in the fiscal year of 2016-2017.
Also, LOL at the 'Vancouver model' of drug trading and border seizure. The article link is from 2017, but maybe by 2020 they'll have surpassed my body weight in border seizures of fentanyl. Chinese criminals are either amazing at drug trafficing, the Canadian Border Patrol is terrible at catching drugs, it's seriously overstated, or some 'underpants gnome' magic is occurring for it to be consequential for Vancouver real estate.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Also, LOL at the 'Vancouver model' of drug trading and border seizure. The article link is from 2017, but maybe by 2020 they'll have surpassed my body weight in border seizures of fentanyl. Chinese criminals are either amazing at drug trafficing, the Canadian Border Patrol is terrible at catching drugs, it's seriously overstated, or some 'underpants gnome' magic is occurring for it to be consequential for Vancouver real estate.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Also, LOL at the 'Vancouver model' of drug trading and border seizure. The article link is from 2017, but maybe by 2020 they'll have surpassed my body weight in border seizures of fentanyl. Chinese criminals are either amazing at drug trafficing, the Canadian Border Patrol is terrible at catching drugs, it's seriously overstated, or some 'underpants gnome' magic is occurring for it to be consequential for Vancouver real estate.
I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at but at a lethal dosage of 1000 micrograms (stat pulled from this Ohio harm reduction page), 20 kilos of fentanyl is enough to kill 20 million people.
posted by Hutch at 1:57 PM on August 10, 2020 [23 favorites]
I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at but at a lethal dosage of 1000 micrograms (stat pulled from this Ohio harm reduction page), 20 kilos of fentanyl is enough to kill 20 million people.
posted by Hutch at 1:57 PM on August 10, 2020 [23 favorites]
This is a very white vs. white conversation
Canada has the same collection of (usually) "Rational" And Very Serious White Men as America who write stuff like this while being largely unaware of how their own nationalist myths drive their views of the world.
More broadly - America hasn't dealt with its past at all, but as we approach the reckoning of climate change, it cuts deeper, all the way back - humanity has not reckoned with the dehumanization it has wrought on itself when it started doing agriculture, which led to civilization, social hierarchies, and later on, growth based economies. I was thinking about this while (briefly) reading comments on nextdoor about new homeless encampments that have popped up in Minneapolis this summer in the parks of wealthier neighborhoods, and while of course racist, one of the big entitlements white people feel they have is the right to not have to think about any of this, ever. That comes with paying property taxes, apparently.
posted by MillMan at 2:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
Canada has the same collection of (usually) "Rational" And Very Serious White Men as America who write stuff like this while being largely unaware of how their own nationalist myths drive their views of the world.
More broadly - America hasn't dealt with its past at all, but as we approach the reckoning of climate change, it cuts deeper, all the way back - humanity has not reckoned with the dehumanization it has wrought on itself when it started doing agriculture, which led to civilization, social hierarchies, and later on, growth based economies. I was thinking about this while (briefly) reading comments on nextdoor about new homeless encampments that have popped up in Minneapolis this summer in the parks of wealthier neighborhoods, and while of course racist, one of the big entitlements white people feel they have is the right to not have to think about any of this, ever. That comes with paying property taxes, apparently.
posted by MillMan at 2:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
Canadians, man, all over my FB arguing for certain candidates in the US electoral cycle, and I. Just. Cannot.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
In fairness, we know more about your candidates than we do about ours.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:05 PM on August 10, 2020 [29 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:05 PM on August 10, 2020 [29 favorites]
Canadians, man, all over my FB arguing for certain candidates in the US electoral cycle, and I. Just. Cannot.
For some Canadians (I hear), speaking down to Americans is delicious. It turns the table.
posted by No Robots at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
For some Canadians (I hear), speaking down to Americans is delicious. It turns the table.
posted by No Robots at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
I remember taking a wrong turn in Houston and arriving in something much more like the favelas of Brazil than even the poorest areas in Paris. This was during the 90's, when Clinton was president. Trump blames the poor for their poverty (or more likely, for their skin color), but that doesn't take away the fact that parts of the US suffer from squalor one normally wouldn't expect in a wealthy country.
I thought I knew poverty. I'd lived in subsidized housing, been on welfare, knew people who used food banks regularly. I'd seen substandard housing, housing with roaches, holes in the walls, crowded housing.
But then I traveled in northern Ontario and saw some of the housing on a reserve, and had my poor-but-urban-self duly shocked. We absolutely have deep poverty in Anglo/Franco-North America, and worst of all is that a lot of the people experiencing it are the rightful owners of this land. We settlers and immigrants owe them centuries of back-rent.
posted by jb at 2:16 PM on August 10, 2020 [63 favorites]
I thought I knew poverty. I'd lived in subsidized housing, been on welfare, knew people who used food banks regularly. I'd seen substandard housing, housing with roaches, holes in the walls, crowded housing.
But then I traveled in northern Ontario and saw some of the housing on a reserve, and had my poor-but-urban-self duly shocked. We absolutely have deep poverty in Anglo/Franco-North America, and worst of all is that a lot of the people experiencing it are the rightful owners of this land. We settlers and immigrants owe them centuries of back-rent.
posted by jb at 2:16 PM on August 10, 2020 [63 favorites]
Canadians are discussing your candidates because we're worryingly close to the situation. If the US goes any further to the right, I have fear for the sovereignty of my country.
Ford got elected because there's a reliable current of dip-shit conservatism but also because there was a barrage of YouTube and Facebook advertising against the Liberals in the run up to the election. A lot of it seemed to be paid for by entities that weren’t obviously part of the existing political ecosystem. There's also a sort of undertow of right-wing messaging that was going on in the US.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:29 PM on August 10, 2020 [17 favorites]
Ford got elected because there's a reliable current of dip-shit conservatism but also because there was a barrage of YouTube and Facebook advertising against the Liberals in the run up to the election. A lot of it seemed to be paid for by entities that weren’t obviously part of the existing political ecosystem. There's also a sort of undertow of right-wing messaging that was going on in the US.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:29 PM on August 10, 2020 [17 favorites]
'underpants gnome' magic is occurring for it to be consequential for Vancouver real estate.
The secret is a few tens of billions of dollars of capital flight from the ruling classes of China. It' not an accident that Meng Whanzhou owned several multi-million dollar mansions there prior to her arrest. The drugs, while consequential in terms of the death rates are not major components of the financial abuses the real estate boom in Vancouver enabled.
The issue of money laundering and capital sequestration resulting in foreign ownership is a long way from being solely responsible for the Vancouver housing problem, but it certainly makes an already bad situation worse.
posted by bonehead at 2:33 PM on August 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
The secret is a few tens of billions of dollars of capital flight from the ruling classes of China. It' not an accident that Meng Whanzhou owned several multi-million dollar mansions there prior to her arrest. The drugs, while consequential in terms of the death rates are not major components of the financial abuses the real estate boom in Vancouver enabled.
The issue of money laundering and capital sequestration resulting in foreign ownership is a long way from being solely responsible for the Vancouver housing problem, but it certainly makes an already bad situation worse.
posted by bonehead at 2:33 PM on August 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
It's astonishing that four paragraphs out of a lengthy essay about the United States are enough for someone else to write a long essay of their own excoriating Canadians for not knowing about the issues they have at home, and to have more sympathy for suffering Americans who didn't ask for this.
I actually agree with a lot of what Kriesel says. We often are too blinded by events down south to understand what happens north of the border; if there's any cliche that abounds in some online circles in Canada, it's the constant rejoinders to remember that Canada also does terrible things, has terrible people in it, has the same terrible inequities and injustices. Don't be too gleeful in criticizing the States, for we are not far removed ourselves.
And yet, bonobothegreat's point is essentially correct. What Kriesel misses out on is that she talks as if Canadians and Americans are equals. We're not, and we never have been. If America descends into chaos, if its people die en masse, if the election fails to be free and fair, if its government agents imprison its citizens without trial or offense, then it's not too far to imagine one of two things: an America so desperate, or an America so belligerent and full of itself, that it begins to think about how it can bully the rest of the world more overtly, possibly using military force. There is no military force in Canada that will stop an American invasion. Increasingly, I wonder whether it's possible to change this. And setting aside military conquest, there are all sorts of ways in which America can hurt us. Trump has already tried, most recently by arbitrarily reintroducing aluminum tariffs.
A broken United States is a threat to everyone around it. And as your closest neighbours, you should know that some of us are frightened--not just for you, but for ourselves as well.
posted by chrominance at 2:46 PM on August 10, 2020 [72 favorites]
I actually agree with a lot of what Kriesel says. We often are too blinded by events down south to understand what happens north of the border; if there's any cliche that abounds in some online circles in Canada, it's the constant rejoinders to remember that Canada also does terrible things, has terrible people in it, has the same terrible inequities and injustices. Don't be too gleeful in criticizing the States, for we are not far removed ourselves.
And yet, bonobothegreat's point is essentially correct. What Kriesel misses out on is that she talks as if Canadians and Americans are equals. We're not, and we never have been. If America descends into chaos, if its people die en masse, if the election fails to be free and fair, if its government agents imprison its citizens without trial or offense, then it's not too far to imagine one of two things: an America so desperate, or an America so belligerent and full of itself, that it begins to think about how it can bully the rest of the world more overtly, possibly using military force. There is no military force in Canada that will stop an American invasion. Increasingly, I wonder whether it's possible to change this. And setting aside military conquest, there are all sorts of ways in which America can hurt us. Trump has already tried, most recently by arbitrarily reintroducing aluminum tariffs.
A broken United States is a threat to everyone around it. And as your closest neighbours, you should know that some of us are frightened--not just for you, but for ourselves as well.
posted by chrominance at 2:46 PM on August 10, 2020 [72 favorites]
american exceptionalism may well be over, but the comparison to the spanish and british and other fallen empires has always been lazy. those were colonial mercantilist empires with small populations of full citizens, whose far flung colonies got independence. america even in its present state still has a massive domestic manufacturing and consumer and industrial base, not to mention thousands of nuclear weapons.
i agree it's collapsing, but whatever form that collapse will take is not going to look like what happened to spain or the UK.
posted by wibari at 2:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
i agree it's collapsing, but whatever form that collapse will take is not going to look like what happened to spain or the UK.
posted by wibari at 2:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
As a michagander, I take exception with this bickering! Besides we owe you aLOT of money. A good part of my family came from Western Canada but emigrated to Michigan, as the 1860 census tells. Had to renounce a monarch in them days.
For some Canadians (I hear), speaking down to Americans is delicious. It turns the table.
This is true. that's why we love be you. nothing more humbling to see a michagander who's talking horses, and bragging horses and it's mostly the Alberta folk that set them straight.
posted by clavdivs at 3:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
For some Canadians (I hear), speaking down to Americans is delicious. It turns the table.
This is true. that's why we love be you. nothing more humbling to see a michagander who's talking horses, and bragging horses and it's mostly the Alberta folk that set them straight.
posted by clavdivs at 3:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
The secret is a few tens of billions of dollars of capital flight from the ruling classes of China.
That's not a secret though. The 'ruling class' of any country is going to have lots of money, that kind of goes with the territory of 'ruling class'. Maybe they got their money via methods that are legal in the country they migrated to, maybe they didn't, but once they are there they are legal.
That doesn't imply 'money laundering' anymore than someone who takes their income from Canada to Mississippi (I would hope her work experience there got her a relatively higher salary - she doesn't complain about housing prices there) was involved in cross-border money laundering.
That's why lots of us complain about draconian immigration policies - money freely crosses borders but people can't. Maybe if it took 10 years to buy real estate instead of 'become a citizen (generalizing here)' then this wouldn't be an issue.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:25 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
That's not a secret though. The 'ruling class' of any country is going to have lots of money, that kind of goes with the territory of 'ruling class'. Maybe they got their money via methods that are legal in the country they migrated to, maybe they didn't, but once they are there they are legal.
That doesn't imply 'money laundering' anymore than someone who takes their income from Canada to Mississippi (I would hope her work experience there got her a relatively higher salary - she doesn't complain about housing prices there) was involved in cross-border money laundering.
That's why lots of us complain about draconian immigration policies - money freely crosses borders but people can't. Maybe if it took 10 years to buy real estate instead of 'become a citizen (generalizing here)' then this wouldn't be an issue.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:25 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've been telling people since before Trump's election that if he won I feared that would be the first in a series of actions which would eventually end with Russia and the U.S. invading Canada. Subsequent events have not calmed my anxiety. Prove me wrong, America!
Lest I come across as smug...millions of Ontarians voted for Doug Ford for essentially the same reasons millions of Americans voted for Trump.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Lest I come across as smug...millions of Ontarians voted for Doug Ford for essentially the same reasons millions of Americans voted for Trump.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
There was definite money-laundering in Vancouver. Whether or not clean-up efforts will be successful remains to be seen. And I do know people who moved from Vancouver to other parts of Canada for the reasons mentioned by Kreisel (expensive, dislike of the "cold" bourgeoisie, and so on). BUT I don't know anyone who wants to move to the US. Wade has a point: Canadians are more used to co-operative action than Americans. The way things are going, though, many Americans are trying to change that. Whether or not they manage, restoring American hegemony and prestige is another problem. That is worrisome. Basically, Canada would like to see the US successful, confident, and capable. Right now it isn't, and that is scary.
posted by CCBC at 3:47 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by CCBC at 3:47 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
I envy Canada. Free healthcare, a reputation for being nice people, laying claim to Rush and Kids In The Hall and my childhood crush Christine McGlade. Canada has it all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:59 PM on August 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:59 PM on August 10, 2020 [9 favorites]
millions of Ontarians voted for Doug Ford for essentially the same reasons millions of Americans voted for Trump.
Canadian conservatives have staked everything on mimicking American conservatives. Ergo, the best way to destroy Canadian conservatism is to assist in the destruction of American conservatism.
posted by No Robots at 5:11 PM on August 10, 2020 [17 favorites]
Canadian conservatives have staked everything on mimicking American conservatives. Ergo, the best way to destroy Canadian conservatism is to assist in the destruction of American conservatism.
posted by No Robots at 5:11 PM on August 10, 2020 [17 favorites]
re-reading Kriesel's rebuttal it reads more and more like she's just saying "you can't call me ugly! you're ugly!" which is simultaneously a facile, childish rebuttal and also completely true. Vancouver has got a lot of problems going on. The issue is that Canada has never been the global policeman, the global leader on anything of significance and no one will call the 20th century "The Canadian Century."
Canada has problems but it's not being judged on the same basis as the US.
posted by GuyZero at 5:23 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
Canada has problems but it's not being judged on the same basis as the US.
posted by GuyZero at 5:23 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
no one will call the 20th century "The Canadian Century."
Tru dat. But we're doubling down for the 21st.
posted by No Robots at 5:27 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
Tru dat. But we're doubling down for the 21st.
posted by No Robots at 5:27 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
The Vancouver Model (2 links).
China has controls on money leaving the country. People don't want to leave all their money in China. These people will transfer funds to a local account in China belonging to organized crime. They will travel to Canada where they receive a bag full of $20s roughly corresponding to what they deposited in China*. The bag full of $20s is the proceeds of crime, such as drug trafficking. They then take the bag to a casino where they cash it in for chips. They pass whatever background checks the casinos have as they are legitimately wealthy Chinese citizens who aren't in trouble with the law. They do a bit of gambling and then cash out the bulk of the chips. Now that the money is clean they can do what they want with it.
* I haven't seen an explanation outlining if the individuals pay some fee/cut to the criminals for getting the money out of China or if the criminals give the individuals some premium for cleaning their money or if they just keep things at par because both sides are benefiting out of the arrangement. Probably less bad blood all around if you just stick to the official exchange rate but I don't think that criminals or wealthy individuals (but I repeat myself) are known for leaving money on the table.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:34 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
China has controls on money leaving the country. People don't want to leave all their money in China. These people will transfer funds to a local account in China belonging to organized crime. They will travel to Canada where they receive a bag full of $20s roughly corresponding to what they deposited in China*. The bag full of $20s is the proceeds of crime, such as drug trafficking. They then take the bag to a casino where they cash it in for chips. They pass whatever background checks the casinos have as they are legitimately wealthy Chinese citizens who aren't in trouble with the law. They do a bit of gambling and then cash out the bulk of the chips. Now that the money is clean they can do what they want with it.
* I haven't seen an explanation outlining if the individuals pay some fee/cut to the criminals for getting the money out of China or if the criminals give the individuals some premium for cleaning their money or if they just keep things at par because both sides are benefiting out of the arrangement. Probably less bad blood all around if you just stick to the official exchange rate but I don't think that criminals or wealthy individuals (but I repeat myself) are known for leaving money on the table.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:34 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
I understand that one of the links is specifically about Canada, but let me remark how refreshing it is to see an OP about the U.S. lead to a discussion that is not centered on it.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:36 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Apocryphon at 5:36 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
I've never seen much anti-Americanism in Canadians (not more than anyone else anyway, including Americans). But there's always been a thread in the Canadian weave, of NOT-Americanism. As in Poirot being Belgian-not-French, or the Bryce Dallas Howard thing.
BTW Canadians, USians get really touched by it -like they actally sniffle- whenever I show them that thing from the hockey game. That was a classy move*.
*Even if (maybe especially if) it's due to a) the game won't start until the song is over, so let's get it over with and play some hockey dammit
b) the history buffs in the crowd remembering that the song comes from the War of 1812, aka That Time We Burned Down The White House, and having a smirk.
posted by bartleby at 5:49 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
BTW Canadians, USians get really touched by it -like they actally sniffle- whenever I show them that thing from the hockey game. That was a classy move*.
*Even if (maybe especially if) it's due to a) the game won't start until the song is over, so let's get it over with and play some hockey dammit
b) the history buffs in the crowd remembering that the song comes from the War of 1812, aka That Time We Burned Down The White House, and having a smirk.
posted by bartleby at 5:49 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
no one will call the 20th century "The Canadian Century."
Well except for Laurier but whatevs
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:07 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
Well except for Laurier but whatevs
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:07 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
The fact that Doug Ford is the premier of Ontario as we now know it was a total fluke. Ontario voters pushing tired Aunt Wynne out the door was taken for granted by everyone, even herself. A doorstop could have been shooed in by the Cons (even me, if I was their candidate). But the weird thing was that freaky Ontario Conservative leadership race where all kinds of crazy dubious shit transpired, and then the dude was just suddenly anointed? What happened there? It kinda reminds me of American politics.
posted by ovvl at 6:28 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 6:28 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not to mention that Doug was basically hidden away from the electorate as much as possible during the campaign so they wouldn’t have a chance to realize that he would be a worse choice for Premier than a doorstop.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Her description of Canadians as "cold" isn't fair. We're just very reserved - much more so than Americans, even more than English people. I've lived in the UK and in the UK (England) - and in public, Canadians are quieter and more reserved; we believe that the polite thing, especially in big cities, is to give everyone space by minding our own business. It's part of our culture.
posted by jb at 6:44 PM on August 10, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by jb at 6:44 PM on August 10, 2020 [18 favorites]
this of course leads to the joke:
"How do you get 25 unruly Canadians out of a pool?"
"Okay everyone - get out of the pool!'
posted by jb at 6:45 PM on August 10, 2020 [30 favorites]
"How do you get 25 unruly Canadians out of a pool?"
"Okay everyone - get out of the pool!'
posted by jb at 6:45 PM on August 10, 2020 [30 favorites]
What did the Canadian write in her diary?
"Dear Diary, Sorry to bother you..."
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:52 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
"Dear Diary, Sorry to bother you..."
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:52 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
>"The Canadian Century."
You know whose Century it turned out to be in the end?
Top 10 Economies
Of the major nations I see Germany, Japan, and Canada in the winners column of the 20th Century.
To find the USA, look to the right of that chart. For all I know we're dead man walking like the USSR in '90 and just don't know it yet.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [10 favorites]
You know whose Century it turned out to be in the end?
Top 10 Economies
Of the major nations I see Germany, Japan, and Canada in the winners column of the 20th Century.
To find the USA, look to the right of that chart. For all I know we're dead man walking like the USSR in '90 and just don't know it yet.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [10 favorites]
> Not to mention that Doug was basically hidden away from the electorate as much as possible during the campaign so they wouldn’t have a chance to realize that he would be a worse choice for Premier than a doorstop.
Also also the liberals realized that if Ford became premier, they could be back in 4 years, but if the NDP got in, the Liberals might become irrelevant. So they went on attack mode against the NDP and very likely helped Ford out quite a bit in doing so.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
Also also the liberals realized that if Ford became premier, they could be back in 4 years, but if the NDP got in, the Liberals might become irrelevant. So they went on attack mode against the NDP and very likely helped Ford out quite a bit in doing so.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:03 PM on August 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
Not to mention that Doug was basically hidden away from the electorate as much as possible during the campaign so they wouldn’t have a chance to realize that he would be a worse choice for Premier than a doorstop.
I’m not sure I’d go that far: he was visible but he had nothing of import to say. Early on he — or more likely, his handlers — realized that the one quality he had that might make him appealing to the electorate was that he was Not Kathleen Wynne. He rode everything on this, and the campaign staff must have realized that having him talk about anything of import (education, health care) merely reminded voters that he was a dim, easily-angered millionaire-by-inheritance, largely known as a hype man/enabler for his late brother. His political career is a long string of weirdly lightweight and childlike ideas, both municipally (Ferris wheel! Monorail!) and provincially (Buck-a-beer! “Open for Business” signs!).
I will give him his due credit, though: during the last federal election, the conservatives realized that every time Premier Flounder opened his mouth, Andrew Scheer’s poll numbers sagged, so the grey eminences took the unprecedented and astonishing step of telling the premier of Ontario to go play quietly in his roommates for five months, and he did. Then during the COVID-19 situation, he briefly engaged in Trumpian improv comedy at the press conferences (“Go on vacation! See the province!”) before he got wrangled into delivering basically sound advice to the province on the regular.
Say what you will about our premier — sure, he may not be intelligent or visionary or charismatic or politically adept or educated or engaged or intellectually curious or thoughtful or creative, but at least he is obedient.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:04 PM on August 10, 2020 [15 favorites]
I’m not sure I’d go that far: he was visible but he had nothing of import to say. Early on he — or more likely, his handlers — realized that the one quality he had that might make him appealing to the electorate was that he was Not Kathleen Wynne. He rode everything on this, and the campaign staff must have realized that having him talk about anything of import (education, health care) merely reminded voters that he was a dim, easily-angered millionaire-by-inheritance, largely known as a hype man/enabler for his late brother. His political career is a long string of weirdly lightweight and childlike ideas, both municipally (Ferris wheel! Monorail!) and provincially (Buck-a-beer! “Open for Business” signs!).
I will give him his due credit, though: during the last federal election, the conservatives realized that every time Premier Flounder opened his mouth, Andrew Scheer’s poll numbers sagged, so the grey eminences took the unprecedented and astonishing step of telling the premier of Ontario to go play quietly in his roommates for five months, and he did. Then during the COVID-19 situation, he briefly engaged in Trumpian improv comedy at the press conferences (“Go on vacation! See the province!”) before he got wrangled into delivering basically sound advice to the province on the regular.
Say what you will about our premier — sure, he may not be intelligent or visionary or charismatic or politically adept or educated or engaged or intellectually curious or thoughtful or creative, but at least he is obedient.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:04 PM on August 10, 2020 [15 favorites]
Yes, every nationalism is a system of comforting lies that citizens tell themselves. Granted. But Canada's and the US' systems of lies are different.
There's a reason that hyper-macho Canadian nationalists fetishize American symbolism to the degree that they do -- up to and including flying the Confederate battle flag from their trucks. It's because a certain type of asshole buys into a mythos of power -- and yes, exceptionalism -- that Canada's self-mythologies alone can't satisfy. Canada's stories are also bullshit (ask any indigenous person), but a different flavour of bullshit. To the extent that they're similar, it's by heritage from Europe and osmosis from the US. I'm even going to reify some of those bullshit mythologies below!
Kreisel makes two fairly irritating assertions: that the American people are not responsible for the behaviour of their current government and the Canadian people are; and that the effects of a universal phenomenon on one Canadian city are equivalent to a different local phenomenon in the US.
Vancouver did not chose to be a desirable international city, nor a target of capital flight in the global neoliberal order. The things that the people of British Columbia have had some power over -- relative safety,equality and economic stability -- make it a target for forces they have no control over. In most respects, Vancouver is like any other international city -- Seattle, San Francisco and New York come to mind. It might have been nice to highlight certain differences with those cities. You're 8 times more likely to get shot in Seattle than Vancouver, for example. Or the fact that for most people, "good (read: white) schools" aren't generally the primary factor when choosing a place to settle because our schools are funded at the provincial, rather than local, level (excepting reserve schools) so the geographic disparities in funding are much smaller. Or the fact that healthcare (imperfect though it is) is free. Those are choices that Canadians have made.
The US, on the other hand, is entirely responsible for its own handling of COVID and they fucked. It. Up. It would be comforting to blame the entire thing on Trump but that would be dishonest. She says:
Kreisel says:
For every argument Ward or Kreisel or I make, there are a thousand strong rebuttals. Ultimately, it's pointless. Canadians just mainly want to see America succeed and Americans want... well, I can't exactly make that out just now... Really, the main problem with Kreisel's piece is that it's just tu quoque.
Sorry. (Not sorry.)
posted by klanawa at 7:17 PM on August 10, 2020 [35 favorites]
There's a reason that hyper-macho Canadian nationalists fetishize American symbolism to the degree that they do -- up to and including flying the Confederate battle flag from their trucks. It's because a certain type of asshole buys into a mythos of power -- and yes, exceptionalism -- that Canada's self-mythologies alone can't satisfy. Canada's stories are also bullshit (ask any indigenous person), but a different flavour of bullshit. To the extent that they're similar, it's by heritage from Europe and osmosis from the US. I'm even going to reify some of those bullshit mythologies below!
Kreisel makes two fairly irritating assertions: that the American people are not responsible for the behaviour of their current government and the Canadian people are; and that the effects of a universal phenomenon on one Canadian city are equivalent to a different local phenomenon in the US.
Vancouver did not chose to be a desirable international city, nor a target of capital flight in the global neoliberal order. The things that the people of British Columbia have had some power over -- relative safety,equality and economic stability -- make it a target for forces they have no control over. In most respects, Vancouver is like any other international city -- Seattle, San Francisco and New York come to mind. It might have been nice to highlight certain differences with those cities. You're 8 times more likely to get shot in Seattle than Vancouver, for example. Or the fact that for most people, "good (read: white) schools" aren't generally the primary factor when choosing a place to settle because our schools are funded at the provincial, rather than local, level (excepting reserve schools) so the geographic disparities in funding are much smaller. Or the fact that healthcare (imperfect though it is) is free. Those are choices that Canadians have made.
The US, on the other hand, is entirely responsible for its own handling of COVID and they fucked. It. Up. It would be comforting to blame the entire thing on Trump but that would be dishonest. She says:
This one’s fun! Now the small minority of Americans who defy masking and stay-at-home orders balloon to include an entire people (that must be an anthropological term of art) who lack stoicism and fortitude.There are currently 250 thousand people maskless at a motorcycle gathering in South Dakota. That's a lot of people. Nobody's forcing them to do it. It's not a majority, but it's enough people that one can safely assume there's some cultural phenomenon at play. Who, more than bikers, symbolizes America's obsession with liberty, non-conformity and the freedom of the open road?
Kreisel says:
Is Mr. Davis not capable of differentiating a “nation” from its “buffoon of a president”?Well, an even smaller minority voted for Stephen Harper. In both instances, the political system guaranteed an undesirable outcome. In the Canadian instance, voters turfed Stephen Harper for the guy who'd promised to change that system. In BC we had no reason to think it was an entirely empty promise -- we'd made a few tentative motions towards prop rep already and our (DemSoc) government did immediately ban corporate and union donations. At the very least, Canadians showed a willingness to steer in the right direction rather than double down on the wrong one.
For every argument Ward or Kreisel or I make, there are a thousand strong rebuttals. Ultimately, it's pointless. Canadians just mainly want to see America succeed and Americans want... well, I can't exactly make that out just now... Really, the main problem with Kreisel's piece is that it's just tu quoque.
Sorry. (Not sorry.)
posted by klanawa at 7:17 PM on August 10, 2020 [35 favorites]
I feared that would be the first in a series of actions which would eventually end with Russia and the U.S. invading Canada.
Fresh water, rare metals, vast wheat fields, raw materials of all sorts, cheap and clean electricity on demand. I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:37 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
Fresh water, rare metals, vast wheat fields, raw materials of all sorts, cheap and clean electricity on demand. I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:37 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
Well we make a perfectly good vassal state as-is so that just seems like a lot of work to keep the status quo.
posted by GuyZero at 7:43 PM on August 10, 2020 [14 favorites]
Well we make a perfectly good vassal state as-is so that just seems like a lot of work to keep the status quo.
posted by GuyZero at 7:43 PM on August 10, 2020 [14 favorites]
Well except for Laurier but whatevs
“The 19th century has been the century of United States’ development… Let me tell you, my fellow countrymen, that all the signs point this way, that the 20th century shall be the century of Canada and of Canadian development. For the next 70 years, nay for the next 100 years, Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come."
yeah, well, we did fine, but I think ol' Laurier underestimated the American economic machine. And he thought Canada would be 60 million people before 2000, so, hm, no.
posted by GuyZero at 7:48 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
“The 19th century has been the century of United States’ development… Let me tell you, my fellow countrymen, that all the signs point this way, that the 20th century shall be the century of Canada and of Canadian development. For the next 70 years, nay for the next 100 years, Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come."
yeah, well, we did fine, but I think ol' Laurier underestimated the American economic machine. And he thought Canada would be 60 million people before 2000, so, hm, no.
posted by GuyZero at 7:48 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
In fairness, we know more about your candidates than we do about ours.
The extent of Americans knowledge of Canada --
Canadian: How many prime ministers can you name?
USAian: Uhhhhh ... Trudeau.
Canadian: Okay, that's two.
USAian: What?
posted by JackFlash at 8:17 PM on August 10, 2020 [51 favorites]
The extent of Americans knowledge of Canada --
Canadian: How many prime ministers can you name?
USAian: Uhhhhh ... Trudeau.
Canadian: Okay, that's two.
USAian: What?
posted by JackFlash at 8:17 PM on August 10, 2020 [51 favorites]
I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
Most of Canada's patriotic identity wrapped up in playing the role of the model exploitation colony so, even if we were annexed, it really wouldn't change a whole lot.
posted by Reyturner at 8:42 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
Most of Canada's patriotic identity wrapped up in playing the role of the model exploitation colony so, even if we were annexed, it really wouldn't change a whole lot.
posted by Reyturner at 8:42 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
Canada has it all.
That is Finland, I will be registering a copyright takedown notice.
I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:47 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
That is Finland, I will be registering a copyright takedown notice.
I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:47 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]
Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
But on the plus side it allows a backdoor into Asia over the Bering Strait into Kamchatka in case you need to disrupt someone's steady flow of 2 armies a turn in Australasia.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
But on the plus side it allows a backdoor into Asia over the Bering Strait into Kamchatka in case you need to disrupt someone's steady flow of 2 armies a turn in Australasia.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:54 PM on August 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
Ever heard of Puerto Rico? The US has a very thorough system of disenfranchisement ready for any occasion.
posted by benzenedream at 9:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
Ever heard of Puerto Rico? The US has a very thorough system of disenfranchisement ready for any occasion.
posted by benzenedream at 9:01 PM on August 10, 2020 [13 favorites]
Huh – I have an indirect professional connection to Kreisel, and went to a lunch with her once; I'm surprised to learn from this post that she's moved away.
It doesn't strike me that there's anything wrong with her main argumentative strategy. She's criticizing an essay that makes a bunch of tired, bogus claims about Americans as a people and Canadians as a people. In response, she questions the generalizations about Americans and also points out that the same (unfair) generalizations could be made about Canadians if one wished.
Her claim about both countries is the same: it's foolish making generalizations about people based on mere citizenship. Davis's smug anti-Americanism leads him to overlook the difference between Trump and a given individual American, just as his West Van sentimentality leads him to overlook the giant class difference between him and his Safeway clerk. (It's almost as if nationalism is a mug's game, and the workers of the world have more in common with each other than the bosses, politicians, and think-piece writers of their own countries...)
To be fair, she had to escape all that Canadian gun violence, crime, prejudice and poverty.
I live in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The fact that there's less gun violence means that it's safe enough to come explore how well we're doing on the other three.
posted by Beardman at 9:31 PM on August 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
It doesn't strike me that there's anything wrong with her main argumentative strategy. She's criticizing an essay that makes a bunch of tired, bogus claims about Americans as a people and Canadians as a people. In response, she questions the generalizations about Americans and also points out that the same (unfair) generalizations could be made about Canadians if one wished.
Her claim about both countries is the same: it's foolish making generalizations about people based on mere citizenship. Davis's smug anti-Americanism leads him to overlook the difference between Trump and a given individual American, just as his West Van sentimentality leads him to overlook the giant class difference between him and his Safeway clerk. (It's almost as if nationalism is a mug's game, and the workers of the world have more in common with each other than the bosses, politicians, and think-piece writers of their own countries...)
To be fair, she had to escape all that Canadian gun violence, crime, prejudice and poverty.
I live in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The fact that there's less gun violence means that it's safe enough to come explore how well we're doing on the other three.
posted by Beardman at 9:31 PM on August 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
It's striking how the lazy, go-to gag for American comedians discussing Canada is always to mock how polite Canadians are. Always seems more like a compliment than a burn to me....
posted by Paul Slade at 11:14 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 11:14 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
Calling Americans lazy is not very polite. You must be British.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:34 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:34 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
let's leave the British alone for a minute.
ok.
posted by clavdivs at 11:41 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
ok.
posted by clavdivs at 11:41 PM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
Calling Americans lazy is not very polite.
I didn't say Americans are lazy. I said this is a lazy gag - which it is.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:56 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
I didn't say Americans are lazy. I said this is a lazy gag - which it is.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:56 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
Her description of Canadians as "cold" isn't fair.
Well it is at a northerly latitude but I assume most of you have decent jackets.
posted by atoxyl at 12:06 AM on August 11, 2020 [5 favorites]
Well it is at a northerly latitude but I assume most of you have decent jackets.
posted by atoxyl at 12:06 AM on August 11, 2020 [5 favorites]
> The US, on the other hand, is entirely responsible for its own handling of COVID and they fucked. It. Up. It would be comforting to blame the entire thing on Trump but that would be dishonest.
Isn't this exactly the kind of broad brush that prompted Kriesel to write her article in the first place? "The U.S....is responsible," as if "the U.S." is a monolith, or singular mind calling the shots. If Obama had been president, or hell, even Biden, I think (but can't prove) that the covid response would've been very different, at least from the federal government. Not ultimately successful, of course, because our healthcare system sucks.
Right wingers are going to do the opposite of the good/right thing, of course, because owning the libs is the whole point. Not taking collective action on anything is the whole point. Stopping anything Democrats do is the whole point. Yes, these (largely) right-wing folks are in Sturges at the rally, and guess what? There's at least an order of magnitude more, tens of millions of folks, who are on board with whatever Trump and the Republicans do. There is a difference between the right wing in the U.S. that has successfully seized power by force and the left that is more or less powerless...but IMHO far outnumbers the MAGA folks by quite a bit.
Leftist voices are muffled in the U.S. So it's hard to hear that I'm part of the problem when the problem in this country can be boiled down to, basically, the Republican party, right wingers, FOX News, etc., who have a disproportionate amount of power and influence.
posted by zardoz at 12:56 AM on August 11, 2020 [10 favorites]
Isn't this exactly the kind of broad brush that prompted Kriesel to write her article in the first place? "The U.S....is responsible," as if "the U.S." is a monolith, or singular mind calling the shots. If Obama had been president, or hell, even Biden, I think (but can't prove) that the covid response would've been very different, at least from the federal government. Not ultimately successful, of course, because our healthcare system sucks.
Right wingers are going to do the opposite of the good/right thing, of course, because owning the libs is the whole point. Not taking collective action on anything is the whole point. Stopping anything Democrats do is the whole point. Yes, these (largely) right-wing folks are in Sturges at the rally, and guess what? There's at least an order of magnitude more, tens of millions of folks, who are on board with whatever Trump and the Republicans do. There is a difference between the right wing in the U.S. that has successfully seized power by force and the left that is more or less powerless...but IMHO far outnumbers the MAGA folks by quite a bit.
Leftist voices are muffled in the U.S. So it's hard to hear that I'm part of the problem when the problem in this country can be boiled down to, basically, the Republican party, right wingers, FOX News, etc., who have a disproportionate amount of power and influence.
posted by zardoz at 12:56 AM on August 11, 2020 [10 favorites]
Canada is held back by comparisons with the USA. Right now Canadians should be asking ourselves why in the current coronavirus crisis our health care system was outperformed by Mongolia's. Comparing ourselves to the USA only feeds our regrettable smugness. The unfavorable comparison between Canada and Mongolia prompts humility, and offers hope of improvement.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:57 AM on August 11, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:57 AM on August 11, 2020 [18 favorites]
So it's hard to hear that I'm part of the problem when the problem in this country can be boiled down to, basically, the Republican party
it does hurt. for example: "(Dr.) King told Nixon, “How deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the civil rights bill a reality”. King was also skeptical, telling a Nixon biographer, “If Richard Nixon is not sincere, he is the most dangerous man in America”
posted by clavdivs at 1:36 AM on August 11, 2020
it does hurt. for example: "(Dr.) King told Nixon, “How deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the civil rights bill a reality”. King was also skeptical, telling a Nixon biographer, “If Richard Nixon is not sincere, he is the most dangerous man in America”
posted by clavdivs at 1:36 AM on August 11, 2020
I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
We been successfully invaded more than once. 1534, 1610 and 1756 all brought occupiers who weren't repulsed and who are running the place now. The invasion of 1610 was particularly bad as there were no local survivors.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:45 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
We been successfully invaded more than once. 1534, 1610 and 1756 all brought occupiers who weren't repulsed and who are running the place now. The invasion of 1610 was particularly bad as there were no local survivors.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:45 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
As an American, I find Kreisel's rebuttal defensive and utterly predictable. She points our how many of the criticisms could apply to Canada as well - sometimes appropriately and sometimes not - but never actually addresses them. To add another generalization to the conversation, Americans have a hard time with criticism. While on any particular issue you will find thoughtful people if you look for them, on average the American response to criticism is to make excuses, because the core belief in the greatness if America is so deeply and widely held that there simply must be a reason to explain any shortcoming. America is too big (for transportation, broadband, electric cars), too diverse (for social programs), or just too different (for healthcare, banking regulations, whatever else you would like to excuse.) Yes, it is hard to hear you are part of the problem, but we are all responsible for our shared culture, and maybe learning how to accept criticism would be more useful than making excuses.
posted by Nothing at 5:01 AM on August 11, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by Nothing at 5:01 AM on August 11, 2020 [18 favorites]
> I'm surprised Canada hasn't already been invaded.
> Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
Canada would be annexed as a territory. This would grant it no legislative representation and no votes in national elections. Y'all would be dragged along by the US's status quo just like Guam is.
posted by at by at 5:18 AM on August 11, 2020
> Poison pill - 18 D vs. 2R senate seats, and ~10% added to US liberal/dem population, would not work out well for the US war guys.
Canada would be annexed as a territory. This would grant it no legislative representation and no votes in national elections. Y'all would be dragged along by the US's status quo just like Guam is.
posted by at by at 5:18 AM on August 11, 2020
Want to really enjoy yourself, and listen to theorising about how things in the USA could lead to civil war, rather than a slow decline? Have a listen to It Could Happen Here from Robert Evans of Behind The Bastards.
A lovely cheery series from April 2019, inspired by his research for an article titled 6 Reasons Why A New Civil War Is Possible And Terrifying on Cracked in 2016, but with lots of "oh, shit..." moments when it hits on a point that has happened in the last year.
Have a bonus interview with him from April about the relevance of this in the pandemic, and an article with quotes from him about the "boogaloo boys" (right wing accelerationist types).
posted by MattWPBS at 6:26 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
A lovely cheery series from April 2019, inspired by his research for an article titled 6 Reasons Why A New Civil War Is Possible And Terrifying on Cracked in 2016, but with lots of "oh, shit..." moments when it hits on a point that has happened in the last year.
Have a bonus interview with him from April about the relevance of this in the pandemic, and an article with quotes from him about the "boogaloo boys" (right wing accelerationist types).
posted by MattWPBS at 6:26 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
So it's hard to hear that I'm part of the problem when the problem in this country can be boiled down to, basically, the Republican party
But that's wrong. California has the most people under the poverty line in the US, it's the exact opposite model of housing that any other place could copy (worse than Canada - at least in Vancouver it's always specifically 'single family detached' they are comparing against - not housing in general). New York had more Covid-19 deaths than any other place in the US by far. Yeah, they got hit first in the US, but not first in the world. If NY was in-line with every other state for cases and deaths, then maybe that rally in Sturgis might not seem so crazy. I'm not saying that NY or CA have the worst problems in the US - don't get me wrong - but again, laying all the blame on Republicans is factually incorrect.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
But that's wrong. California has the most people under the poverty line in the US, it's the exact opposite model of housing that any other place could copy (worse than Canada - at least in Vancouver it's always specifically 'single family detached' they are comparing against - not housing in general). New York had more Covid-19 deaths than any other place in the US by far. Yeah, they got hit first in the US, but not first in the world. If NY was in-line with every other state for cases and deaths, then maybe that rally in Sturgis might not seem so crazy. I'm not saying that NY or CA have the worst problems in the US - don't get me wrong - but again, laying all the blame on Republicans is factually incorrect.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:45 AM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
Add "Californian Exceptionalism" to the list of insufferable American traits.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:02 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:02 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
When I posted a link to the Davis article in the Trump-Covid thread, I was hoping to spark a discussion on signs that the US was falling apart. And as The_Vegetables has now pointed out, it’s not necessarily one side or the other that is to blame. The country has failed. I live in San Francisco and there are loads of stupid people out maskless and partying down. It’s not just Sturgis. To see this thread which to my own eyes just reflects petty bickering about Canada vs everybody, just makes me more depressed. We have real serious problems, deadly in the real sense and also in the cultural sense. Real Estate in Vancouver is meaningless. Pointing the finger of blame isn’t going to fix things. We need serious discussion about what we can do to fix things. If they can ever be fixed, that is...
posted by njohnson23 at 8:19 AM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 8:19 AM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
I agree with njohnson23. While there are nits to pick about the Vancouver angle in the original article (as evinced by the response essay and nearly all of this thread), the alarming thing about it to me is simply seeing the sorts of ideas one would prior to this year only encounter on /r/collapse or niche blogs or semi-obscure academic texts printed in Rolling Stone and widely shared across social media. The idea that things could come apart, in this case specifically that the US might unravel in near future, has gone from taboo and reflexively mocked to uneasily mainstream very quickly. That in itself is a little disquieting.
posted by Lonnrot at 9:44 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by Lonnrot at 9:44 AM on August 11, 2020 [8 favorites]
Even in the unlikely event that the provinces get made into states someday... no way is P.E.I., to choose the most obvious example, getting statehood on its own. A more logical arrangement would be five new states: Ontario, Quebec, B.C., Prairie (Alberta + Saskatchewan + Manitoba) and Atlantic (New Brunswick + Nova Scotia + P.E.I. + Newfoundland and Labrador). Maybe Alberta on its own, because it could be relied on to deliver a majority of votes to the GOP.
posted by Epixonti at 9:53 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Epixonti at 9:53 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Quelques Québécois would probably have a few issues with that plan.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:20 AM on August 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:20 AM on August 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
Lots of folks in the other nine provinces, too, and the three territories. Unfortunately, what's kept the U.S. from grabbing this plum ripe for the picking is that Canada is still pretty useful in its current position, and what's kept Russia from grabbing it is the U.S. If they team up and agree to divide the spoils... well, if master negotiator Trump is in charge, I figure he'll walk away triumphantly with Pelee Island, while Putin will have to make do with the rest of the country.
posted by Epixonti at 10:59 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Epixonti at 10:59 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
But that's wrong. California has the most people under the poverty line in the US
I'm pretty sure it was the Republicans who passed the revenue-limiting property tax restrictions that hamstring the state government's options.
In NY, I'm pretty sure it was the Republicans who were preventing PPE from reaching hospitals in desperate need (somewhat vindictively I might add).
I'm not saying Dems are blameless, but Republican mismanagement and corruption runs deep.
posted by kokaku at 11:26 AM on August 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure it was the Republicans who passed the revenue-limiting property tax restrictions that hamstring the state government's options.
In NY, I'm pretty sure it was the Republicans who were preventing PPE from reaching hospitals in desperate need (somewhat vindictively I might add).
I'm not saying Dems are blameless, but Republican mismanagement and corruption runs deep.
posted by kokaku at 11:26 AM on August 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
The New America Universal speech, 2020.
"So, let us not be blind to our differences(unless self interest is threatened)-but let us also direct attention to our common interests (mine, then ours) and to the means (war,) by which those differences can be resolved. (war and the bomb) And if we cannot end now our (you) differences, at least we ( you, again) can help make the world safe for diversity (in a manner most befitting the dominant group and at slow pace). For, in the final (establishment) analysis (#I$), our most basic common ( western) link is that we all inhabit this small planet. (unequal) We (most) all breathe the same (polluted) air. We all cherish our children's (tulmutious) future.
And we are all mortal.(some more then others)"
forgive me Jack, for they (most) know not what to do
posted by clavdivs at 12:36 PM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
"So, let us not be blind to our differences(unless self interest is threatened)-but let us also direct attention to our common interests (mine, then ours) and to the means (war,) by which those differences can be resolved. (war and the bomb) And if we cannot end now our (you) differences, at least we ( you, again) can help make the world safe for diversity (in a manner most befitting the dominant group and at slow pace). For, in the final (establishment) analysis (#I$), our most basic common ( western) link is that we all inhabit this small planet. (unequal) We (most) all breathe the same (polluted) air. We all cherish our children's (tulmutious) future.
And we are all mortal.(some more then others)"
forgive me Jack, for they (most) know not what to do
posted by clavdivs at 12:36 PM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
We have had an overwhelming amount of discussion on what is wrong with America and what can be done about it on this site for the last 4 years at least. Nothing in Davis' article is new to us so we may as well engage with Kreisel's rebuttal so that us Canadian MeFites can look at some of the blindspots we might have with respect to our own country.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:35 PM on August 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:35 PM on August 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
So it's hard to hear that I'm part of the problem when the problem in this country can be boiled down to, basically, the Republican party
But that's wrong. California has the most people under the poverty line in the US
When I said the Republican party was the problem, I was speaking about politics in general, not necessarily about the covid response. Republicans (or more to the point right-wingers) are on the wrong side of history every single time.
And btw there are Republicans in CA and NY calling the shots; they're not completely blue states.
posted by zardoz at 2:08 PM on August 11, 2020
But that's wrong. California has the most people under the poverty line in the US
When I said the Republican party was the problem, I was speaking about politics in general, not necessarily about the covid response. Republicans (or more to the point right-wingers) are on the wrong side of history every single time.
And btw there are Republicans in CA and NY calling the shots; they're not completely blue states.
posted by zardoz at 2:08 PM on August 11, 2020
I get you, portmanteau. For those who have time for 20 minute YouTube video essays, I have one for Canadians to comment on. And for everyone else, it's quite a good explainer on some historical How Did Canada Happen and How Does It Work? ideas, at the macro level. It mentions America, but it's centered on the Canadian implications.
Canada's weird, Left-wing, anti-American, Nationalism.
posted by bartleby at 2:17 PM on August 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
Canada's weird, Left-wing, anti-American, Nationalism.
posted by bartleby at 2:17 PM on August 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
California has 10 million more people in it than any other state - it'll have the highest number of people who [fill in the blank] on any number of categories.
posted by LionIndex at 2:39 PM on August 11, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 2:39 PM on August 11, 2020 [5 favorites]
The rise of white supremacist and fascist movements in Canada would probably be a better discussion then than the rather vague conversation about "politeness," "smugness" and "anti-Americanism." There are problems with Davis' piece and Kreisel has some good points but the entire framing of this discussion is fundamentally a derail away from more significant issues indicated by both essays but not really examined in detail by either. I find both pieces strange because they allude to systemic dysfunction but are presented more as a pair of op-eds with opposite takes on mannerisms and approached as such by most of the commenters. Canada faces many of the same issues the US is currently being torn apart by, and domestic instability in the latter certainly affects the former. The Canadian thread in Davis' piece is to contrast with the US by demonstrating a stronger system of social support - Kreisel's response challenges that by highlighting socioeconomic inequality in Vancouver, but I would say it doesn't go far enough. How well and how far does the support extend to poor Canadians, First Nations peoples or immigrants? Canada has a lot of blatant, extreme gaps in access to services that break down along embarrassingly clear racial lines.
Both pieces and the majority of responses get lost in inspecting micro-level situations (sometimes even hypotheticals) while ignoring the surrounding macro-level contexts. There are wider, deeper, more systemic levels of rot and near-term existential threats; Davis' piece alludes to these, but brings in specific examples that distract from them. This isn't really about either country's responses to Covid-19 but about the systemic decay that completely broke the US' response, the seeds of which are prominent enough in Canada that that level of dysfunction in future is a real possibility. That system of social support that Davis puts front and center is fragile. It has to be continually reinforced and defended from those who would dismantle it, who are always present. Kreisel's point seems to be that gentrification in Vancouver has greatly eroded it for ordinary people. Mine, I guess, is that expanding and strengthening systems of social support depends on reconciling with Canadian white supremacy - which overlaps with US white supremacy significantly - and defending against its spread. White supremacist attitudes are already fairly widespread in Canada and likely to be exacerbated by US instability, global instability, climate change and mass migration.
Do I have more confidence in Canada successfully navigating current and near future challenges without dissolving into authoritarianism than the US? Certainly, yes, the US is arguably already there. But the risks are there and some form of that is probably inevitable if things like poverty, inequality, gaps in accessing services and transitioning into the world to come are not peacefully resolved. Do I expect them to be? Kind of, not really.
posted by Lonnrot at 3:06 PM on August 11, 2020 [11 favorites]
Both pieces and the majority of responses get lost in inspecting micro-level situations (sometimes even hypotheticals) while ignoring the surrounding macro-level contexts. There are wider, deeper, more systemic levels of rot and near-term existential threats; Davis' piece alludes to these, but brings in specific examples that distract from them. This isn't really about either country's responses to Covid-19 but about the systemic decay that completely broke the US' response, the seeds of which are prominent enough in Canada that that level of dysfunction in future is a real possibility. That system of social support that Davis puts front and center is fragile. It has to be continually reinforced and defended from those who would dismantle it, who are always present. Kreisel's point seems to be that gentrification in Vancouver has greatly eroded it for ordinary people. Mine, I guess, is that expanding and strengthening systems of social support depends on reconciling with Canadian white supremacy - which overlaps with US white supremacy significantly - and defending against its spread. White supremacist attitudes are already fairly widespread in Canada and likely to be exacerbated by US instability, global instability, climate change and mass migration.
Do I have more confidence in Canada successfully navigating current and near future challenges without dissolving into authoritarianism than the US? Certainly, yes, the US is arguably already there. But the risks are there and some form of that is probably inevitable if things like poverty, inequality, gaps in accessing services and transitioning into the world to come are not peacefully resolved. Do I expect them to be? Kind of, not really.
posted by Lonnrot at 3:06 PM on August 11, 2020 [11 favorites]
Can Canada save the US? Well...
posted by CCBC at 4:51 PM on August 11, 2020
See, the way I look at it, your problem is that Joe Yank is the biggest kid on the block. Now I know you're pretty friendly with him -- him being your cousin and all -- but someday he's going to say, "Johnny Canuck, my boot is dirty. Lick it."from "Cape Breton Is The Thought Control Center of Canada", Ray Smith
Now then, are you going to get down on your hands and knees and lick or are you going to say, "Suck ice, Joe Yank." Because if you do say, "Suck ice," he's going to kick you in the nuts. And either way you're going to lick those boots. It just depends on how you want to take it.
Of course, you can always kick him first.
posted by CCBC at 4:51 PM on August 11, 2020
To see this thread which to my own eyes just reflects petty bickering about Canada vs everybody, just makes me more depressed. We have real serious problems, deadly in the real sense and also in the cultural sense. Real Estate in Vancouver is meaningless.
Sorry, but is it really so terrible if an exchange between two UBC professors that treats Canada as a foil leads to a thread that's partly about Canada?
As for the idea of real estate in Vancouver being a "meaningless" distraction... I just... Americans have no idea how brutal things are here. Not brutal in the sense of "wow the rent sucks," but in the sense of true brutality: devastating poverty, cops chasing tent cities from park to park, an overdose epidemic that's worse and worse, and it's all intimately connected to the developer takeover of the city. Davis's piece is about "the great unravelling," but it'd be hard to find a more unravelled place than my part of Vancouver. The apocalypse got here a long time ago.
posted by Beardman at 5:06 PM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Sorry, but is it really so terrible if an exchange between two UBC professors that treats Canada as a foil leads to a thread that's partly about Canada?
As for the idea of real estate in Vancouver being a "meaningless" distraction... I just... Americans have no idea how brutal things are here. Not brutal in the sense of "wow the rent sucks," but in the sense of true brutality: devastating poverty, cops chasing tent cities from park to park, an overdose epidemic that's worse and worse, and it's all intimately connected to the developer takeover of the city. Davis's piece is about "the great unravelling," but it'd be hard to find a more unravelled place than my part of Vancouver. The apocalypse got here a long time ago.
posted by Beardman at 5:06 PM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
the lazy, go-to gag for American comedians discussing Canada is always to mock how polite Canadians are
I don't know if this was directed at me but There's a difference between mockery and affectionate teasing
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:17 PM on August 11, 2020
I don't know if this was directed at me but There's a difference between mockery and affectionate teasing
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:17 PM on August 11, 2020
As for the idea of real estate in Vancouver being a "meaningless" distraction... I just... Americans have no idea how brutal things are here. Not brutal in the sense of "wow the rent sucks," but in the sense of true brutality: devastating poverty, cops chasing tent cities from park to park, an overdose epidemic that's worse and worse, and it's all intimately connected to the developer takeover of the city. Davis's piece is about "the great unravelling," but it'd be hard to find a more unravelled place than my part of Vancouver. The apocalypse got here a long time ago.
I was at E Hastings & Main after dark last year and I totally agree that the conditions are -- as you say -- brutal, and 100% need to be improved, and it is a shame that they exist in Canada, or in any so-called developed country. But I also think a lot of Americans would be surprised at what the brutal conditions in Vancouver are like.
Because Vancouver has the lowest homelessness of any major metro area on the Pacific coast. For example, metro Portland is almost exactly the same size as metro Vancouver, but has almost 6,000 people experiencing homelesness where Vancouver has about 3,600. Half of the homeless in Portland are unsheltered, where it's a little over 25% in Vancouver. If the Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego metros managed to get 80,000 people out of homelessness between them, they'd still have a higher overall homelessness rate than Vancouver.
Vancouver's overdose per capita rate is 3/4 that of the US national rate. And yes, about 14% of Vancouver residents are below the poverty line, where it's closer to 12.5% in US metros. But the US poverty rate is about $13,000 for a single person and $26,000 for a family of four (USD before taxes), while the Canadian poverty rate is $21,000 for a single person and $40,000 for a family of four (CAD after taxes) - plus free healthcare.
posted by Superilla at 9:35 PM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
I was at E Hastings & Main after dark last year and I totally agree that the conditions are -- as you say -- brutal, and 100% need to be improved, and it is a shame that they exist in Canada, or in any so-called developed country. But I also think a lot of Americans would be surprised at what the brutal conditions in Vancouver are like.
Because Vancouver has the lowest homelessness of any major metro area on the Pacific coast. For example, metro Portland is almost exactly the same size as metro Vancouver, but has almost 6,000 people experiencing homelesness where Vancouver has about 3,600. Half of the homeless in Portland are unsheltered, where it's a little over 25% in Vancouver. If the Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego metros managed to get 80,000 people out of homelessness between them, they'd still have a higher overall homelessness rate than Vancouver.
Vancouver's overdose per capita rate is 3/4 that of the US national rate. And yes, about 14% of Vancouver residents are below the poverty line, where it's closer to 12.5% in US metros. But the US poverty rate is about $13,000 for a single person and $26,000 for a family of four (USD before taxes), while the Canadian poverty rate is $21,000 for a single person and $40,000 for a family of four (CAD after taxes) - plus free healthcare.
posted by Superilla at 9:35 PM on August 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
There is also a difference between confusing general manners with being overly polite and the jackassery that many Americans feel free to practice in public. I say this as an American working for far too long in front-facing customer service.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 9:55 PM on August 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Ignorantsavage at 9:55 PM on August 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
There is also a difference between confusing general manners with being overly polite and the jackassery that many Americans feel free to practice in public.
No argument here.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:02 PM on August 11, 2020
No argument here.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:02 PM on August 11, 2020
It's not just Canadians like Wade Davis who are horrified by the ongoing US failure on Covid-19. (Stephen Maher and David Frum provide very similar accounts.) A recent Associated Press story on the European reaction:
As Davis observes, failing to fight Covid-19 has damaged the reputation of the US, just as losing a major war would. I would go further: the US is something of an outlier among the Western democracies (relying on a deadlock-prone presidential system rather than a parliamentary system, lacking universal health care, and lacking gun control), but is nevertheless the most prominent and powerful Western democracy; and so its failure damages the reputation of the West as a whole. If Biden defeats Trump in the November election, that'll help, but the extraordinary levels of polarization in the US are a long-term problem.
With the ongoing extradition hearings over Meng Wanzhou, Vancouver feels a bit like Berlin or Vienna during the Cold War - it's a focal point for tensions between US and China.
posted by russilwvong at 10:59 PM on August 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.Conversely, the scale of the US failure has emboldened its rival China. Xinhua released a Lego-style video openly mocking the US.
Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at over 35,000.
But after a strict nationwide, 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.
“Don’t they care about their health?” a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. “They need to take our precautions. ... They need a real lockdown.”
As Davis observes, failing to fight Covid-19 has damaged the reputation of the US, just as losing a major war would. I would go further: the US is something of an outlier among the Western democracies (relying on a deadlock-prone presidential system rather than a parliamentary system, lacking universal health care, and lacking gun control), but is nevertheless the most prominent and powerful Western democracy; and so its failure damages the reputation of the West as a whole. If Biden defeats Trump in the November election, that'll help, but the extraordinary levels of polarization in the US are a long-term problem.
With the ongoing extradition hearings over Meng Wanzhou, Vancouver feels a bit like Berlin or Vienna during the Cold War - it's a focal point for tensions between US and China.
posted by russilwvong at 10:59 PM on August 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
For those who have time for 20 minute YouTube video essays, I have one for Canadians to comment on.
Just a note that the video is by JJ McCullough, who is frequently wrong, usually embarrassing, and whose shtick is debunking Canadian myths in a 'Don't feel bad WaPo readers, Canada *is* just as shitty a country as the USA' way rather than any sort of intelligent or constructive way.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:07 PM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
Just a note that the video is by JJ McCullough, who is frequently wrong, usually embarrassing, and whose shtick is debunking Canadian myths in a 'Don't feel bad WaPo readers, Canada *is* just as shitty a country as the USA' way rather than any sort of intelligent or constructive way.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:07 PM on August 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
"Mirror, mirror on the wall... who's the fairest of them all?"
[Aside: the dwarves had no names until 1912.]
Pogo: "Yep son, we have met the enemy, and he is us." All of us. Just try to count the dead kingdoms, empires, dynasties anywhere in the world. Just try, my little pretty, just try.
Those of my US ancestors who didn't arrive from Europe arrived from Canada. Born near the border, as a child I was ashamed at how Ontario treated the first nations. I can confirm it was no better on this side (where they were better hidden ... highway maps did not show the reservations).
Where is Snow White now?
Then there's Dorothy, singing about 'Somewhere, Over the Rainbow'. So she gets her wish, and instantly can't wait to get back home, and is forced to pay attention to The Man behind the curtain. Who's driven right out of the fright business.
Wherever there's stability and justice for all, there you'll find it. Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
posted by Twang at 11:13 PM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
[Aside: the dwarves had no names until 1912.]
Pogo: "Yep son, we have met the enemy, and he is us." All of us. Just try to count the dead kingdoms, empires, dynasties anywhere in the world. Just try, my little pretty, just try.
Those of my US ancestors who didn't arrive from Europe arrived from Canada. Born near the border, as a child I was ashamed at how Ontario treated the first nations. I can confirm it was no better on this side (where they were better hidden ... highway maps did not show the reservations).
Where is Snow White now?
Then there's Dorothy, singing about 'Somewhere, Over the Rainbow'. So she gets her wish, and instantly can't wait to get back home, and is forced to pay attention to The Man behind the curtain. Who's driven right out of the fright business.
Wherever there's stability and justice for all, there you'll find it. Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
posted by Twang at 11:13 PM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Saxon Kane: It wasn't directed at you or any other individual, but at the mass of unimaginative second-rate comedians who can't be bothered to think of anything more original or interesting to say. Maybe "mock" was too strong a word, though.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:38 AM on August 12, 2020
posted by Paul Slade at 5:38 AM on August 12, 2020
Just a note that the video is by JJ McCullough, who is frequently wrong, usually embarrassing, and whose shtick is debunking Canadian myths
He's also, to be generous, a very right leaning contrarian and has been very vocal in his unexamined support of former Conservative leader & Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the "buffoon’s buffoon in the true Trumpian mold" Doug Ford and other far right populists in Canada and abroad. So his comments deserve a fair bit of examination before being taken as anything beyond trolling.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:50 AM on August 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
He's also, to be generous, a very right leaning contrarian and has been very vocal in his unexamined support of former Conservative leader & Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the "buffoon’s buffoon in the true Trumpian mold" Doug Ford and other far right populists in Canada and abroad. So his comments deserve a fair bit of examination before being taken as anything beyond trolling.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:50 AM on August 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
Canada would be annexed as a territory. This would grant it no legislative representation and no votes in national elections. Y'all would be dragged along by the US's status quo just like Guam is.
Except much of Eastern Canada would immediately relocate the Southern US and for sure flip Florida to the democrats forever. Maybe some other places too. There is a reason we are massed on Canada's Southern border like shivering marathoners waiting for the starting gun.
posted by srboisvert at 8:54 AM on August 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Except much of Eastern Canada would immediately relocate the Southern US and for sure flip Florida to the democrats forever. Maybe some other places too. There is a reason we are massed on Canada's Southern border like shivering marathoners waiting for the starting gun.
posted by srboisvert at 8:54 AM on August 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
and so its failure damages the reputation of the West as a whole
I'm not sure about that. Since Brexit and Trump's election in 2016, the wider world has become increasingly aware of the differences within the so-called West.
posted by mumimor at 9:01 AM on August 12, 2020
I'm not sure about that. Since Brexit and Trump's election in 2016, the wider world has become increasingly aware of the differences within the so-called West.
posted by mumimor at 9:01 AM on August 12, 2020
the mass of unimaginative second-rate comedians who can't be bothered to think of anything more original or interesting to say
True dat.
I was affectionately teasing :)
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:14 AM on August 12, 2020
True dat.
I was affectionately teasing :)
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:14 AM on August 12, 2020
As well as inviting excuses, American exceptionalism also precludes openness to ideas of improvement.
posted by Marticus at 4:58 PM on August 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Marticus at 4:58 PM on August 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
The Canadian exceptionalism bit is fatuous but distracting from otherwise good points in the essay. Yes, it maybe exaggerated and a bit lazy, but certainly so is the rebuttal. Anyway, not not all, but enough...
posted by blue shadows at 11:07 PM on August 12, 2020
posted by blue shadows at 11:07 PM on August 12, 2020
As well as inviting excuses, American exceptionalism also precludes openness to ideas of improvement.
Garage band nation.
posted by clavdivs at 11:17 PM on August 12, 2020
Garage band nation.
posted by clavdivs at 11:17 PM on August 12, 2020
I once participated in a debate on the role of copyright in libraries.
During the debate, I knowingly exaggerated one point I thought would help my argument - saying something about copyright applied to all patrons including vision-impaired users who were actually exempt. I knew this but it turns out my opponent *also* knew this, threw it back at me, and went on to win the debate.
My point is there is a lot to argue with (and about as evidenced by this thread) in both the original article and the rebuttal.
But when I first read the original article, I couldn't get past his point about the endless number of unionized grocery store clerks he interacted with in Vancouver. Implying that Canadian retail grocery chains are some sort of socialist labour paradise is a pretty blatant exaggeration and honestly, it pretty much destroyed the credibility of his whole argument for me (though like any true Canadian, I also appreciate any smug "Aren't we better than Americans" article to help with our massive inferiority complex.)
posted by Jaybo at 4:17 PM on August 13, 2020
During the debate, I knowingly exaggerated one point I thought would help my argument - saying something about copyright applied to all patrons including vision-impaired users who were actually exempt. I knew this but it turns out my opponent *also* knew this, threw it back at me, and went on to win the debate.
My point is there is a lot to argue with (and about as evidenced by this thread) in both the original article and the rebuttal.
But when I first read the original article, I couldn't get past his point about the endless number of unionized grocery store clerks he interacted with in Vancouver. Implying that Canadian retail grocery chains are some sort of socialist labour paradise is a pretty blatant exaggeration and honestly, it pretty much destroyed the credibility of his whole argument for me (though like any true Canadian, I also appreciate any smug "Aren't we better than Americans" article to help with our massive inferiority complex.)
posted by Jaybo at 4:17 PM on August 13, 2020
the video is by JJ McCullough
Whoops. I was unaware of his existence before finding & posting the video. And that specific video at least, seemed to me like an impartial speed-run through the subject, akin to History of the Grand Canyon delivered by Barry Goldwater.
(Or is this how it starts? Have I been Algorithm'd? Am I doomed to a queue of PragerU and Ben Shapiro videos now?) Anyway, to spare anyone that fate, or that of adding any clickthroughs to an author they can't support...
I picked that video because it seemed to contextualize my statement about Canadian 'NOT-Americanism'.
The thesis being that once you have the US colonies that break away, and others that don't, on the North American Continent, you set up a division. Canadians are North Americans, but not THOSE Americans.
Going way back to the Durham Report on the Affairs of British North America, there's a recognition that in order for those colonial holdings to not get absorbed by the USA, they needed something to bond them together, and set them apart, from Those Other Guys.
You needed to create a Nationalism, for there to be a Canada.
But that's an unusual position for North Americans, since any kind of typical-elsewhere Rightwing/Fascist 'Blood and Soil', 'we've been here since before the Romans' Nationalism would be absurd.
So it has to be political, ideological, above all Conceptual; some kind of differentiator. And in the USA, Canada has a natural 'Them', against which to define what is meant when they say 'Us'.
For a period, says the video, the device used was Crown Loyalism. Canada was the good daughter, that stayed home and met a nice boy at church; again, in opposition to the rebellious, ungrateful USA, who ran off to the big city and got big hair and fake tits and herpes. But Canadian enthusiasm for being Part of the Empire waned even before the Empire did, then fizzled out completely with independence. So what's left?
Canada absolutely has a Regional identity; several in fact. But can you make a Nationalism out of that?
Because it's really hard to start a Culture War between these two North American entities; so much is the same. How are you going to leverage hockey and all-dressed chips into a war against basketball and BBQ flavor?
Yes, Canadians are Not-Americans; but the fact that a squabble about 'who has the better bagels, Montreal or NYC?' even exists, contains SO MANY underlying signifiers of shared history and values, means you're never going to get that far. There are Totally USA Things and Really Canadian Things we can squabble over or mock: but there's far more North American stuff we have in common. So again, what do you got? What's contemporary Canadian-ism?
A special kind of Anti-Americanism, goes the thesis. Not a 'Death to America!' anti-americanism. And not a rejection of the USA by adopting opposite values - 'let's all be gay atheist vegan communists'. But a 'we're NOT those guys, and we'll show everyone, by being better than them'. And when your population is already left-leaning, or at least inclined to liberalism, your definition of 'better' is going to be more liberal, more progressive, than The Other Guy.
So you end up with something that sounds paradoxical; Left-Wing Nationalism. 'We take care of each other because we're all Canadians, and we're all Canadians because we take care of each other'. As opposed to the USA's 'every man for themselves'.
Lacking truly fundamental differences, Canadian Superiority is achieved by looking across the border and saying 'Oh yah? I'll do ya one better, bud!'
Social Security, eh? How 'bout full national healthcare? Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
Oh, you say some of your states are maybe considering 'civil unions'? We should legalize gay marriage. Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
Say, how's that Prohibition 2: the War On Drugs working out for you, hm. Oh, we went for decriminalization and focused on treatment. Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
But that puts Canada in a tricky position if the USA is in decline; a lowering tide sinks all boats. If Canadian-ness relies in part on holding yourself to a higher standard than the USA, then as their standards lower, the gravitational pull is in danger of lowering yours, too. And it also introduces the jarring event of sometimes looking around and seeing that you're NOT always better, that Oh No, Vancouver's housing problems are exactly like San Francisco's! We're JUST LIKE THEM, yuck, how revolting! We were the Chosen Ones! We were supposed to bring balance to The Force, not leave it in darkness!
Anyway, that video was in lieu of this wall o'text. That there's American Exceptionalism, and North American Exceptionisalism, and Californian Exceptionalism, and yes, Canadian Exceptionalism. The biggest danger in all of these, besides becoming a smug nuisance to your friends and neighbors, is to take the Exceptionalism as a fait accompli, that it's done, we're Better Than, period, now and forever. Mission Accomplished.
No. Wrong. Backwards. You have to keep trying to be Exceptional.
Somebody above mentioned the 'shining city on a hill' speech / poem, which is a whole rant-post on its own. Because someone in the middle 20th century misinterpreted that sermon by 180 degrees, and it somehow stuck that way. It's not that America, or Canada, or North America, is placed upon a hill as a pedestal, to glorify a completed work of art and show off. It's that 'You built your house on top of a hill, with open windows and all the lights on; Everyone now can See You, all the time! You made a lot of big talk, then put yourself in the spotlight. That means the pressure's always going to be on, you're always On Stage, so you better Bring It. BE Exceptional, don't talk about how exceptional you once were, or hope to be again, or are in comparison to Those People.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Be excellent to each other.
posted by bartleby at 9:19 PM on August 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Whoops. I was unaware of his existence before finding & posting the video. And that specific video at least, seemed to me like an impartial speed-run through the subject, akin to History of the Grand Canyon delivered by Barry Goldwater.
(Or is this how it starts? Have I been Algorithm'd? Am I doomed to a queue of PragerU and Ben Shapiro videos now?) Anyway, to spare anyone that fate, or that of adding any clickthroughs to an author they can't support...
I picked that video because it seemed to contextualize my statement about Canadian 'NOT-Americanism'.
The thesis being that once you have the US colonies that break away, and others that don't, on the North American Continent, you set up a division. Canadians are North Americans, but not THOSE Americans.
Going way back to the Durham Report on the Affairs of British North America, there's a recognition that in order for those colonial holdings to not get absorbed by the USA, they needed something to bond them together, and set them apart, from Those Other Guys.
You needed to create a Nationalism, for there to be a Canada.
But that's an unusual position for North Americans, since any kind of typical-elsewhere Rightwing/Fascist 'Blood and Soil', 'we've been here since before the Romans' Nationalism would be absurd.
So it has to be political, ideological, above all Conceptual; some kind of differentiator. And in the USA, Canada has a natural 'Them', against which to define what is meant when they say 'Us'.
For a period, says the video, the device used was Crown Loyalism. Canada was the good daughter, that stayed home and met a nice boy at church; again, in opposition to the rebellious, ungrateful USA, who ran off to the big city and got big hair and fake tits and herpes. But Canadian enthusiasm for being Part of the Empire waned even before the Empire did, then fizzled out completely with independence. So what's left?
Canada absolutely has a Regional identity; several in fact. But can you make a Nationalism out of that?
Because it's really hard to start a Culture War between these two North American entities; so much is the same. How are you going to leverage hockey and all-dressed chips into a war against basketball and BBQ flavor?
Yes, Canadians are Not-Americans; but the fact that a squabble about 'who has the better bagels, Montreal or NYC?' even exists, contains SO MANY underlying signifiers of shared history and values, means you're never going to get that far. There are Totally USA Things and Really Canadian Things we can squabble over or mock: but there's far more North American stuff we have in common. So again, what do you got? What's contemporary Canadian-ism?
A special kind of Anti-Americanism, goes the thesis. Not a 'Death to America!' anti-americanism. And not a rejection of the USA by adopting opposite values - 'let's all be gay atheist vegan communists'. But a 'we're NOT those guys, and we'll show everyone, by being better than them'. And when your population is already left-leaning, or at least inclined to liberalism, your definition of 'better' is going to be more liberal, more progressive, than The Other Guy.
So you end up with something that sounds paradoxical; Left-Wing Nationalism. 'We take care of each other because we're all Canadians, and we're all Canadians because we take care of each other'. As opposed to the USA's 'every man for themselves'.
Lacking truly fundamental differences, Canadian Superiority is achieved by looking across the border and saying 'Oh yah? I'll do ya one better, bud!'
Social Security, eh? How 'bout full national healthcare? Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
Oh, you say some of your states are maybe considering 'civil unions'? We should legalize gay marriage. Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
Say, how's that Prohibition 2: the War On Drugs working out for you, hm. Oh, we went for decriminalization and focused on treatment. Anything less would be Un-Canadian.
But that puts Canada in a tricky position if the USA is in decline; a lowering tide sinks all boats. If Canadian-ness relies in part on holding yourself to a higher standard than the USA, then as their standards lower, the gravitational pull is in danger of lowering yours, too. And it also introduces the jarring event of sometimes looking around and seeing that you're NOT always better, that Oh No, Vancouver's housing problems are exactly like San Francisco's! We're JUST LIKE THEM, yuck, how revolting! We were the Chosen Ones! We were supposed to bring balance to The Force, not leave it in darkness!
Anyway, that video was in lieu of this wall o'text. That there's American Exceptionalism, and North American Exceptionisalism, and Californian Exceptionalism, and yes, Canadian Exceptionalism. The biggest danger in all of these, besides becoming a smug nuisance to your friends and neighbors, is to take the Exceptionalism as a fait accompli, that it's done, we're Better Than, period, now and forever. Mission Accomplished.
No. Wrong. Backwards. You have to keep trying to be Exceptional.
Somebody above mentioned the 'shining city on a hill' speech / poem, which is a whole rant-post on its own. Because someone in the middle 20th century misinterpreted that sermon by 180 degrees, and it somehow stuck that way. It's not that America, or Canada, or North America, is placed upon a hill as a pedestal, to glorify a completed work of art and show off. It's that 'You built your house on top of a hill, with open windows and all the lights on; Everyone now can See You, all the time! You made a lot of big talk, then put yourself in the spotlight. That means the pressure's always going to be on, you're always On Stage, so you better Bring It. BE Exceptional, don't talk about how exceptional you once were, or hope to be again, or are in comparison to Those People.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Be excellent to each other.
posted by bartleby at 9:19 PM on August 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
clickthroughs to an author they can't support...
Bartleby it is not just that I, and presumably others, can't support the author. McCullough has shown many times that he is a deeply biased commentator that is more interested in trolling (pwning the libtards as they say across the border) then actually offering legitimate history or fact based commentary. The video you linked to is an example of that. It shows an astonishingly poor grasp of Canadian history and is either deeply confused or has a willfully biased view our current politics. To me that makes the argument it poses pretty suspect.
As similar as we are to each other in values and some very broad cultural aspects, the US and Canada, have histories & specific cultural predilections that are different in important ways which have lead us, at times, in parallel but also in opposite directions. Outsiders, and some Canadians influenced by these outside voices, tend to equate these differences in terms that aren't representative of us or our culture - "Canadians are a bunch of pinkoes" [etc... I'll leave it to your imagination but yeah I assume most will know what I'm talking about]. What results are facile arguments of difference and superiority. This is a two way street, Canadians fall into the same trap when commenting on US issues, as Wade Davis does in the linked article. Not wholly wrong but not entirely correct either. Ultimately these arguments just muddy the waters and don't amount to much...
Canada isn't an utopia and never has been but I can understand when times are difficult how Americans view us that way. Our history has led us to make choices that have helped and hindered us, made us similar to the States and different. It doesn't make us superior or inferior, just something else. Canadians have a tendency, because of the nebulousness of what we think of as our identity [it isn't but that is another argument for another day], to see that "something else" as our identity forgetting or being ignorant of how we got to that "something else" in the first place [maybe reading a Pierre Berton book might help with that].
This thread has talked a lot about Canadian smugness as a kind of exceptionalism, an expression of superiority or a "holier-than-thou" attitude but I'd argue that it is also an expression of confusion, frustration and fear. It comes from a place where despite our differing history, despite our different political choices and our superficially independent economies we still find our countries inextricably linked to each other whether we like it or not. That can be a tough place to be in during the good years and has been an even harder one to be in during the bad years. Often that frustration expresses itself, in Canada anyways, as a kind of anti-American attitude which always has been more for the benefit of other Canadians rather a thumbing of the nose to our neighbours south.
As an aside, I do think some mistake that smugness for another particularly Canadian quality, likely picked up from the UK, and just as negative as our smugness or anti-American rhetoric - it is our desire to cut down the tall poppy. We do it to ourselves all the time, personally I think it is hardwired in us, but I think we do it to our neighbours just as much.
In anycase, I don't think it is particularly clear what the future holds for the US, but as a Canadian, I do hope it is a brighter one because for better or worse we are in this together.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:47 AM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Bartleby it is not just that I, and presumably others, can't support the author. McCullough has shown many times that he is a deeply biased commentator that is more interested in trolling (pwning the libtards as they say across the border) then actually offering legitimate history or fact based commentary. The video you linked to is an example of that. It shows an astonishingly poor grasp of Canadian history and is either deeply confused or has a willfully biased view our current politics. To me that makes the argument it poses pretty suspect.
As similar as we are to each other in values and some very broad cultural aspects, the US and Canada, have histories & specific cultural predilections that are different in important ways which have lead us, at times, in parallel but also in opposite directions. Outsiders, and some Canadians influenced by these outside voices, tend to equate these differences in terms that aren't representative of us or our culture - "Canadians are a bunch of pinkoes" [etc... I'll leave it to your imagination but yeah I assume most will know what I'm talking about]. What results are facile arguments of difference and superiority. This is a two way street, Canadians fall into the same trap when commenting on US issues, as Wade Davis does in the linked article. Not wholly wrong but not entirely correct either. Ultimately these arguments just muddy the waters and don't amount to much...
Canada isn't an utopia and never has been but I can understand when times are difficult how Americans view us that way. Our history has led us to make choices that have helped and hindered us, made us similar to the States and different. It doesn't make us superior or inferior, just something else. Canadians have a tendency, because of the nebulousness of what we think of as our identity [it isn't but that is another argument for another day], to see that "something else" as our identity forgetting or being ignorant of how we got to that "something else" in the first place [maybe reading a Pierre Berton book might help with that].
This thread has talked a lot about Canadian smugness as a kind of exceptionalism, an expression of superiority or a "holier-than-thou" attitude but I'd argue that it is also an expression of confusion, frustration and fear. It comes from a place where despite our differing history, despite our different political choices and our superficially independent economies we still find our countries inextricably linked to each other whether we like it or not. That can be a tough place to be in during the good years and has been an even harder one to be in during the bad years. Often that frustration expresses itself, in Canada anyways, as a kind of anti-American attitude which always has been more for the benefit of other Canadians rather a thumbing of the nose to our neighbours south.
As an aside, I do think some mistake that smugness for another particularly Canadian quality, likely picked up from the UK, and just as negative as our smugness or anti-American rhetoric - it is our desire to cut down the tall poppy. We do it to ourselves all the time, personally I think it is hardwired in us, but I think we do it to our neighbours just as much.
In anycase, I don't think it is particularly clear what the future holds for the US, but as a Canadian, I do hope it is a brighter one because for better or worse we are in this together.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:47 AM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
A week after the Davis article appeared (see above) the CBC is interviewing him. This article mentions that and brings in the Kreisel rebuttal (see above) but otherwise has nothing to say. Meantime, British Columbia the Good is bracing for school reopening and is worried.
posted by CCBC at 4:01 AM on August 17, 2020
posted by CCBC at 4:01 AM on August 17, 2020
Angus Reid just released a poll on Canadian adherence to Covid-19 safety rules. In short, we're not doing that great. 47% are following safety precautions rigorously; 36% are inconsistent; 18% are disregarding most if not all safety precautions. COVID-19 Compliance: One-in-five Canadians making little to no effort to stop coronavirus spread.
posted by russilwvong at 8:35 AM on August 17, 2020
posted by russilwvong at 8:35 AM on August 17, 2020
Since that was a poll asking people to confess to a shameful behaviorr, it's an underestimate - that probably means 2/5 act as if they DGAF.
posted by benzenedream at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2020
posted by benzenedream at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2020
What Happens When America Is No Longer the Undisputed Super Power?
Chief among the flawed assumptions undergirding American foreign policy is the belief that perpetual U.S. primacy is both desirable and possible, the “indispensable nation”—a cliché well past its sell-by date.
posted by adamvasco at 1:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Chief among the flawed assumptions undergirding American foreign policy is the belief that perpetual U.S. primacy is both desirable and possible, the “indispensable nation”—a cliché well past its sell-by date.
posted by adamvasco at 1:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I mentioned the CBC interview with Davis and forgot the link. Here 'tis.
posted by CCBC at 4:00 PM on August 17, 2020
posted by CCBC at 4:00 PM on August 17, 2020
There are Totally USA Things and Really Canadian Things we can squabble over or mock: but there's far more North American stuff we have in common. So again, what do you got? What's contemporary Canadian-ism?
I think the really truly large differences are, indeed, political, governmental and cultural.
Canada has proven again and again at the ballot box that we aren't very interested in putting the individual over the collective when it comes to how we want to live. The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" of the ilk of the Tea Party generally do not control our levers of power. Our leaders, even the conservative ones, are not allowed to refuse the thought that public action can be used to help other people. Though there are some notable imitators and copycats.
We hedge on everything in government, legislatively and in regulation. It's a major feature of the way things work in Canada that there are few absolutes in law, even in our Constitution. Everything has a "unless overruled by the minister" or a "not-withstanding" clause. I think that's one thing our drafters learned from the US experiences. Socially, that means, for example, being a freedom of speech absolutist is a really hard road in Canada, especially if you're using that to peddle hate speech. There are good and bad results of that trade-off, but Canada has chosen differently than the US here.
Who we think of ourselves to be and where we are going is also different. Immigration is welcomed by most Canadians, and viewed as a positive for the country. We know we have to grow and most are happy with how that happens (again, there are some loud shouters, but they don't prevail in elections). There are as of about 2017, more Canadians of Chinese origin than there are in the US. Not proportionately, but actual size of population. I mention this less to illustrate that particular fact that to say that our respective views on immigration and who and how integration into society happens, we're growing more dissimilar as populations, not closer. On the other hand, the Latinx community in Canada is not a major cultural driver the way it is and will increasingly be in the US. I think cultural divergence will actually increase in the future.
Acknowledging that Canada still has an incredibly far long way to go on the issues of Indigenous rights, at least it's a part of the national conversation here, in a way I don't see happening south of the boarder.
There are certainly many things we share, based on our common Anglophone and European immigrant origins. Canada is still overwhelmed by US culture and politics. Stealth Canadians still infest Hollywood and the US music business (though the Beyonce and the Swifts have beaten back the Twain/Dion/Morissette putsch of the 90s). Even so, there are fundamental disagreements about state vs individual power and responsibilities between the two cultures. Further Canada is increasingly diverging from the US cultural makeup. In my estimation, and we're changing relatively quickly and in different ways than the US is. Again, I don't think there's necessarily one set of choices that are better than the other's, at least not in simple terms, but I do think it's not wise to think differences don't exist and that the differences may be in fact increasing between the two neighbours.
posted by bonehead at 10:43 AM on August 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think the really truly large differences are, indeed, political, governmental and cultural.
Canada has proven again and again at the ballot box that we aren't very interested in putting the individual over the collective when it comes to how we want to live. The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" of the ilk of the Tea Party generally do not control our levers of power. Our leaders, even the conservative ones, are not allowed to refuse the thought that public action can be used to help other people. Though there are some notable imitators and copycats.
We hedge on everything in government, legislatively and in regulation. It's a major feature of the way things work in Canada that there are few absolutes in law, even in our Constitution. Everything has a "unless overruled by the minister" or a "not-withstanding" clause. I think that's one thing our drafters learned from the US experiences. Socially, that means, for example, being a freedom of speech absolutist is a really hard road in Canada, especially if you're using that to peddle hate speech. There are good and bad results of that trade-off, but Canada has chosen differently than the US here.
Who we think of ourselves to be and where we are going is also different. Immigration is welcomed by most Canadians, and viewed as a positive for the country. We know we have to grow and most are happy with how that happens (again, there are some loud shouters, but they don't prevail in elections). There are as of about 2017, more Canadians of Chinese origin than there are in the US. Not proportionately, but actual size of population. I mention this less to illustrate that particular fact that to say that our respective views on immigration and who and how integration into society happens, we're growing more dissimilar as populations, not closer. On the other hand, the Latinx community in Canada is not a major cultural driver the way it is and will increasingly be in the US. I think cultural divergence will actually increase in the future.
Acknowledging that Canada still has an incredibly far long way to go on the issues of Indigenous rights, at least it's a part of the national conversation here, in a way I don't see happening south of the boarder.
There are certainly many things we share, based on our common Anglophone and European immigrant origins. Canada is still overwhelmed by US culture and politics. Stealth Canadians still infest Hollywood and the US music business (though the Beyonce and the Swifts have beaten back the Twain/Dion/Morissette putsch of the 90s). Even so, there are fundamental disagreements about state vs individual power and responsibilities between the two cultures. Further Canada is increasingly diverging from the US cultural makeup. In my estimation, and we're changing relatively quickly and in different ways than the US is. Again, I don't think there's necessarily one set of choices that are better than the other's, at least not in simple terms, but I do think it's not wise to think differences don't exist and that the differences may be in fact increasing between the two neighbours.
posted by bonehead at 10:43 AM on August 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
When the Free-Trade Agreement between Canada and the US was first signed back in 1988, observers thought that Canadian values would inevitably converge with American values. Surprisingly, that doesn't appear to have been the case. The gap between Canadian and American values appears to be increasing, as observed by pollster Michael Adams in Fire and Ice, published in the early 2000s. Dimitry Anastakis, writing before the 2016 election:
Using a raft of polling information (14,000 interviews across years of data gathering), [Adams] showed that the values of the two countries were indeed diverging: Americans were becoming increasingly attuned toward consumerism, violence, exclusion, patriarchy and racism; Canadians, on the other hand, were increasingly embracing pluralism, inclusion, openness and flexibility. ...posted by russilwvong at 5:59 PM on August 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
More than a decade on, Adams’s conclusions seem even more prescient. Compare, for instance, the current most talked about political figures on either side of the border: Donald Trump perfectly encapsulates the key traits that Fire and Ice saw as growing in America: “values of nihilism, aggression, fear of the other, and consumptive one-upmanship.” Justin Trudeau epitomizes the Canadian values that Adams saw clearly emerging in the early 2000s—though born in 1971, Trudeau is the millennial generation’s torch bearer in North America, embracing multiculturalism, diversity and liberal social and cultural mores (which, notwithstanding Trump, are also strongly present in America).
Omar El Akkad, writing in the Globe and Mail: The Year America Melted Down. El Akkad moved to Canada as a teenager, but now lives in the US. The article is a month-by-month look at the overlapping crises engulfing the US.
In this year of plague and depression, the most powerful nation in human history has become a sad amalgam of laughingstock, cautionary tale and pariah. Roughly 170,000 Americans are dead, in large part due to a near-total abdication of federal leadership, a decades-long evisceration of the social safety net, and a health care and economic system built on a bedrock of racial and class discrimination. More Americans have lost their jobs this year than at any time for which reliable data exist, and in a country where health care is overwhelmingly tied to employment, the layoffs will likely trigger a cascade of foreclosures, evictions and public health aftershocks for years to come. And all of this at the hands of a virus from which almost every other wealthy country on Earth is now in some stage of recovery.posted by russilwvong at 6:03 PM on August 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Even by the standards of an administration that has spent the better part of four years alternating between ineptitude and cruelty, it is a truly spectacular failure – a failure so fundamental it will live on as a schism between generations: those who knew life before the pandemic, those who didn’t.
It is impossible to live in the U.S. in this moment and not feel that something of this country is ending. The postwar world in which the U.S. rose to dominance – the world whose defining image of apocalypse, the mushroom cloud, was both instantaneous and subject to individual agency, a finger on the button, an order given and followed – has given way to something else entirely. A new generation’s conception of our undoing is not nearly so brief, not nearly so well-bounded. The existential nightmare now is a slowly building thing, an ever-worsening barrage of climate disasters and unknown diseases and species extinction – crises that cannot be bombed, bought or strong-armed.
One way or another, the U.S. will outlive this pandemic, even if so many of its citizens have not and will not. But the utter hobbling of a superpower, for months on end, at the hands of a disease that almost every other nation managed to subdue through basic leadership and some semblance of societal cohesion is itself the lasting legacy of the coronavirus. It is, in a sense, a blueprint for what this country can expect whenever the next epidemic or natural disaster or recession strikes – whenever the vectors of political and corporate life here, forever oriented away from the communal good and toward the individual good, run into a catastrophe that requires the exact opposite orientation.
This is a diary of the last American year.
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