America is Scaring the Hell out of Canadians

Every once in a while I read Cary Tennis, a kind of hip Ann Landers at Salon.com. Today there was the following letter from a Canadian. It expresses pretty much EXACTLY how I felt in 2004 and, more or less, how I feel today. Except that, unlike 2004, I am trying very hard to stay balanced and not let things get to me as badly as it did then.

Sadly, Cary Tennis usually gives good advice, but this time, simply didn't take the letter seriously, or somehow manages to miss the truthfulness of it, or tries to inject humor. I can't imagine a letter decrying, say, genocide in Rwanda, deserves humor as a proper response. That's the situation I think we face.

I'm especially troubled by the Canadian's phrase, "And at what point in time do I have to accept that you're sincere and take you at your "brand promise," as marketing and P.R. types like to put it, that your government is truly representative of your people? ".

This is exactly where I am at. The polls say (today) that McCain has a slight lead. How much longer do I need to wait before believing that, yes, indeed, more than half of this country REALLY DOES want to live this way? And that, more than half of this country has REALLY wanted to live the way we have these past 8 years. It's hard to believe that there's just a small minority manipulating others. Over and over again I encounter people who are intelligent, well-informed, rational people, who think and come to such ASTONISHING conclusions that I really have trouble accepting that we live in the same universe.

But we do. How do I accept that? What do I do about it? Last summer I wrote my congressman every single solitary day. I counted more than 300 letters that I wrote. The impact I had was absolutely nil. Anyway. I'm not really looking for a solution along the lines of "more effective activism." I'm looking for a state of mind that is able to accept reality as it is and decide what to do about it, and I don't think "activism" is it.

I haven't bothered to copy Cary Tennis' reply. You can read it here.

Dear Cary,

I've written to you once in the past, and you gave me great advice, so I'm hoping once again you'll share your valuable gift of a different perspective with me.

I'm a journalist and editor from Canada and I have a real problem that I'm struggling with these days -- my nascent anti-Americanism.

Allow me to explain. Like most Canadians I've always taken a bit of a sideways view of the U.S. Nice enough folks but sometimes a bit weird. Generally a force for good, but a bit much if they get too wound up. Just the usual uncertainty about the "other." Sort of like you guys not "getting" universal healthcare and hockey.

Well, for the past several years I've seen more and more evidence that America is a country to be avoided at all cost. You've all been wound up into a righteous rage. And the results haven't been pretty. You've turned your back on some of the wonderful things that made your country great and embraced some extremely ugly things -- imperialism, resource wars, torture, etc.

Our former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once observed (I'm paraphrasing somewhat): "Living next to America is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

That's all fine and well when the elephant is generally even-tempered. But when it's in a foul temper there is little to no protecting yourself from being trampled.

As resources become scarcer and I see us sitting on a pile of them and again and again I hear that "the American Way of Life is non-negotiable," I see a higher and higher likelihood that this is all going to play out badly.

There's a 1932 feeling to the whole thing, with the U.S. playing the role of Germany. Unfortunately that would make us Czechoslovakia and the Alberta tar sands the Sudetenland.

Bottom line, my old coping strategy -- which was something along the lines of "love the Americans, not that wild about their government" -- just isn't working anymore. America 2.0 scares the living crap out of me. And at what point in time do I have to accept that you're sincere and take you at your "brand promise," as marketing and P.R. types like to put it, that your government is truly representative of your people?

And if that's so, how can I possibly like and support your country? And make no mistake, if there ever was a natural friend and ally it's me and my ilk. I live right next door and we share many of the same values and a common history. We have coincident interests in many areas. But, increasingly, I see trying to do business with the U.S. is like trying to do business with the mafia. The rules are slanted against you right from the start. And if you don't believe me, do a little reading on the softwood lumber trade deal -- the one where you willfully ignored an established treaty and basically told us to like it or lump it.

You have every right to govern your country as you see fit. But unfortunately you aren't content to busy yourselves with market fundamentalism and spiritual excess at home. You're equally determined to remake the rest of the world in your image -- whether we want it or not. Your evangelicals mess in our domestic politics, our current government is a pale imitation of your neocons with expat U.S. academics as key advisors, and you insist on attempting to export your insane war-on-drugs mentality.

Additionally you're shocked and appalled when my country doesn't immediately toe the line to your every whim. Back in the schoolyard of my youth there was a word for that, of course: "bully." America presents itself as a nation of bullies.

If you don't believe me, ask a good friend of mine who was down in Grand Forks, N.D., on a day trip in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq war. Our former prime minister had just announced that day that Canada would continue to contribute troops to the war in Afghanistan, but wouldn't be joining the Iraq war. He parked his car. He went into the mall for a bit of shopping. He came out. He found his car with Canadian license plates keyed. He heard later that several Canadian cars got similar treatment.

Help me, Cary (and readers). Tell me how I can put this aside. I fear that the flow of history is preordained. I fear that regardless of who wins (though I suspect McCain will in the end) none of it matters. Until you're able to accept that American exceptionalism is bunk and that Manifest Destiny is nothing more than a polite way to describe empire, the script for this movie promises heartbreak.

There remains a faint glimmer of hope in my heart. Again and again in the past America has reinvented itself when it has needed to. Perhaps, once again, you'll be able to pull it out of the ditch. But I've been hoping for that for many years now. And I'm beginning to get discouraged.

Afraid of Americans