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Full Version: Still Planning To Come To Canada?
OLD American Century / White Rose Society message boards > Political Discussion forums > Politics In General
| QUOTE |
| Dear friends back home, Hey, sure, no problem, the couch pulls out and it's yours whenever you show up. But so many of you are dreaming of leaving America for the biggest, bluest state of all, Canada, I figured I'd offer a little orientation. I know, we've been out of touch too long. Can you believe it? It's been more than a dozen years since my partner landed that cushy professorship in Vancouver and we transplanted here from San Francisco. But sometimes it takes a little thing like an electoral disaster to put old friends back in touch. Anyway, your sudden interest in your northern neighbor has not gone unnoticed up here. We've all seen that cute map showing "The United States of Canada," combining your blue states and Canada and cutting loose the red states of "Jesusland." We did note that Canada's main immigration Web site got swamped by U.S. traffic when Bush won. And just yesterday the CBC (sorta like NPR) reported that a local law firm, its phone ringing off the hook, is "planning how-to-come-to-Canada seminars" for "Bush refugees." Prepare to be welcomed with open arms. Literally, in the case of Marry an American, a wry Web concoction by the editors of Toronto-based This Magazine. Sample: "If George W. Bush is re-elected, single, sexy, American liberals -- already a threatened species -- will be desperate to escape. These lonely, afraid (did we mention really hot?) progressives will need a safe haven. You can help. Open your heart, and your home. Marry an American." Before you pack up the Prius for that endless ski vacation, though, I should warn you. When it comes to political struggle up here, it's not like you're going to get a lot of R&R. But more about that in a minute. No doubt, Canadians feel your pain. Two-thirds of them, according to a Time magazine Canada poll, believed your choice of president would affect their lives at least as much as the election of their own prime minister. And two-thirds were pulling for Kerry versus 19 percent for Bush. So now that the deed is done, no need to be polite about Dubya around Canadians. Nearly eight out of 10 here say he runs "a rogue nation," and most adults under 35 believe America has become "a force for evil in the world," according to another October poll (this one conducted by the Dominion Institute and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, and reported by the Canwest news service). Global warming, AIDS, even SARS, are more scary to Canadians than terrorism, the survey found. The vast majority would rather spend new tax money on healthcare and education than the military, and 40 percent think Switzerland has it right: "focus on being a great place to live rather than working on international issues." How blue can you get, eh? Can I mention a sensitive name? Ralph Nader likes us so much he wrote a book called "Canada Firsts," chockablock with Canadian achievements. Guess who invented the first publicly owned utility, the first credit union, the first social club, the variable pitch propeller, pabulum, standard time and the first rotary snowplow? Better believe it. Along the way, Canada also developed its own political culture, the one you find so alluring just now. Politics is a hardball sport here, make no mistake, but the voter spectators aren't driven plumb nuts by the game. Part of the reason is the parliamentary system, where the parties and their platforms outweigh cults of personality. Part of the reason, too, may be a different rural history. In America's hinterlands, the famous "paranoid style" of politics has been stoked into blazing fear and resentment. But not nearly so much across the Canadian prairies, which historically have given rise to great, empowering cooperative movements. Universal healthcare up here started in Saskatchewan's wheat basket. It's the philosophical cousin to the Wheat Pool co-op and the chicken growers' cartel that makes me pay 10 bucks for a scrawny fryer -- but it keeps the lights on in Moose Jaw. Whatever the reasons, "the central difference" between Canada and the United States, writes political philosopher Joseph Heath, "is that the majority of Canadians have no ideological opposition to government." Heath's book "The Efficient Society" is his attempt to explain why, year after year, the U.N. Human Development Index ranks Canada among the tiptop nations on earth to live, well ahead of America in most respects. "We do not love the state, but neither do we fear it. Thus we get all the benefits of a loosely regulated economy while also enjoying the massive improvements in social welfare that can be organized and delivered only by government. This has proven to be a winning formula." Boring, I know. Except Canada keeps cranking out social experiments way too daring for Americans. Same-sex marriage? Legal in six provinces. Guns? Gotta be licensed and registered. Kyoto? Check. Executing prisoners? No way. School funding? Tying that to local property taxes would be illogical, so poor neighborhoods get the same school funding as rich ones, or more. Cannabis? Canada was the first nation to allow marijuana as medicine, and our Senate says pot should be legal. Heroin? Um, I go by a government-funded safe-injection site on the way to work every day in downtown Vancouver. Soon a trial experiment prescribing the stuff to hardcore addicts will be underway. Still bored? What if I told you the crack smokers are jealous? They want their own safe smoking rooms and have organized a protest.  Maybe you figure the reason you didn't hear so much about this before is that Canadians are famously self-effacing. Don't believe it. Michael Ignatieff, the international affairs darling of the New York Times and a Canadian now roosting at Harvard, boasts that his home and native land has, of all the nations on earth, done the best at solving civil unrest by negotiating the delicate balance between group rights and individual ones. And Joseph Heath hardly holds back. Canada isn't just the efficient society. It is "perhaps the most efficient on Earth," which is why "life in Canada is so good." It's a hot brand these days, Cool Canada, sold by a slick new Web site called CanadianAlternative.com. Its slogan: "Progressive. Prosperous. Inclusive. Feel at home in Canada." I guess what I'm driving at is, when you get here, don't bring the typical American attitude that I hastily unpacked and wore to social gatherings. I'm talking about believing Canada is lucky to have you. Your American pluck, verve, swagger, whatever. It doesn't wear well, especially now that Bush has worn it out. A more Canadian credo: Power grows out of a barrel of passive aggression. As the new Yank in town, your route to popularity lies in just making a lot of fun of your backward origins and expressing a latent but suddenly blossoming fascination with hockey. Don't point out, either, Canada's complicity in America's global reach. To harp on the fact that Canada depends on America to buy more of its exports than anyone else, or that America's massive military has, in unseemly ways, enforced global economic arrangements that benefit Canada is to really cast a pall over a salmon barbecue party. It's kind of embarrassing for Canadians that they buy a lot of their military gear secondhand (a rusty old submarine fobbed off on them by the Brits recently caught fire, killing a sailor off the U.K.) And, true, by leaving it to America to run up the big weapons tab, Canada has forfeited much chance of being a real player when the world gets carved up at the big security summits. But then, that leaves a hell of a lot of public funds for spending more, er, efficiently on that ongoing Switzerlandization project. I guess the last point I'd make, despite all the exciting stuff at the top of this note, is that I hope you're not expecting to arrive here and settle into some kind of relaxing political hot tub. It's more like ice fishing a tad too late in the spring. The bluish surface keeps shifting beneath your feet, and you never can feel sure it's not about to give way. Canada's got its right-wing media barons, its right-wing think tanks, its tax revolters and Bible Belters. Its biggest province by far, Ontario, is digging out from a nine-year neoconservative reign sold as "the Common Sense Revolution," which left infrastructure crumbling, social programs slashed, homeless ranks swelling after welfare rolls were purged. Even before that, if you didn't like Reagan, you wouldn't have liked his Irish conservative soul mate of the same era, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. When I moved to British Columbia in 1992, imagine my surprise that the birthplace of Greenpeace had elected as its leader a Christian fundamentalist who owned a theme park called Fantasy Gardens. Scandal cleared the way for his replacement: a real live social democratic government. For a decade, the New Democrats survived relentlessly negative media, infighting and a rough economy until scandal cleared the way for a neoconservative government. Which immediately plunged itself into massive debt by issuing a huge tax cut to the rich. Sound familiar? Over the last three years, I, California child of Reagan, have been forced to endure Laffer curve déjà vu, to watch British Columbia's true-believer neocons hand over publicly owned, profitable assets, including a whole railroad, to private companies, many of them with names you will recognize, for many are American. Homeless and food-bank numbers are up, and B.C.'s "Super Natural" forests are being mowed down at a record rate, their raw logs shipped posthaste south of the border to U.S. mills. "It's like going from Texas to Sweden to Texas," I told mystified American friends on a recent visit. "I'm developing political whiplash." So no, don't arrive here expecting refuge from the battles waged and lost so devastatingly this time around in the United States of America. The same battles rage, in their own Canadian way, right here. And the fate of the American expat can be to feel like the canary in the coal mine, constantly wanting to sound the alarm that Canadians, having made such precious gains, seem determined to fumble them away out of restlessness, inattention or pique. Tempering that cold reality (and did I mention Canada can be damn cold?) is a spirit more deliberative, more accommodating -- yes, more civil -- living in the Canadian political soul. It means that while Democrats search America today for any sign of hope, they would find in Canada many, many reasons for optimism. Anyway, the key's under the mat. Get yourself a good lawyer and let yourself in. |
And there you have it. Don't say you haven't been warned; let's just say we Canucks, though we have our 'wingers, at least have the gumption to trash them out when they fuck up.
'Bina.
Great article! Absolutely smashing! Well done.. bravo!
Now minus the cold (I know Bina.. it's no colder where you are then here) however, the majority is... I would still move if I had a job up there!
Alas.. no job... yet!
How's that unemployement rate going up there? good bad...
Still sucks in the south!
Now minus the cold (I know Bina.. it's no colder where you are then here) however, the majority is... I would still move if I had a job up there!
Alas.. no job... yet!
How's that unemployement rate going up there? good bad... Still sucks in the south!
Well, we're not in a recession. But we're not flush with jobs either. 
'Bina.
'Bina.
Bina,
I always thought the term "Canuck" only applied to French Canadians...Can you
expand ? On the topic , that is.
LTX
p.s. Victoria is my favorite city on this entire continent.
I always thought the term "Canuck" only applied to French Canadians...Can you
expand ? On the topic , that is.
LTX
p.s. Victoria is my favorite city on this entire continent.
Canuck is a generic term for all Canadians. For French Canadians, the term is Quebecois, but only in Quebec.
'Bina.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (LionTamerX @ Monday, 15 November 2004, 9:22 pm) |
| Bina, I always thought the term "Canuck" only applied to French Canadians...Can you expand ? On the topic , that is. LTX p.s. Victoria is my favorite city on this entire continent. |
Canucks = all Canadians.
Victoria is not part of Canada. It's part of British Columbia. Canada begins in Ontario and goes East.
Tee hee. I still can't get used to B.C. drivers. They scare me. They think sidewalks are just narrow streets.
We can run, but can we hide? Is anywhere gonna be safe?
| QUOTE (Kurd @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 11:54 am) |
| We can run, but can we hide? Is anywhere gonna be safe? |
Canucks are French Canadians, I thought....hey by the way, New Zealand would be nice....
Doc
| QUOTE |
| Victoria is not part of Canada. It's part of British Columbia. Canada begins in Ontario and goes East. |
So is BC considered it's own country? Damn... we got good education down here in 'merica... lern'n all 'bout histry and land area and such...
BC is still a part of Canada, although the 'wingers there would like it to be Texas of the North. Sorry, guys, but there can only be one, and it's <retch> ALBERTA.
And by the way, the Vancouver hockey team is the Canucks.
'Bina.
And by the way, the Vancouver hockey team is the Canucks.
'Bina.
Oops ... 
wrong thread. Since we can't delete, this is a cheap post ...
wrong thread. Since we can't delete, this is a cheap post ...
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 2:41 pm) |
| BC is still a part of Canada, although the 'wingers there would like it to be Texas of the North. Sorry, guys, but there can only be one, and it's <retch> ALBERTA. And by the way, the Vancouver hockey team is the Canucks. 'Bina. |
Yeah I know, I love Canada, what's the temp up there Bina.....
'Doc
Well, right now it's about ten degrees above freezing, give or take a few...but I'm in Southern Ontario, not BC.
'Bina.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 9:57 am) |
| Well, right now it's about ten degrees above freezing, give or take a few...but I'm in Southern Ontario, not BC. 'Bina. |
Okay, so I need to bring a coat...thanks...
'Doc
| QUOTE (Kurd @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 11:54 am) |
| We can run, but can we hide? Is anywhere gonna be safe? |
Ireland. If you are eligible for citizenship and have draftable offspring....start getting established there NOW. I am.
| QUOTE (Dr. Left @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 11:58 am) |
| Canucks are French Canadians, I thought....hey by the way, New Zealand would be nice.... Doc |
NZ economy bad...have relatives there.
| QUOTE (Panda @ Friday, 19 November 2004, 12:40 am) | ||
NZ economy bad...have relatives there. |
Okay skip that one then....
Doc
Globilization is moving at record speed and people still think moving out is going to save them. I bet all those germans who left the Nazi build up and went to France felt real safe.
| QUOTE (rexateyfor @ Thursday, 25 November 2004, 10:55 pm) |
| Globilization is moving at record speed and people still think moving out is going to save them. I bet all those germans who left the Nazi build up and went to France felt real safe. |
Rex, we appreciate a diversity of ideas here, but you're getting kinda repetative. We knew what you were going to say before we read it.
Can't you mix in some positive ideas? Because you sound like a defeatist, and nobody wants to read that. Instead of insulting people who are contemplating running away, why don't you suggest ways to work with the system? Or should we be stockpiling canned goods?
Personally, I think that when the dollar falls, the currency we want to be holding is 7.62x39. No, literally.
I think my posts are anything but defeatist. Accepting defeat is running away to try to save your own ass. Sure I thought of running at one time but for what. The arrogance of this administration has shown with Iraq that they can go anywhere and do anything they want and no country is willing to stand against them especially in the western hemisphere.
If this is repetitive then I apologise but the FTAA is very serious and they arent goign to stop unless we get serious and repetitive if we have to. The people need to know that a new union is forming and this new union will destroy what little we have left of our rights. I dont want to be a citizen of the American Union, the UN or any other union and neither should any american. So I apologise again if you think my posts are repetitive but I think they are nessesary.
If this is repetitive then I apologise but the FTAA is very serious and they arent goign to stop unless we get serious and repetitive if we have to. The people need to know that a new union is forming and this new union will destroy what little we have left of our rights. I dont want to be a citizen of the American Union, the UN or any other union and neither should any american. So I apologise again if you think my posts are repetitive but I think they are nessesary.
Um...you got any proof that the UN is actually, ACTIVELY oppressive? Because if you haven't got anything--and I mean SOLID--you're wearing a rather shiny silver hat. 
Not all unions are evil, and not all evil is unions.
'Bina.
Not all unions are evil, and not all evil is unions.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Friday, 26 November 2004, 4:09 pm) |
| Um...you got any proof that the UN is actually, ACTIVELY oppressive? Because if you haven't got anything--and I mean SOLID--you're wearing a rather shiny silver hat. Not all unions are evil, and not all evil is unions. 'Bina. |
Your right not all unions are bad but you missed my point that being I am not a citizen of the United Nations nor do I want to be. I am a citizen of the United States not anywhere else and the FTAA, UN and the coming American Union threaten my nations sovergnty, my citizenship and my rights. I no more want to be a member of any union than you should want to be after all in another column you posted a link about the US military overtaking Canadian soverenty.
You seem to take offense when ever I mention the UN, im sorry if I offend you in being critical of an organization with ties to such colorfull characters as Rev .Moon and his nut job Moonies. Now this may not be actuall UN involvement but this is defiantely oppression by a high ranking member of the United Nations NGO community
| QUOTE |
| 7. Family, Gender, Reproduction and Sexuality The Moon organization emphasizes a highly conservative and patriarchal social philosophy, in which Rev. Moon teaches women to be subservient to men and to be guided by “The Father” – himself. (74) During an August 4, 1996 speech, Moon expounded to a group of women on their proper role: "Does woman contain the seed of life? Absolutely not. Then if you desire to receive the seed of life, you have to become an absolute object. In order to qualify as an absolute object, you need to demonstrate absolute faith, love and obedience to your subject. Absolute obedience means that you have to negate yourself 100 percent." (75) Moon has often criticized women in the United States for acting as men’s equals. In a speech in 1996, he said US women “have inherited the line of prostitutes,” saying “they practice free sex just because they enjoy it.” (76) Many Moon affiliates focus on “family” issues and insist on the centrality of the patriarchal family as the moral basis of society. Moon teachings oppose women’s choice in reproduction. In this respect, they are quite close to the teachings of conservative Catholic and Protestant “Family Values” groups. (77) Moon is harshly critical of homosexuals. In a sermon quoted by the Washington Post, he compared gays to “dirty, dung-eating dogs.” (78) In a very recent sermon, he called for a “quarantine” of those with AIDS. (79) |
What you cite is no proof that the UN is connected to Moon, let alone run by him.
And all member nations of the UN do NOT require their citizens to give up sovereignty or human rights in any way, shape or form; in fact, the UN is there to make sure that citizens of all countries do not get their rights trampled.
You don't offend me. You're just way wrong.
'Bina.
And all member nations of the UN do NOT require their citizens to give up sovereignty or human rights in any way, shape or form; in fact, the UN is there to make sure that citizens of all countries do not get their rights trampled.
You don't offend me. You're just way wrong.
'Bina.
I'm gonna take Rex's side here. I think that overall, the UN is a force for good, but the idea that they could become a world government scares the bejeezus out of me.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is just a piece of paper. I'll take the Bill of Rights myself (while it's still legal).
I never stated or indicated Moon ran the UN, I said he has ties to the NGO Communities of the UN. Specifically the World Assosiation of Non-Govermental Organizations (WANGO) which according to their own publications
| QUOTE |
| in 2000, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, conveieved of the idea of providing a mechanism and support system for NGO's world wide to network togeather in order to effect meaningfull societal change. He thus founded the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) |
Hate to break it to you, but any large NGO can qualify for that.
'Bina.
'Bina.
| QUOTE |
| You seem to take offense when ever I mention the UN, im sorry if I offend you in being critical of an organization with ties to such colorfull characters as Rev .Moon and his nut job Moonies. Now this may not be actuall UN involvement but this is defiantely oppression by a high ranking member of the United Nations NGO community |
Not quite oppression. Yet.
One thing you said here IS true....the True Father IS trying to influence the UN.
But the UN is something we NEED...without the Unification Church being in ANY way involved.
With the BFEE we get Moon. With Moon we get UN infiltration.
Bush=Destruction of the UN.
The neocon thugs would like nothing better than to see the UN dissolved.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/moonie.html
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecente...oups/m/moonies/
http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/bushmoon.html
Panda's got a point there. Just because Moon is TRYING to infiltrate/influence the UN, doesn't mean he will succeed. And it doesn't make the UN automatically dangerous, either. It just means Moon is a crooked little troll.
'Bina.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Friday, 26 November 2004, 10:33 pm) |
| Panda's got a point there. Just because Moon is TRYING to infiltrate/influence the UN, doesn't mean he will succeed. And it doesn't make the UN automatically dangerous, either. It just means Moon is a crooked little troll. 'Bina. |
That's correct, but Moon has influenced this country, look who is the resident....
'Doc
Any single person who can come to a democratic nation and be crowned in the senete building as the King of Peace must have some pull.
As far as influence in the UN moon already has some. By settign up his WANGO front he's aligning himself with other organizations of influence within the UN. I dont know about Canada but any powerfull lobying group like the NRA, MADD, ect heavely influence policy in this country and you can assume that the UN's governing body functions in a similar fashion whereas powerfull lobyests with lots of $ are making policy. Moon founded a very large lobying group within the UN and with his $ im sure he has influenced and will continue to influence the policy of the United Nations, after all he's the King of Peace isnt he.
As far as influence in the UN moon already has some. By settign up his WANGO front he's aligning himself with other organizations of influence within the UN. I dont know about Canada but any powerfull lobying group like the NRA, MADD, ect heavely influence policy in this country and you can assume that the UN's governing body functions in a similar fashion whereas powerfull lobyests with lots of $ are making policy. Moon founded a very large lobying group within the UN and with his $ im sure he has influenced and will continue to influence the policy of the United Nations, after all he's the King of Peace isnt he.
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