"It's like we woke up in a european country." - Rick Mercer

[nfotxn]

Well, what an interesting weekend.

It's hit me rather hard that in my country I can marry a man or woman and smoke marijuana where ever I'd like. Today with Ray, Christine and Phil we smoked a joint outside the Paramount Theatre on Richmond and it was totally within our legal rights.

Additionally this past Toronto Pride centred around the issue of same-sex marriage. Now at this point in my life I'm not a fan of binary relationships with people enforced by law but of course having the ability to be recognized is a plus. After talking with Ray and sharing opinions I agree that it's much more interesting and challenging to establish a loving domestic situation with a partner and be able to keep our sex life exciting and safe. To be able to be turned on by a partner's sexual escapades and share a variety of situations together would be the best of both worlds. Of course that requires a lot of trust but ultimately I think it would foster a relationship that would work well for myself and a similarly minded partner. In my experience I'd met a large minority of couples who've pulled it off long term but they're still very inspiring.

So largist marriage tangent aside I'd like to share with you an interesting article my friend Chris shared with me from the Washington Post. The views are highly nationalist which I suppose is to be expected. Some of the thinking is pretty questionable such as the implication that America invented civil rights or that it's the home of any and all cutting edge culture and art. Obviously the concept of history and proportion, respectively, are lost amidst hackneyed nationalist symbolism and a feeling of inferiority towards the little guy.

Comments

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

Interesting article. He did get one thing wrong: the US accepts more immigrants per capita than Canada. (according the the INS and Statistics Canada, I can dig out the numbers if you really like). But, yeah, it's nationalistic. The US isn't a beacon of light and liberty anymore, that's for sure.

I'm perturbed that September 11th has led to a free for all gutting of personal liberty here in the US. As an American, you can be arrested, detained as a criminal; and then declared an 'enemy combatant', a newly invented term with no precedent in American law. You hear Senator Bill Frist (majority leader), decrying the fact that two people can have sex together, and demanding that the federal government insert itself between these two people as some sort of moral condom. (if not sex, what next!?! Might they smoke a joint behind closed doors?!?! We must stop this!) You see arbitrary round ups of people, and blatantly illegal detentions.

Yet most Americans are interested in no-cost SUV car loans, and wow, when *does* Terminator 3 come out??!? Ugh.

I'm disgusted, even more so after nine months in Australia... though Aussies don't trust their government much, it seems to be for the people and by the people. It's not some Texan Imperialist Government who's attitude toward the world and its citizens is 'My way, or I'll fuck you up.'

It's the attitude that this article (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/01/us.icc.aid/index.html) definitely shows.

[umkinda.livejournal.com]

I was with you until you used the word binary. Every person I ever wanted to punch in the neck in film school used the word binary and dialectic like it was tapwater. Usually in the same sentence.

But not you, baby. I just had a bad flashback, is all.

well my take on it is..

[telemann.livejournal.com]

the author is really talking tongue in cheek about stereotypes of both countries and their histories. Hardly "highly nationalist." He's poking fun at a lot of things in both countries. eh.

Re: well my take on it is..

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Good point, you have to understand though that I'm playing the insecure-in-his-identity Canadian stereotype. Not intentionally though, it comes quite naturally.

stupid american media

[(Anonymous)]

hey brodie, i just wanted to say that it's really hard to find information about either of these topics in US media.

i want to point out that american media has been ignoring both of these concepts. you don't hear about it on NPR, it's not on the local news, the newspapers all have very small news articles and the rare editorials. this is obviously a case of the US media playing favorites.

anyway, i don't smoke pot, but all my friends do. more people smoke pot than cigarettes (number of people, not quantity of cigarettes). does that say something? too bad it's not enough to send a message to our policymakers ...

and i'm gay. and i'm really thankful we have a sensible supreme court at the moment to decriminalize sodomy. i hope that the US will work on gay marriage within 5 years. that way we won't be hopelessly behind the rest of the world.

-k
http://www.efesar.com/blog

(sorry livejournal doesn't have a "sign this post" section")

Re: stupid american media

[jbear70.livejournal.com]

The article quoted was from the Washington Post.

Re: stupid american media

[(Anonymous)]

yes, but perhaps you've noticed there are 300 million people in this country ... one or two news articles in cities 2000 miles away don't really count in my book ...

-k
http://www.efesar.com/blog

Re: stupid american media

[jbear70.livejournal.com]

Good point but in many ways these media outlets are giving people what they want to hear. The truth is out there and it's too bad many people don't seek it out on their own rather than having it spoon fed to them. Perhaps if more of those 300 million people did, things would be different and the amount of media coverage would be different as well.

Re: stupid american media

[(Anonymous)]

with all due respect:

ROFL

ever hear of the roman republic? notice in your reading how it silently slipped into the roman empire? i think the proper terminology goes: baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. but please keep something in mind when you are insulting the 300 million sheep: there are a good percentage of who are intelligent, vocal and righteously pissed off at our "culture". and we do everything in our power to change it or get the f*ck out of it.

-k
http://www.efesar.com/blog

Re: stupid american media

[jbear70.livejournal.com]

I did catch the drift of the Washington Post article and I think if you take a minute to read my post to Brodie's journal entry you would see that. To think that I was insulting 300 million US citizens is wrong, quite the opposite, I was hoping that those same 300 million people would wake up and stop believing the BS spewed to them by the media and the administration. The fact of the matter is however, that media outlets like Fox News and now MSNBC, which are nothing more than mouth pieces of the right wing, are gaining in popularity and ratings. More and more of the US electorate are not voting in elections, both local and national, that matter to the future of this country. We can criticize politicians and their policies all we want but that isn't going to change the fact that the electorate deserves the leaders (good or bad) it elects. With all due respect, that is how a representative democracy works. The best way to change the policies of government is to encourage the electorate to pay attention to what's going on around them. When they start demanding that from the media, the media will respond.

Re: stupid american media

[(Anonymous)]

considering every time baby bush farts he gets his own dedicated half-hour special on 63 cable news channels.

;)

-k
http://www.efesar.com/blog

Re: stupid american media

[jbear70.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that as well. It's something that needs to change. The media should be the watch dog not the bed fellow of government.

Re: stupid american media

[(Anonymous)]

i totally agree. even independent media in the US is being homogenized. it's really sad.

okay, my apologies to brodie, didn't mean to draw this out any longer. after all, comments are "comments" not "discussions" :)

-k
http://www.efesar.com/blog

[coltcub.livejournal.com]

"It's like we woke up in a european country."

Due to a strange reason I feel this way every day

;)

(excepting in my vacation time)

[xkot.livejournal.com]

That's it. I'm moving to Canada.

"You seem familiar, yet somehow strange -- are you by any chance Canadian?"

[jbear70.livejournal.com]

Like Telemann, I believe that the author of the piece, David Montgomery, was being tongue in cheek about the stereotypes. Reading between the lines regarding his comment creating civil rights, I would say that although the US did not create civil rights, it based it's form of government not on a monarchy but on a system of representation that was based on the ideal that all people are equal. Yes, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the writings of John Locke may have led up to it, the founders of the US did establish this as a central tenant of the government.

I think in many ways Mr. Montgomery was trying to give the reader a wake up call to all those United States citizens who believe that their country is the best, or tops. Such blind nationalism can really turn into something ugly if the citizens let it. In the US today, there are groups pushing to deny freedom and the pursuit of happiness by certain minorities. In my opinion people have forgotten the founding principles of our country and like Mr. Montgomery was trying to point out, we were once at the forefront of the movement for liberty and equality for all and now we are trying to deny equality to a whole group of people. Quoting from the article, And America is looking fussy, Victorian and imperial. ,much to the dispair of the founding fathers of the US, I would imagine his point being.

I believe that in the coming years, people will see what Canadians have done with gay marriage and decide that it isn't the end of civilization that the religious right in our country makes it out to be. Hopefully that will be the end of this silly argument that the state should only recognize the union of a man and a woman. In many ways, I think your country did us a huge favor.

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

yeah, as previously stated, i think the "nationalism" is just a mockery of US tunnel-vision/mirror-gazing

that said, i still don't understand where people here get their ideas of a Canadian stereotype. where did it come from? i don't find the "aboot" that noticeable, i've seen very few (if any) mounties, and i just don't associate flannel and hats with earflaps with Canada...it just doesn't click.

when i went to Disney a few weeks ago, i wandered around the "Gallery of the Nations" in Epcot. i stumbled a place filled with log cabins, maple syrup jugs, and a bunch of backwoods-hick-looking folks in the aforementioned flannel and hats. oh, and of course, endless references to "eh?"
...but it just doesn't click.