I’m sure a lot of Dutch Jews would beg to differ. That is, if they lived to tell about it.
I don’t disagree with the rest of your post, zoony, but this is putting the entire point in a ridiculous perspective. With all due respect, please acknowledge that the persecution of Jews, homosexuals and gypsies (to name the largest groups) under Nazi regime was applicable to Germany and every single bit of soil the Germans occupied during WWII.
If not, pick up your history book, and read again.
I once went to Canada when I was in the Navy. Victoria, BC, to be exact. It’s one of the beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. The weather was nice (it was summer) and the people seemed no more or less polite than we Americans. About the only anti-America stuff I saw was some graffiti in a men’s room in a fish ‘n’ chips shop. (Yes, they do have graffiti in Canada.) I’d like to go back to Victoria some day.
I am from Canada and have travelled throughout New England and New York. The only truely negative thing I have to say about Americans is that they are not very knowledgeable about their northern neighbors. I have met people who believed that all of Canada is in the arctic and that we freeze ALL year long; this is simply not true for the most part. The largest concentration of the population is located in the bottom third of the country, which coincidently runs along the American boarder!
Considering this and the influence of American media, of course Canadian have become “Americanized”, I don’t think that there is alot of dispute there.
I live on the east coast in New Brunswick, which borders Maine. We get alot of tourists here and I have found for the most part Americans are very friendly people. You get your assholes, but we’ve got our assholes too!
If America as a country ‘protects’ Canada, well great, thank you very much and I for one appreciate it!
Crystalguy, I know I am going to probably get shit for this but… Quebecers are not a great example of all of Canada. In my experience the most rude and obnoxious people are from Quebec,to be more precise, from french Quebec. I’m sorry if I have offended any of my fellow Canadians, this is my own personal experience and I am not saying all french people from Quebec are like this! New Brunswick is a bilingual province. I speak french quite well, and when a Quebecer or an Acadian gets pissed off and tell me I should address them in their native tongue instead of using my poor excuse for french, well I want to tell them to fuck off and I wish we had shipped them all back to France when we had had the chance!
I live in NY and find it very difficult to believe that anyone in NY or New England think that the weather changes to snow and freezing temperatures as soon as they cross the border. :rolleyes:
I have to agree about Quebec. As a rule, I usually don’t generalize, but I have to make an exception in this case. Quebeccers are rude, obnoxious, snotty bastards. Other than that, most other Canadians I have met (in my travels there) have been very friendly. Prose being the exception, of course.
I live in NY and find it very difficult to believe that anyone in NY or New England think that the weather changes to snow and freezing temperatures as soon as they cross the border. :rolleyes:
I have to agree about Quebec. As a rule, I usually don’t generalize, but I have to make an exception in this case. Quebeccers are rude, snotty bastards. What is it about the French language that makes one think their shit doesn’t stink? Die, Celine, die!!
Other than that, most other Canadians I have met (in my travels there) have been very friendly. Prose being the exception, of course.
(a rambling response to many previous posts and points; feel free to catch a nap)
Angkins: FWIW, I’ve spent quite a bit of quality time in New Brunswick (Moncton and environs). I loved it, and found folks friendly, funny and great company. But what you say about Quebec is true but only in variable instances.
I hesitated over spending much time in Quebec for several reasons: my French stinks, the political climate was in upheaval and I’d already gotten a bellyful of Parisian snottiness. To my relief folks were great, but paradoxically it was because my French stinks.
{interjection: I have a slightly more drawling version of the midwestern twang, but my French teacher was from Louisiana. So my spoken French–such as it is–carries a strong magnolia-and-bayou drawl.)
As soon as folks heard my godawful accent they knew I was American and cut me some slack. Very bizarre reversal, but true. They forgave my assaults on the language in a way they wouldn’t have forgiven another Canadian. BTW, it’s also why I’m adamantly opposed to offical and enforced multilingual initiatives in the US. Governmental intervention just compounds fractures, IMO.
That example chases the point all around the north forty, but my position is this: people are just people, no matter where they live. Love of home, country and heritage is fine but not ever excuse attacking others, and it doesn’t matter a damn if it’s an American or a Canadian or an Icelander doing the attacking.
People who compartmentalize humanity for their convenience deserve to live in the limited hell their limited hearts have devised. It’s a wretched, blood-drenched pity that exclusionary thinkers have projected that inner hell outwards through stupid, pointless, idiotic wars onto ordinary people who’ve just wanted to live and let live.
That was a tirade, wasn’t it? Bigotry and idiocy are just so stupid.
I’ve been to PQ four or five times. I’m not sure if it was because they knew I was American or not, but I did find the Québécois extremely gracious at my pitiful attempts to speak their language. It was as though they appreciated the fact I was even making the effort. My impression of them from these visits is extremely positive - although I do have a few Québécois clients here in San Francisco and most of them are pretty obnoxious
Thanks for pointing that out, Coldfire. You might also include Poles, who were focused on pretty heavily. Not that others didn’t suffer (Russians, Czechs, Greeks, etc.); it’s just that the Dutch and Polish exterminations stand out clearer for some reason. Perhaps it’s due to the popularity of Diary of Anne Frank and Schindler’s List.
When I was in France, A couple of Quebeckers (sp?) got on the train and started talking to the natives. Teh french folks were laughing so hard they couldnt’t breath. According to them, the french spoken in Quebec is the same french spoken in france in the 17th-18th century. They find it verrrrry amusing.
Quebeckers have no room to laugh at anyone’s accent.
Three minor points:
Prose, you left out your country’s most impressive artist (at least in my eyes), the horror writer of writers, Michael Slade (yes, I know “he’s” a team, but one name is more convenient for a label).
aha: I think the Canadian army is quite good for its size. I wouldn’t hurl stones at our friends to the north as they were in both World Wars before we were.
Angkins: You are right about most Americans’ lack of knowledge about Canada. I was once playing one of those Trivial Pursuit type of games and the other team was asked to name 10 English-speaking countries. They named off at least a third of the globe in the time limit, but no person thought to mention Canada.
Well, I was in Nova Scotia once and a gas station attendant saw our license plate and asked “Where’s Maryland?” (pronouncing it wrong, too). What does that prove?
Coldfire, please note the comparison being made: my point was that the attrocities and horror of the Nazi concentration camp system was little different from the ethnic cleansings in the Balkans. Ergo, had someone stepped in a little earlier, perhaps some of the Holocaust may have been averted. You can only turn a blind eye and wash your hands of so-called ‘internal affairs’ for so long.
mrblue,
The concentration camp system for political dissidents, communists, gays, invalids and other “undersirable elements” was up and running in 1934, less than a year after the NSDAP acquisition of power. The evolution of the death camps took somewhat longer, but you can see where this is headed.
Take some time to read over the Nuremburg Laws of 1936; Jews were not only stripped of their rights, but their status as persons. They were legally forbidden to own businesses, real estate, marry or have sexual relations with Germans, on pain of incarceration or death.
Peacekeeping is a little different from offensive maneuvers. Looking at the situation in the Balkans, most of the killing a blodshed took place because the government had collapsed, not because it was oppressive.
Nowhere in my previous post did I advocate ‘taking control’ of an area, or picking and choosing the form of government I see as the best for it (this seems to be a uniquely American apporach). What I am advocating is a peacekeeping role for current military establishments. What good is an armed force if it exists solely for the insular protection of one nation? Why not use said forces to “police” problem areas and achieve the most value for your military-spending dollar?
Why shake your head at it and say “well, that’s not going to get any better, so what’s the point of trying?”
Perhaps I am being naive. I don’t think that military force is going to solve the world’s problems, but hell, does anyone have a better idea?
Z
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
Being a happily rabid pro-American, I would assume that MHL is simply jealous. Those in inferior countries usually like to bash the greater nations in order to make themselves feel better.
As for all of the Canadian talent, it comes to America doesn’t it? Now, I have observed that the Irish seem to like Canada but then, they’re still killing each other over what form of religion to practice.
America is not perfect by all means, but it is still far better than any other nation in the world, though England runs a close second. We have our flaws, but Americans revel in them, along with their differences. I am biased against Blacks and Mexicans for personal reasons, but they also make up and contribute to the greater whole that is and shall be, America.
We would be diminished without any one of our various races, religions, nationalities and eccentricities.
‘I like me but I sure as shit aint so positive about you.’
Being a happily rabid pro-American, I would assume that MHL is simply jealous. Those in inferior countries usually like to bash the greater nations in order to make themselves feel better.
As for all of the Canadian talent, it comes to America doesn’t it? Now, I have observed that the Irish seem to like Canada but then, they’re still killing each other over what form of religion to practice.
America is not perfect by all means, but it is still far better than any other nation in the world, though England runs a close second. We have our flaws, but Americans revel in them, along with their differences. I am biased against Blacks and Mexicans for personal reasons, but they also make up and contribute to the greater whole that is and shall be, America.
We would be diminished without any one of our various races, religions, nationalities and eccentricities.
‘I like me but I sure as shit aint so positive about you.’
eh, whats that mr.zambezi…double posting with a 3 hour time differance? or are you trying to make a point?
granted…of course its the people that makes up a countries social habits, but its never one person. so your point is pretty blunt.
yes you meddle quite a bit…but saying that there is nothing wrong with a country acting on its own best interests is so WRONG. oh yeah, my countries best interest is to medddle in the affairs of others, forcing my way of being upon everybody who oppose to me.
what is the best interest of the ones you meddle with? is it to recieve your “help”?
last year, for the first time in history of iceland we were officially paticipants in a war, of course we dont have an army and stuff like that, but our government decided to supports the action “war”. i, and alot of other icelanders HATE that. i dont want to live in a country that supports war, i dont want war anywhere.
point being, amercia is the largest army supporting country in the world. as long as there is the threat that america uses its army outside of the us, other counries will have an army as well. this is perhaps generalizing a bit too much, but this is a basic reason any country keeps an army, “because them others have one too.”
bj0rn - why do we have to live, fearing for our deaths by the hands of other people?
My mistake, I should have specified ‘death camps’ vs. ‘concentration camps’. Didn’t the death camps start around 1941-2? The Soviets killed more of their own people under Stalin before that and nobody ever intervened (except, to the Russian’s eventual horror, the Germans). We had concentration camps for Native Americans and Japanese. Also, what makes you think we knew the Holocaust would happen? Sure, Hitler spelled it out in Mein Kampf, but he was a politician, and they do have a tendency to lie every once in a while to their own ends. In retrospect the signs are all there, but we must be careful not to judge simply because we know the outcome when they did not.
And how much different is this from the Jim Crow laws? Certainly the Jews had it worse, but if black man got caught sleeping with a white woman, a lynching was not out of the question. When human rights for minorities in the US are almost as bad, what gives us the right to intervene in Germany? Sure, outright massacre gives us the right, but, as stated, war was already in progress at that point.
Exactly, and that’s the whole point. You can strike down governments, but you can’t chase down every group of yahoos with guns unless you expend enormous amounts of manpower. The best you can probably do is separate the hostile groups and police the border and hotspots, but even that can’t prevent guerilla actions, and certainly doesn’t end the hate. That’s simply a reactionary tactic.
First, you might think differently if you were the one being invaded. Historically, this is what armed force has been used for. Well, that and empire building… Using armed force to help others is a relatively new idea.
Realistically, policing problem areas is probably the easiest way, but it’s only treating the symptoms, not the disease. Once the peacekeepers leave (as they have to eventually), the hate remains to spring up again. The root cause is hatred, and military force can never extinguish that, except with the greater evil of killing all who hate.
I’m not saying it’s not worth trying, but rather, that, like a doctor, we better make sure we first do no harm. Does bombing innocent civilians for human rights always seem like the right thing to do? How many innocents are we allowed to kill before we become more evil than those who instigated it? What military means do you think are justifiable in bringing about a peaceful end?
What is your proposal to eliminate the root hatred and bring about lasting peace?
Since this is way OT, I am starting a Great Debate thread: “Peacekeeping in the 21st Century”. You can post your reply there.
