From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Canada and the U.S.
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:43:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Apr8.084346.6620
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Apr5.070324.18773@mdivax1.uucp> robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com (Jim Robinson) writes:

>Just so that I am not accused of not practicing what I am preaching here is
>a short list of perceived problems. Note that my presenting them here does
>*not* imply that I agree or disagree with them.

>- the US treats Canada like the 51st state

From what I can see, this is probably a just charge to some extent.
Certainly many US citizens' popular views of Canada is, "They're just
like us," though remember that as infuriating as this may be to a
Canadian, it's _intended_ as a high compliment.  (So you don't
consider being called "just like the US" a compliment, and should say
so-- but at the same time, remember that the spirit in which it
is intended is not malicious.)  As for the US government's activity
towards Canada, it can't _really_ treat it like a state (it's been
more than a century since US troops invaded, Washington doesn't
tax there, US Supreme Court decisions have no bearing...).  Doubtless
the US has used its size, wealth, military power and proximity to
press Canada to do things it otherwise might not have done, but without
condoning those it's important to realize that the US and Canada probably
have the most benign relationship that a large power and a bordering
country which is significantly smaller in population have ever had--
certainly better than our treatment of Mexico, say, let alone say
the USSR or China's treatment of it's neighbors.  Still, as I say,
Canadians have some cause for complaint.

>- the US practices economic and cultural imperialism wrt Canada

Economic imperialism: Well, I'm a free-trader (though I don't
really want to get side-tracked by that argument), so I support
both the US-Canada agreement and NAFTA.  I do think that the US
is being unfair in the lumber dispute, from all I've seen.
But as far as economic imperialism meaning just US citizens owning
Canadian properties and businesses, well, I don't see anything
wrong with it, any more than I see anything wrong with Britons
or Japanese owning US properties or businesses.  I don't know that
someone in Seattle is any better off with a New York owner for
the company she works for than with a Japanese owner; similarly, I
don't see that someone in Saskatoon is better off if his boss
is in Ottawa than if that boss is in Omaha.

Cultural imperialism: Similarly, as long as the US isn't jamming
Canadian stations to bring Radio Free Canada and Voice of Southern
North America to Canada, I'm not sure what cultural imperialism
means.  Offering to sell books, tv programs and movies produced 
in the US to Canadians?  Buying advertising time for products
whose producers are headquartered in the US?  We're hardly enacting
death sentences for Canadian authors who insult the United States
down here, after all.  :-)

>- the US takes Canada for granted

True enough.  The US doesn't recognize its good fortune in having the
longest undefended border in the world and neighbors which share many
(though not all) facets of its language and culture.  It's only
natural; we notice our enemies, because they're the ones who might
bomb us, or whom people we know may have to shoot and be shot at by.
We notice our adversaries in trade because they're the ones we can
blame when the economic cycle hits a recession (to my mind morally and
logically equivalent to blaming the Japanese for snowstorms or
earthquakes, but there it is).  But notice the people who _aren't_
causing us trouble?  Who notices them?  Who notices the Swiss, or
the Swedes, or the Czechs and Slovaks, or the Hungarians?  We notice
the Russians because we were once afraid of them and now feel
great hope and fear at once, we notice the Irish because a minority
of them feel it necessary to set off bombs in public places,
we notice the French or the Germans precisely when we disagree with
them, and not when we're in harmony.

And after all, why should Canadians care whether the US notices
Canada?  The worth of Canada is measured by Canadians, and if
those in the US don't recognize that value, it's really the US'
loss and not Canada's.  In any case, the question remains what
it is we should be doing that we're not doing in "taking Canada
for granted."

>- the US bullies Canada wrt trade

As noted above, this does happen, though I still think that the
US and Canada are too valuable to one another to let those
disagreements get too bitter.

>- the US expects Canada (and everyone else for that matter) to play by its
>  rules, but then changes these rules when it starts to lose

True to an extent (though true to a smaller extent than any other
major power in history).  Admittedly, Canada isn't measuring us
against Britain's treatment of India or the USSR's treatment of
Poland, or even against our own past treatment of Canada
(which included the occasional invasion).  I'm hardly inclined
to think that the US is in no need of improvement with respect to
Canada.

>Personally, I tend to agree with a previous poster, the Canadian psyche
>needs an "enemy" (the US), just as much as the US psyche does (was the
>USSR, now Iraq and Japan).

And add to that the fact that when two people are forced to live next
to one another by necessity, each is likely to learn and become
sensitive to every annoying habit the other has.  And nations'
memories are longer than peoples'.  (Though American nations less so
than in many places.  There _aren't_ any thousand-year-old grudges
among the American nations, as there are in Europe and Asia, because
we haven't been here that long.  [American Indian nations
provisionally excepted, because I don't know enough, but are there any
current rivalries which are believed to be a thousand years or more
old?]  Our chance at a fresh start has helped us to avoid the sort of
hell we see developing in the Balkans and the Caucasus, and which has
driven Europe to fratricidal war twice this century.)  But I'd also
hope that Canadians might remember that despite every slight,
and every legitimate reason for annoyance, there are far worse neighbors
to have than the United States.

Mike

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Never let your sense of morality prevent
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 you from doing what's right!"
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 --Mayor Salvor Hardin of Terminus
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_
Xref: sparky soc.culture.canada:3227 soc.culture.usa:2821