Canada Is Not The United States

No self-respecting country in the history of the world has willingly put itself under the law of another country. But Canada did that with the Free Trade Agreements. Canada made U.S. Trade Law the law of Canada. When the U.S. won’t make its own traders abide by U.S. trade laws, Canadians writhe in Ottawa, and U.S. spokespeople say: “You just don’t understand our system (Stupid)". Those U.S. people are right. The U.S. system is one which is high in Public Relations and propaganda, low in regard for human life, and totally scornful of treaties, contracts, and trust. Those U.S. people are right for another reason. The major power in the world since 1945 pushed and shoved many of the planet’s nations into Free Trade, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and other institutions to make the world a more freely trading global village. But the U.S. didn’t mean a word of what it said about freer trade – that it would create a system in which all would benefit. All U.S. effort was undertaken to rake more money off the planetary table into U.S. pockets. Anything which impedes that is rejected by the U.S. – regardless of treaties, conventions, promises, contracts. U.S. double-cross of Canada in softwood lumber is only a small sign (though big, and important, to Canada). Now, the U.S. is beginning to erect serious barriers against free and easy trade with China. How come? Because a system which makes people outside the U.S. destitute is a good system. When the U.S. standard of living is threatened, however, watch out. Watch the U.S. It will set about smashing the system. Treaties? Contracts? Agreements? Get lost. Those U.S. people are right for still another reason. The U.S. will contract with anyone as meaninglessly as it breaks contracts. When it suited the U.S., it had a sweaty-hand relation with Panama’s criminal leader, General Noreiga. But when the general showed he might have a mind of his own, the U.S. invaded, spirited the terrible criminal, Noreiga, away, faked a trial for his misdeeds, and put him up forever in a hideaway prison somewhere. No open, media-watched, egalitarian trial for Noreiga. He might have talked about contracts, agreements, and deals he had with George Bush, senior. Then there was poor Suddam Hussein, Iraq leader, backed to the hilt by the U.S. He was armed, aided, contracted with, helped. Until…. Now he resides in a U.S. prison, euphemistically called an Iraq prison, waiting. Chances are he won’t ever be tried. If he is, he might talk. Any bettors? Pat Carney, Derek Burney, Thomas d'Aquino, Brian Mulroney, Simon Reisman, and their squalid lot may be easily taken in, being members of the “U.S. Party” in Canada. But there are always Canadians who aren’t taken in, who see the U.S. pretty clearly. Think of T.C. Haliburton, major international humourist and a Nova Scotian. In 1835 he wrote a story about a U.S. travelling salesman, Sam Slick, talking to a Nova Scotian about the world. Haliburton called the book The Clockmaker. Any Canadian might think that what Sam Slick said 170 years ago, was said by some U.S. speaker today. Slick calls the U.S. people “the most free and enlightened citizens on the face of the earth”. They take, he says, the shine “off of all creation”. The U.S., he says, is “the greatest glory under heaven”. “The British”, he says,”can whip all the world, and we can whip the British”. But Slick also says: “The bigger the house, the bigger the fools be that’s in it”. And then Slick gets a little thoughtful about the U.S.A. He pictures it as ready to blow up at any time because of its very nature and identity – the identity that scorns trust and treats agreements as garbage. Writing of the U.S. future Sam predicts: “If you don’t see,” he says, “an eruption of human gore worse than Etna lava, then I’m mistaken. There’ll be the very devil to pay, that’s a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern Whites, and the Northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our folks’ temper, as raw meat does that of a dog; it fairly makes me sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all be tranquil once more, but it’s an even chance if it don’t leave us the three steamboat options – to be blown sky-high, to be scalded to death, or drowned.” The tornado aftermath in New Orleans may just be a hint of what is coming. Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders (Sept 2 05 A10) is puzzled at the chaos in New Orleans, what he calls a “complete social breakdown”. Then he dips into characteristic Yellow Journalism to say: “I mean it looks like Rwanda”. Well, anyway, let’s agree it’s bad. U.S. people are asking, he says, why in other places “entire societies pull together in enriching acts of mutual assistance”, but not in the U.S.A. Historians, Doug Saunders goes on, answer with something which sounds like T.C. Haliburton but definitely isn’t. “The individualistic, egalitarian, and anti-authoritarian values that have made the United States succeed have always been accompanied by an every-man-for-himself ethos that can destroy the system itself.” Balderdash. That’s U.S. Public Relations and propaganda operating at full speed. Egalitarian values have never existed in the U.S.A. The U.S. Declaration of Independence declared all men equal [egalitarian values] except the large population of Black slaves that increased significantly after the Declaration. And – oh yes – except the Native Indians the U.S. was wiping out by genocidal strategies which it increased after the Declaration. So much for U.S. egalitarian values. How about its “anti-authoritarian values”? They are hot air and propaganda. “Authority” in the U.S.A., just for instance, connived and lied and cheated to make an illegal war against Iraq – to the overwhelming approval of the U.S. population. Only now is a slow, disorganized resistance to the War Against Iraq growing in the U.S. Is it doing so because the anti-authoritarian U.S. people are horrified that the leaders they put into authority connived, lied, cheated? Well, actually, no. They’re horrified that the U.S. can’t win the war and some U.S. soldiers are being killed and wounded. Do those resistance people talk about the tens of thousands of innocent Iraq people killed? Rarely. Who cares about them? The first truth about the U.S. is that it isn’t egalitarian but repressive and hierarchical and class-ridden. That’s one of the reasons U.S. people reach out and grab when punitive force breaks down. Deny “the most free and enlightened citizens on the face of the earth” all the humane securities of a civilized society and treat many of them racistically, try to stop the poorest from voting, and use them as human trash in the pursuit of class wealth – and the outcome will be easily predictable. Our journalists have polished up a term they like to use, saying that New Orleans has long had “an underclass” ready to rape, murder, loot, and destroy. Our journalists do not trouble to ask where that “underclass” comes from, why it exists. The second truth is that the U.S. isn’t anti-authoritarian, but the opposite. It has two authoritarian political parties that look the same. Anyone trying to create a third party with real ideas gets run out. Authoritarianism makes the U.S. look wonderfully cohesive. But the real injustice of class difference in the U.S. (education costs, health costs, living standards, bulging privatized prisons, for instance) makes the U.S. a powder-keg of individualism. No wonder Black spokespeople – and a lot of others – are saying the abject failure of rescue organization in New Orleans is a product of U.S. class, racism, and capitalism. There is, however, one kind of anti-authoritarianism in the U.S.A. It is the anti-authoritarianism of the capitalist class. When the government of the U.S. A. decides it has to do something for the ordinary people, then the capitalist class of the U.S. calls the government socialist, screams about its own individual rights, and puts ads in newspapers decrying the irresponsibility of “authority”. Something like that happened in the Clinton regime when he decided the U.S. people should have a system akin to universal health care. The “anti-authoritarian” capitalist class stopped that idea dead in its tracks. When I wrote in a recent column called “Yankee Stay Home” that the U.S. person says “me first, me second, and me third”, many people responded negatively. But a tornado on the Gulf Coast confirms what I wrote. The Bush cabal had to be forced into action. The rich were somewhere else. Capitalism looked the other way until it saw a Public Relations opportunity. And on the ground, the forsaken, oppressed, victims of “U.S. democracy” grabbed all they could. The people on the ground grabbing all they can are the visible mirror image of the invisible others all the way up the U.S. success ladder grabbing all they can and putting their boots in the faces of those below them. It’s called “U.S. democracy” and it tells everyone the U.S. possesses “the most free and enlightened citizens on the face of the earth”.