General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs we, in Canada, celebrate our day, we mourn our previous friendship with our neighbours to the south.
This was found in the Vancouver Sun newspaper (I forgot the writers name). It spells out our feelings right now, however, there is one paragraph that I put in italics because it is obvious he does not read the likes of DU, to understand there are many Americans not quiet about our split with the US. I am including an old video at the end (from about 14-15 years ago) but celebrates our pride in our country.
Its been nice knowing you.
Goodbye New York, and your Jewish delicatessens with corned beef sandwiches stacked as high as your skyline.
Goodbye Detroit, my boyhood neighbour, and so long to Tiger Stadium, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Motown.
Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland how Ill miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities. And while Im at it, goodbye to the cheap gas and shoreline cottages of Point Roberts, Americas appendix dangling just below the border not a mile from me. What was once so close has never been so far.
Goodbye Stag Leaps Pinot Noir, Makers Mark bourbon, and Hebrew National hotdogs. My tastebuds mourn.
Goodbye to the cowards on both sides of the border who have demonstrated that whatever fidelity to democratic ideals they profess to have extends only so far as their self-interest. They should get a real job, say, in a chain gang.
Goodbye to anyone, again on both sides of the border, who bends the knee to Trump, rather than standing up to him, as any self-respecting person would and should, and telling him to piss off.
Goodbye to a culture that demands we bend the knee.
Goodbye languid vacations in Maui and Palm Springs. My next winter vacation will be in a sunny climate other than any America can offer, and preferably in a country the U.S. has treated as disdainfully as mine. Ill have more than a few to pick from.
Most painful of all, goodbye to my American friends, some of whom I have known all my life, and some of whom Ive collected along the way. I can cross your border but no longer wish to: Your Narcissist-in-Chief has decreed that my countrymen and I have the choice of becoming destitute, vassals or enemies. Im choosing the latter
Meanwhile, your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I we have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.
Goodbye to the image of America I once held dear the America of Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley and James Brown, of George Gershwin and Aaron Copeland, of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain, of Martin Luther King and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Does not include our DU friends.
Goodbye to what I envied as the country that prided itself on encouraging unparalleled innovation in science, art and business. Any good that remains of it has been overshadowed by rapacity, cheap commercialism and egotism.
Goodbye to that ever-present sense of inferiority I once had when considering the relationship between Canada and America. What doubt I had of our own greatness is gone, and in its place is a certitude that Canada is superior to the U.S. in all the ways that matter. I look across the border now and see a violent, burgeoning autocracy now ever on the edge of civil war, and a population that is either cheering on this new brutalism or quaking in fear from it.
Goodbye to tepid patriotism. If Trump has done us any favour, it is awakening us to the fact that we can no longer take Canadas existence for granted, that the bad actors in the world have begun to look covetously upon our improbably vast land that is laden with riches, that they want those riches and that niceness as a national character is not enough to dissuade them from taking them.
Schoolyard bullies dont want to be buddies. They want your lunch.
And after a long era of living a geopolitical life of convenient economic and military subservience, weve awakened to the fact that we are going to have to relearn our independence and fight any way we can to keep it.
Goodbye to living under the American nuclear umbrella, or any form of American hegemony. Goodbye to negotiation, wheedling, genuflecting or feel-good hands-across-the-border fairy tales. The American government has shown that established alliances mean nothing to it now, and so cannot be trusted. In Trumps new world order, all the old verities are off the table, so let us make new ones.
Do levy tariffs, as we have promised to do, and do grit our way through the inevitable economic pain that will come. Re-arm as if we were on a war footing, because we are on a war footing. Conduct the mother of all public relation campaigns that let Americans know how badly they are perceived in the world, that theyve gone from the shining city on the hill to just another empire with the same tired territorial ambitions as Russia or China. Do anything to impress upon Americans that their government is without real friends or allies, and that they, in essence, are alone.
So, goodbye America, its been nice knowing you, but I dont know you anymore. Ive reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I wont consort with the enemy
&ab_channel=ClassifiedVEVO#democracy #authoritarianism #canada #usa #politics #monday #gaz
SuzyandPuffpuff
(540 posts)And what a sad state of affairs. Karma is real. I plan on living long enough to witness the filth that has gripped our govt; implode. I relish that day.
roamer65
(37,957 posts)From the future Province of Michigan.
Bev54
(13,432 posts)SidneyR
(212 posts)by not calling it "America." That is a continent, but the dominating power of the insane country between Canada and Mexico allows it to take the name of the entire continent as its own. That's the power of naming. Don't give them that. They are the United States (of America), not just "America."
Cha
(319,089 posts)Saw this on my calendar a few days ago.
Ill read it later.
🕯️🕊️💙🌈🇨🇦🍁💛💙🌊
bif
(27,000 posts)I'd love to be part of Canada!
I would move from RedIndiana to Michigan to be part of this.
Xavier Breath
(6,640 posts)yorkster
(3,836 posts)Spot on, but ..
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 1, 2025, 09:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Geeeeebz, Did that writer did not notice the No Kings March, and the previous one?!
What are they living up in some small town by Thunder Bay?!
No offense to small towns, or Thunder Bay, but it is far away from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver et al.
I had a few Canadian friends & acquaintances on line, ad one lived by TB. The rest were in/around Toronto, and one in Vancouver.
Bev54
(13,432 posts)By our media. I think he was saying more about the hits taken by Canada with the Trump tariffs and disrespect from him and his allies.
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)One of favorite NO Kings & Canada photo, maybe a video was along the ?Detroit, US border and Canada by the a river with folks waving to each other from each side.m's shore.
And a Canadian or two on line when I go to particular site with a lot of US liberals, etc ...they know how upset, and furious we are.
Drumphf is such scum for so many reasons, and disrespecting a good partner like Canada is awful. 😬 😔
Just one funny aside...
I live in NYC. A trip I happened to take in the '80s to East Lansing Mich. by bus had me stopping in Detroit during the early day.
Then riding on the road your typical green highway signage ovethead -
one sign says "To Canada" with arrows, a highway emblem w #, etc.
I do a a complete double take!!!
That's bc I've to Canada twice as a tween, but from NYC it's like ?500 miles to Buffallo, NY and to your border there.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(24,683 posts)Bev54
(13,432 posts)Cha
(319,089 posts)My then Fiancé in Detroit who played Hockey used to talk about him a lot back in the day.
TY!
Bev54
(13,432 posts)He owned property in the town where I was his banker. Funny thing is I never met him, just spoke on the phone and received a few notes from him. I think he sold the property, not sure, I moved into business loans.
Cha
(319,089 posts)Connection.
Cha
(319,089 posts)paragraph in Italics!
The writer is really amazing what all he Covered about Canada and the US.. who are Not so United now.
Mahalo, Bev.. It also answers my question If any Canadians are going to visit Blue Hawaii .
Lucky Canadians!
Happy Canada Day!
scipan
(3,041 posts)Till we meet again I hope.