Think Europe’s a little upset about November 2nd?
“From Your Dummy Friend” Kahuna
Man, between this and Chirac’s childish behaviour I am amazed. It tells me a ton when people think that all those who disagree with them are dumb. I have to be honest, one of the satisfactions in Bush winning is that I get to watch all these people piss and moan. I think that the response from Europe has been an embarassment. I hope this sentiment all settles down soon and they can get over themselves.
Gotta admit to thinking the exact same thing after hearing the election results. Truth is, GWB is probably the most unpopular president ever in other countries. They did a poll here in Canada and a lot more people were hoping for Kerry as the next president, including myself. There was also an international poll before the election and found the same thing almost everywhere.
Man you got to stop reading the Globe an Mail and Toronto Star. Chretien and the Liberal Party over that last ten years have made Canada, like your “polls”, irrelevant.
Just sit there and wallow in your own smuggness while your government robs you blind and the only thing they let you strive for is mediocrity.
Got lots of beefs about our government to, especially the current scandal with the Liberals. I’m even more annoyed at the provincial level with the Liberal Party we recently elected in Ontario. Trust me, I’m not the least bit smug. I hate politicians in general, no matter where they’re from.
I’d love to discuss more about Canada here, but to be perfectly honest, I’ll bet less than 10% of the posters here would even know the name of the Canadian prime minister let alone naming the major political parties. American politics dominant this forum, so I might as well follow along.
I think those international polls should be important to GWB for if no other reason to point out that he has an image problem in the rest of the world and it would likely be in his best interest to work to improve this. In Canada, Kerry’s popularty over Bush was partly to do with the fact he was from the northeast, played hockey and was easier for the average Canuk to relate to than GWB.
Paul Martin. Before that it was Chretien. I loved Trudeau and his hottie wife (the first one, wasn’t it?) Margaret.
I think the most colorful politicians in Canada now are some of Martin’s cabinet ministers. Especially the one who couldn’t control herself and called Dubya a moron. I think she hit the ceiling again yesterday and let fly on GWB again.
I’m up on the Quebecois movement and the western provinces and their own dissatisfaction with the whole "kow-towing to Quebec thing. I’ve got the Conservative-Liberal thing down, but I can’t directly give the exact parties’s names.
And, like I said before, I will never forget Canada’s help in 1980, when they got some of our embassy people in Iran out of the country right from under the noses of the Iranian students. That alone gets Canada a free pass from me. It also guards our Northern border and has been one of our greatest and most steady friends.
Canada lives right next door to the most powerful nation on the face of the planet and in history. How can it not but feel ambiguous about us, sometimes?
K
Ain’t envy a bitch?
I don’t know about envy, but there’s definitely some resentment. Me and Cerveloguy are probably on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, but I can’t find it in me to out-and-out resent Canada.
Maybe growing up in the Detroit-Windsor, Canada area and listening to CKLW and watching CBC and “Hockey Night In Canada”, with Don Cherry did it for me. And they did send troops to Afghanistan, in the face of real pacifisim in Chretien’s party. The Canadian troops also lost lives over there.
But I think that if Canada thought that the chips were really down, and that the right and proper thing to do were to commit themselves to our side and our fight, that they’d still do it today. I think we’re just too interwoven with each other for it to be otherwise.
K
“They did a poll here in Canada and a lot more people were hoping for Kerry as the next president, including myself. There was also an international poll before the election and found the same thing almost everywhere.”
See, this is what I don’t get. This isn’t personal to you or anyone in particular, but knowing that all those other countries don’t want Bush was the second best reason I could think of to vote for him. The first was the thing about judicial appointments.
Paul Martin. Before that it was Chretien. I loved Trudeau and his hottie wife (the first one, wasn’t it?) Margaret.
I think the most colorful politicians in Canada now are some of Martin’s cabinet ministers. Especially the one who couldn’t control herself and called Dubya a moron. I think she hit the ceiling again yesterday and let fly on GWB again.
I’m up on the Quebecois movement and the western provinces and their own dissatisfaction with the whole "kow-towing to Quebec thing. I’ve got the Conservative-Liberal thing down, but I can’t directly give the exact parties’s names.
And, like I said before, I will never forget Canada’s help in 1980, when they got some of our embassy people in Iran out of the country right from under the noses of the Iranian students. That alone gets Canada a free pass from me. It also guards our Northern border and has been one of our greatest and most steady friends.
Canada lives right next door to the most powerful nation on the face of the planet and in history. How can it not but feel ambiguous about us, sometimes?
K
Correct on a lot of things except:
Trudeau was an American hater of the highest order who never met a communist he didn’t like. His best friend being Castro.
Trudeau was an American hater of the highest order who never met a communist he didn’t like.
I know. But he was always entertaining, which is what I liked. Whatever happened to Margie, by the way? She was a lot younger than him and quite the prime piece back in the day.
K
I don’t know about envy, but there’s definitely some resentment. Me and Cerveloguy are probably on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, but I can’t find it in me to out-and-out resent Canada.
Maybe growing up in the Detroit-Windsor, Canada area and listening to CKLW and watching CBC and “Hockey Night In Canada”, with Don Cherry did it for me. And they did send troops to Afghanistan, in the face of real pacifisim in Chretien’s party. The Canadian troops also lost lives over there.
But I think that if Canada thought that the chips were really down, and that the right and proper thing to do were to commit themselves to our side and our fight, that they’d still do it today. I think we’re just too interwoven with each other for it to be otherwise.
K
Unfortunately Don Cherry is now considered a right wing racist wacko for his support of the US and his days are probably numbered at the CBC. That’s what you call freedom of speech in Canada. Support the US or be a little bit colourful and you a gone! Actually that’s why I’m living in excile in the US. 
Don was actually called a racist for calling Swedish and Quebec hockey players visor wearers.
I love Don. He thinks the only true hockey players are Canadian and American. He sure doesn’t have any use for the European style of hockey, either.
I think he used that phrase “pencil-necked geeks” to describe the Euros and the way they chose to play the game. Good on him.
I can’t stay mad at Canada. And, as many times as I’ve been over there (being born and raised in Detroit, I was always comfortable with just going over the Ambassador Bridge and carrying on as if I were still in the States), I never observed or experienced any overt anti-Americanism.
K
– See, this is what I don’t get. This isn’t personal to you or anyone in particular, but knowing that all those other countries don’t want Bush was the second best reason I could think of to vote for him.
Why? To piss off a lot of the rest of the world? Why would you want to do that? A troubling statement to say the least…
indeed, if you think people who disagree with you are dumb, that’s really childish…
however, how about ‘those who disagree with us are part of the axis of evil’…
no difference mate…just watch your own backyard first…
Hey Francois;
FWIW here’s some advice. When you are gathering proof of publication for your P.R. application under distinguished scholar. Have your lawyer leave the above thesis out.
Good Night I’ve had too much fun tonight.
Cheers!
“Why? To piss off a lot of the rest of the world? Why would you want to do that? A troubling statement to say the least…”
WOW!! I am absolutely aghast at the number of people here who don’t get this.
No, it isn’t to piss them off, they should be afraid of pissing us off, but as any fool can see, they don’t give a flying fuck if they piss us off. The reason? We’re a bunch of saps who believe in trying to please everybody instead of insisting that they please us every once in a while. You know, a little give and take? A little movement to meet us half way?
It’s because WE decide what’s best for us, not them. Why should we listen to their preferences? Are their countries somehow superior to ours that we should emulate them? I don’t think so. They’ve made a mess of things, now they’d like to see us follow them down the drain. Again, I don’t think so.
These are the countries that decided that Libya and China belonged on the Human Rights Commission and we didn’t. How many times are we supposed to let these maggots spit in our faces?
Sorry, I absolutley couldn’t care less who the French or the Germans or anyone else thinks should be running this country.
– We’re a bunch of saps who believe in trying to please everybody instead of insisting that they please us every once in a while.
Are we really trying to please everyone by polluting up the planet more than any other nation?
For them, I don’t think its so much that we please them as they can’t understand why we would make the decision to re-elect a man who has done so many questionable things. Many of the people who actually voted for him thought he did a poor job but still voted for him, for reasons personal to them.
Foreigners can look at it objectively where you look at it with your patriotism blinders on. If you could look at our country without them you might see why they think the way they do.
For them, I don’t think its so much that we please them as they can’t understand why we would make the decision to re-elect a man who has done so many questionable things. Many of the people who actually voted for him thought he did a poor job but still voted for him, for reasons personal to them.
**Foreigners can look at it objectively where you look at it with your patriotism blinders on. If you could look at our country without them you might see why they think the way they do. **
This one above isn’t quite intellectually or logically consistent. You lump very complex feelings, some of them an inculcated sense of American exceptionalism, into a large box and label it “patriotism”, and say that that’s the primary reason for why we’re so disliked by who? Europeans? The whole world?
I mean, really…what gives them any more insight into our national psyche than we ourselves? When they say that they don’t understand why we would vote such a “bad” President back into office, do they realize that they themselves, by that very statement, have demonstrated an ignorance and lack of intuitiveness about the world’s lone remaining superpower?
Is it because, gosh darn it, we’re just not more like them? And yet, the French zealously guard their French language to the point that they have an appointed language board, set up solely to prevent the further adoption of English colloquialisms and other phraseology. And whom have also begun a twilight struggle against Islam in their own country by enacting laws preventing the wearing of distinctively religious “hijab” (veils or headcoverings).
Somehow, this sort of institutionalized discrimination seems to be tolerated in Europe because of some sort of a* bien pensant *attitude that posits that everyone would understand France’s, and Europe’s (by extension) dilemma, but that our own fight against terror and the desire by our own citizenry to fight against a diminution of national identity is somehow “stupid”. After all, that’s what the Mirror accuses us of.
K
The last comment about islam is hilarious. The french code civil makes a very clear separation between the State and the Church. In public schools, you are not allowed to show religious signs, be it veil, headcovering, cross, kipa whatever.
If you want to go to School and practice your religion freely, there are plenty of private schools where you can pray when you have to, eat what you are allowed to eat and dress the way you want.
That’s the essential meaning behind my point, though. In our PUBLIC schools, you can’t have such a thing as a ban on hijab or other religious wear. We, on the other hand, will force our citizenry into PRIVATE schools for such a thing, and allow the citizenry, to generally decide just what constitutes a violation of the separation of Church and State. So far as I know, Sikhs are allowed their turbans in public schools, Jews are allowed their yarmulkas, Catholics can wear a crucifix (lord knows Madonna must’ve worn a big enough one back in her “boy toy” days 
and Muslim girls can wear a hijab or veil, pretty much without anybody blowing a major gasket about it.
It seems to me that France has completely flip-flopped the democratic ideals of egalitarianism and have dictated that the way to harmony in public life is to hide away in a private setting the very things which may define your existence. That can’t be anything but bad for the future of *La belle France. *And that’s a sad thing, because I really do generally admire France and the French.
K
Do you agree that the Jewish skullcap and the Christian crucifix were added so as to avoid any yowls of complaint by the Muslims that the law was solely an artifice designed to keep hijab out of the public schools? Because that’s what is appears to be from this side of the pond.
K