[HN Gopher] U.S. Ambassador says Canadians are consuming 'unheal...
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U.S. Ambassador says Canadians are consuming 'unhealthy' amount of
American news
Author : amadeuspagel
Score : 165 points
Date : 2024-08-27 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehub.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehub.ca)
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| This is true for most (all?) countries. If there's any country
| that avoided this fate, I'd like to know.
|
| People don't know what's going on in their own country but obsess
| over minutae of american politics.
|
| Legacy media is no escape as its journalists themselves are
| addicted to twitter and reflect that in their work. My local
| newspaper in germany used to have Trump on the frontpage more
| then any german politician.
|
| We need local forums.
| hwhwhwhhwhwh wrote:
| It's cause Countries are imaginary entities and humans just
| want drama and don't care to get it from their own imaginary
| entity or some other imaginary entity.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It's a symptom of a problem within the US too. We're an
| enormous country with dozens of member states and territories,
| but we obsess about a tiny fraction of the politics. I've known
| how I'm voting for president for a very long time, but I don't
| even know what's on the ballot yet for things that probably
| influence my life more than the presidency.
|
| Those couple things just suck up all the attention.
| aragonite wrote:
| > This is true for most (all?) countries. If there's any
| country that avoided this fate, I'd like to know.
|
| Tentatively: France, Italy, China, Japan, India (?), Egypt.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Seems like these are primarily non-english speaking states,
| which may help because translation would otherwise be needed.
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| I'm a Canadian living in the states. The joke I tell my family is
| that I go to Canada to hear about US news. The other joke I have
| goes like this: the problem with Canada is that America thinks
| Canada is Europe, Europe thinks it's America and Canadians think
| they're American.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I know you're joking, and fair enough, but I cannot let this
| comment stand ... joke or not. Canadians do not remotely ever
| think they are Americans, at all. Not even subconsciously.
|
| I have a great respect for the US. Realistically, feel the US
| is family, and like family, I love and care for it. Yet at the
| same time, sometimes I shake my head, wonder what my sibling is
| doing, baffled... often concerned out of care for them,
| sometimes out of self interest. Yet I still _care_ , and want
| the best for them.. even if pissed off, angry, or upset with
| that sibling.
|
| There is so much shared history, coupled with so much
| bafflement.
|
| I guess the best way to put it, is the relationship Canada has
| with the US is exceptionally nuanced, and this holds true for
| many Canadians.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No worries, many of us south of that border are baffled as
| well.
|
| But it's not like you guys are completely normal ;-). For
| example, Confederate flags are actually a thing in Canada.
| That's wild to me.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Those aren't Confederate flags!
|
| As my history teacher explained to me, back in the day, a
| small offshoot of Confederates had it with the war. They
| were weary. They were exhausted. And so, as many American
| hippies and conscientious objectors have done in the past,
| they decided to flee to Canada.
|
| At this time however, they were worried about passing
| through Yankee territory, and also about their own troops
| shooting them for desertion. So, cleverly they modified
| their flag, and their uniforms, in subtle yet not quite
| discernible ways.
|
| When approached, they would hold up their hands and
| describe at great length that the flag was much like the
| Ship of Theseus, each thread had been carefully replaced,
| and that their philosophical belief was that it therefore
| was not a Confederate flag. It may _seem_ and _look_ as
| such, but it as most certainly not! "What!", they would
| decry at such statements, "Are you ignorant louts! Have you
| no philosophical roots?", and so soldiers would feel great
| shame, and let them pass.
|
| Thus after much hardship they managed to cross the border,
| settle down in a small town. I'm sure the flag you saw was
| probably only isolated to that one rural town though, but
| even so it just _looked_ like a Confederate flag. It was
| instead copied from that other, unique flag.
| alexb_ wrote:
| There's a much simpler explanation, which is that there
| are racist Canadians.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| This is false. It makes no sense. It can't be found
| anywhere. It reads like a bad Monty Python sketch. I
| can't tell if you're joking or if your history teacher
| was.
| hughesjj wrote:
| > they would hold up their hands and describe at great
| length that the flag was much like the Ship of Theseus
|
| Okay that got a good chuckle out of me lol. Quality
| shitpost, could have sprinkled some lost cause/daughters
| of the Confederacy gaslighting in there too
| ben_w wrote:
| > For example, Confederate flags are actually a thing in
| Canada. That's wild to me.
|
| Also seen one in Cambridge. And I don't mean Cambridge
| Massachusetts, I mean _the original_.
| prewett wrote:
| At least it's relatively culturally neutral in Cambridge,
| UK. Putting up a Confederate flag in Cambridge, MA feels
| like it would be risking property damage the next time
| the Progressive student mob gets a bee in their bonnet.
| 8note wrote:
| Some examples of Canadians thinking they're Americans include
| the Convoy on the Canadian right larping as right wing
| Americans, and the "assault weapons ban" on the Canadian left
| larping as American Democrats.
|
| Both of which aimed to solve for problems faced by Americans
| in America by doing something in Canada, when the same
| problems don't apply to Canada.
| voisin wrote:
| How about our Prime Minister LARPing as a Democrat and
| spending a ton of money on a school lunch program that as
| far as I can tell (being an avid consumer of news across
| the country's political spectrum) no one has ever suggested
| was an issue north of the border? At a time when we are
| already ludicrously overspending, no less.
| switchbak wrote:
| Well to be fair, most of that LARPing is being done by our
| PM who likes to piggyback on the cache of big American news
| stories. That's seen by many of us as being ridiculous.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Canadians do not remotely ever think they are Americans,
| at all._
|
| Nah. Canadians regularly see themselves as Americans with
| respect to political processes and laws. Presumably because
| of said American media consumption and believing what it
| portrays also applies to Canada.
| 8jef wrote:
| Even dogs might think (dream) they are humans. Close
| encounters will do that.
|
| https://mymodernmet.com/dogs-dream-about-humans/
| peab wrote:
| Almost the entire Canadian identity is based around the fact
| that they aren't american
| astrodust wrote:
| It's paradoxical. Like the famous _I Am Canadian_ ad
| campaign being the product of a famous Canadian
| brewer...that was subsequently acquired by an American
| conglomerate.
|
| Like how Tim Horton's, the quintessential Canadian
| institution, was bought by Burger King and remains
| "Canadian" if only for tax reasons.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > that was subsequently acquired by an American
| conglomerate.
|
| Many countries and cultures are struggling with the
| excessive power of American capital, it bring with it Us-
| style management and 'way of doing things'.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| As an immigrant to Canada, I don't think Canadians think of
| themselves as Americans, but they are way too much affected
| by what is happening in the US.
|
| I bet if you rated all countries in the world by how much
| common people know and spend time looking at the internal
| politics of neighboring countries, Canada would be easily top
| 5. On the other hand, most countries outside North/South
| America have thousands of years of shared history, unlike the
| 3-4 hundred ones by (non-native) Americans.
|
| In my opinion, Canadian should stop with this obsession and
| engage more with local politics.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > but they are way too much affected by what is happening
| in the US
|
| Same with Mexico, but Mexicans are nowhere near as addicted
| to American news (Spanish language or English language).
|
| TBH, most people consume news as entertainment, and outside
| of Postmedia Network media, Canadian reporting is fairly
| bland and boring.
|
| Also, having spent some of my youth in rural and urban BC,
| in most cases purely Canadian television media didn't even
| really exist - everyone would be watching either a reskin
| of an American channel (Family Channel aka Disney) or an
| American channel (CNN, PBS, Fox).
|
| Sure you had CBC but it was filled with ads and never
| talked about local issues anyhow.
|
| That said, Western Canada is for all intents and purposes
| the exact same as Washington/Montana/Alaska - almost
| everyone in BC, AB, and the territories has at least 1
| close relative who's an American or immigrated to America,
| and the only difference was that signs were occasionally in
| French, BC Ferries had a tiny portrait of Queen Elizabeth
| tucked in a random corridor next to a portrait of Harper or
| Trudeau, and Costco served poutine and charged 2x for milk
| and goods compared to the one in Bellingham
| tchalla wrote:
| > In my opinion, Canadian should stop with this obsession
| and engage more with local politics.
|
| In my opinion, this should be done by the entire world
| instead of obsessing over a no named senator said something
| scandalous on Twitter
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Indeed. Not just other countries, either. Here in America
| we need to stop being hyper-fixated on the news cycle
| too. It's extremely unhealthy.
| kergonath wrote:
| Yes, this works for Europe as well.
| switchbak wrote:
| This is 1000% correct. Canada is definitely not defined by
| "being American", or as Peter Zeihan would say: "passive-
| aggressively not-American".
|
| Of course, when you're a small nation right next to the most
| powerful nation the world has ever seen, it's easy to have
| your media sphere be overwhelmed by the glut coming from
| south of the border. This is especially true as institutions
| like the CBC and NFB have come into increasing irrelevance
| while the internet replaces them. But this should not be
| misinterpreted as the country missing an identity or viewing
| itself as the same as the USA - that's simply not the case.
|
| On a casual viewing, the similarity of external culture looks
| the same: we have the same shops, the same ugly modern strip
| malls, etc. We mostly look at talk somewhat the same,
| certainly in urban centers. But when you dive into the heart
| of our cultures, we had very different histories, and that's
| reflected in some big societal discrepancies. The USA is a
| bit of an outlier in a number of ways, and in many ways
| Canada resembles Scandinavian countries more than the USA.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I think the Canadian living in the US that you responded to
| was close to the mark. Most Americans have little contact
| with Canadians and many think of Canada abstractly, but not
| very accurately, as a European-like country located above the
| US. Beyond this abstract idea, most Americans don't have any
| reason to think about Canada on a regular basis.
|
| Also, Canadians may not think of themselves as Americans, but
| young Anglo-Canadians are products of American culture. I
| roomed in college with one for a year and nothing was
| distinctly non-American about him besides the accent.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Canadian culture is a vague and vacuous hole with the
| strongest defining feature being their insistence that
| they're not Americans. Someone from the UK or Mexico is so
| uniquely different that these's never been any confusion, but
| Canadians are constantly coping over this. Reminds me of how
| Texas is always threatening to leave the country.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| The siblings metaphore is apt.
|
| War Plan Red by Kevin Lippert suggests relations between the
| two countries is also similar to mutually annoyed suburban
| neighbors.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| When I was younger (decades ago...) Canada felt more 'exotic'
| than it does today. That may just be me getting older and less
| awed by new things, but I'm struck every time I visit by how
| much like America Canada is. Maybe that's why I like it so
| much. America but with universal health care :).
|
| Disclaimer: I only ever go to BC (and I have lived in the PNW
| most of my life), so this might be a very biased hot take. I
| bet Quebec is a little bit different, as well as the other
| provinces & territories.
| bbarnett wrote:
| What radio and then TV did, the Internet has continued. The
| world is shrinking, its cultures are merging, one day there
| will be one language, and one culture, or... maybe two
| yelling at each other.
|
| I once heard, in the early 2000s, that more than 1/2 the
| languages spoken 150 years ago are gone.
| switchbak wrote:
| Canada is being "Americanized", and the media and
| entertainment landscape is at the forefront of that.
|
| I will say though, weighing in on a neighbouring nation while
| only having visited one of its provinces strikes me as a
| little bit conceited. A visit to BC is not going to give you
| much of a perspective of the diversity of this country.
|
| Also: our health care is amongst the worst of the western
| nations at this stage. Subsequent governments have carved it
| away to be a shell of its former self.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > conceited
|
| That's a little harsh, I admitted as much in my post. I
| figured that my disclaimer would clarify that what I really
| think is "The PNW is very similar no matter which side of
| the 49th parallel you find yourself on."
|
| I withhold any opinion on your health care; I've heard
| negatives, sure, but I've got no skin in the game.
| Philosophically I like it better than what we're doing in
| the US, even if the results have been lackluster so far.
| joshlemer wrote:
| Canadian here, and I think that especially on
| philosophical grounds, the Canadian system is terrible.
|
| The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of healthcare
| services, it is illegal in most provinces to buy any
| healthcare for your family. The official marketing is
| that services are given out in priority order. In
| practice, it's rationed according to a lottery, your
| connections, whether you can afford to live near medical
| center, your ability to advocate for yourself, ability to
| show up an hour before a facility opens and wait in line
| for 5 hours, push through constant gaslighting by doctors
| whose goal is to dissuade you from receiving care (they'd
| rather you just give up and go home, here take this
| antibiotic and get out of my face), willingness to
| embellish symptoms to get higher priority placement, etc.
|
| When the system utterly fails you, you have zero
| recourse. You just accept that you won't get to see a
| specialist for 6 months (if you're lucky, often a year).
| There is no escape hatch. Only if you're lucky enough to
| afford paying out of pocket and be able to get out of the
| country to get medical attention.
|
| Millions of Canadians have no access to a family doctor
| (25-60% of British Columbians, for example). With
| increasing frequency, Emergency Rooms themselves are
| closing their doors (can't operate a whole 24/7
| rotation).
|
| On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that,
| even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone
| else's treatment, and then after the government refuses
| to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already
| paying for services not received, they then make it
| illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide
| basic healthcare to myself and my family.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Thanks for that perspective. That does seem like some
| serious downsides.
| gopher_space wrote:
| > On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that,
| even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone
| else's treatment, and then after the government refuses
| to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already
| paying for services not received, they then make it
| illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide
| basic healthcare to myself and my family.
|
| The evil part seems to be where they bilk you out of your
| tax dollars a few steps up the chain.
| takinola wrote:
| > The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of
| healthcare services, it is illegal in most provinces to
| buy any healthcare for your family.
|
| Why is it illegal to purchase healthcare privately? When
| I lived in the UK, I skipped the NHS and used my private
| insurance all the time to avoid all the issues you
| listed. Why not make it available to those that can
| afford the option?
| joshlemer wrote:
| Well, obviously I strongly disagree with this
| justification, but it's thought that if you allow for
| private healthcare options, that will suck resources out
| of the public system. If I use my own money to pay for
| the attention of a doctor, that's me taking that doctor
| away from the public system, making everyone else worse
| off.
| paretoer wrote:
| This is nothing new. I grew up going to Canada every
| weekend in the summer.
|
| Canadians have known more what is going on in America than
| Americans for at least the last 35 years.
|
| I love Canadians but never in my adult life have Canadians
| not been just salivating to have a conversation about
| American news with an American.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I went to Vancouver last year. It my first time in Canada and
| I was surprised how similar to an American big city it felt.
| astrodust wrote:
| It's probably because all kinds of movies set in American
| cities are filmed in Vancouver.
| peab wrote:
| I feel the same. Just look at accents of people back in the
| 90s compared to now
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Whenever I visit the states it feels like Canada just
| _bigger_
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm going to interpret that as a compliment.
| willhslade wrote:
| That is accurate. 10x population.
| qball wrote:
| There are between 4-7 major subcountries in Canada (for
| reference, the US has 11 of them) depending on how you count
| them.
|
| Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada), Upper
| Canada (triangle formed by Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal), Lower
| Canada (Quebec), and the Maritimes.
|
| If you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which
| is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces
| (they have their own dialect of English), the North (sparsely
| populated but the kind of Canadian that lives there is
| different), and to a point Vancouver and Vancouver Island.
|
| Of those, the West is functionally the Midwest (Vancouver and
| Island are not meaningfully distinct from
| Seattle/Portland/Bay cities in terms of politics) where each
| province is flavored towards the State to its immediate
| south, Upper Canada is culturally NYC-DC North (and for that
| reason is as hostile to the rest of the country as NYC/DC are
| to the US in general), Lower Canada is French (obviously),
| and the Maritimes are the Rust Belt.
|
| The reason for Upper Canada's insularity (and to a point,
| Lower Canada's) is its age and geography: as the US found out
| in 1812 it's very difficult to reinforce across the Great
| Lakes. As for the West, there might as well be no border at
| all, so commerce and culture move freely (it also helps that,
| because plentiful natural resources and space causes a
| freedom-focused outlook on human rights, most people who live
| in the West will naturally have that in common with their
| southern counterparts).
| nightowl_games wrote:
| > Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada),
|
| Definetly need to split this further:
|
| Prairies - Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta
|
| Mountains - Everything inside the Rockies
|
| BC - Its it's own thing
| mb7733 wrote:
| > you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which
| is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces
| (they have their own dialect of English)
|
| Just a heads up, Newfoundland isn't a part of the Maritimes
| at all, and those from Newfoundland will certainly remind
| you of that if you lump them in :)
| bparsons wrote:
| A linguist friend once told me that language patterns in
| North America run north/south. For whatever reason, culture
| and migration seem to work the same way.
|
| If you are from BC, you are more likely to travel to or move
| to California than you are Nova Scotia or Florida.
|
| Likewise, if you are from Montana, you probably feel more
| comfortable in Alberta or Saskatchewan than you would in New
| York or Alabama.
|
| While our governments function very differently, NAFTA has
| removed most of the institutional barriers preventing the
| natural movement of money, people and culture between the two
| places.
| jedberg wrote:
| > America thinks Canada is Europe
|
| When I go to Montreal, I definitely feel this way. The rest of
| Canada feels pretty much like a clean America.
| ragebol wrote:
| LOL, I liked to describe Montreal as 'France done the
| American way' when I was there once for a week couple years
| ago.
| petre wrote:
| America without guns and racial violence, BLM, Trump.
| Although they did have the convoy protests, it didn't
| escalate into an attack on the Parliament like in the US.
| grecy wrote:
| Also with healthcare, a social safety net, people that care
| about each other and friendly , warm people. I was in the
| US for 5 months, then visited Canada for the first time
| after one hour I felt more at home there
|
| And the convoy protests were funded by interests in the US.
| So it was a US political protest on Canadian soil.
| coryrc wrote:
| Without racial violence?
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/class-action-rcmp-
| abuse...
| eBombzor wrote:
| No racial violence? Tell me... Does anyone even begin to
| acknowledge the atrocities done to the indigenous
| population over there?
| screye wrote:
| Has anglo-Canada ever been meaningfully distinct from the US ?
|
| It is as tightly bound to the US as Puerto Rico. I can't
| imagine Canada adopting economic, military or cultural policies
| that favor US enemies without being strong-armed out of it by
| the US.
|
| It is a charged question, and I mean it as a hypothetical. But
| countries form through common language, culture, religion,
| geography, interests or trauma/war. Anglo-Canada and the US
| have all the good things in common and no war/trauma keeping
| them apart.
|
| At times, Anglo-Canadians feel more distinct from French-
| Canadians than they do most Americans.
|
| Ofc, if you've been a stable nation for century+, then there's
| no good reason to fix what's not broken.
| qball wrote:
| >if you've been a stable nation for century+
|
| Quebec has tried to separate twice in the past 50 years, and
| comes within a Brexit's margin of actually getting it done
| (and if it wasn't for Montreal, they'd already be gone).
|
| The seed of that separation was, naturally, caused by a
| military conflict between what would become Western Canada
| and what used to be Upper Canada.
|
| Canada isn't actually as stable a country as Ottawa might
| have you believe.
| alephnerd wrote:
| This might make you feel old, but the referendum was 30
| years ago, and Black October was 55 years ago.
|
| The whole Quebec movement is basically dead in the water
| now.
|
| An entire generation of Canadians didn't exist or don't
| remember that.
|
| I'd argue the GWOT, the Great Recession, and COVID have had
| a stronger impact on modern (2020s) Canadian politics and
| discourse than the Quebec Independence Movement.
| qball wrote:
| >The whole Quebec movement is basically dead in the water
| now.
|
| Quebec's Separatist party has complete electoral
| dominance (except for Montreal, but Montreal is the least
| Quebec part of Quebec) and has the ability to force the
| government's hand on most things.
|
| If the Eastern Big City Party loses the next election as
| is projected (and the Bloc correspondingly loses all of
| its power) they'll be back.
| alephnerd wrote:
| PQ has largely transitioned away from soverignity and
| largely campaigns on culture war issues like Bill 21 and
| immigration.
|
| Only voters who are 65+ are split on soverignity. Every
| other age demographic overwhelmingly supports remaining
| in Canada [0]
|
| This can be seen with the CAQ, which has poached most of
| the PQ's leadership and campaigns almost entirely on Bill
| 21 and immigration [1], not on "Quebec Libre"
|
| [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/17/quebec-
| francois-leg...
|
| [1] - https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-
| news/bill-21-groups-f...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The separation vote wasn't sanctioned by the Feds, so even
| if they got a majority, it would probably get shut down by
| the courts.
|
| Did you mean Lower Canada instead of Upper Canada?
| amanwithnoplan wrote:
| I have no idea what "a military conflict between what would
| become Western Canada and what used to be Upper Canada"
| refers to unless you meant the northwest and Red River
| rebellions, in which case it really stretches my (anglo)
| mind how that has more to do with Quebec separatism than
| any of the other grievances.
| qball wrote:
| Closing off any future French-speaking (read: sharing
| more Quebec values) Western expansion was (and really,
| still is) actually a big deal.
| mikrl wrote:
| >Anglo-Canada and the US have all the good things in common
| and no war/trauma keeping them apart.
|
| It was on the table.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
|
| From the Canadian perspective too, don't think an American
| annexation of our landmass would go smoothly... Russians and
| Ukrainians are indistinguishable to an outsider and are
| currently unleashing centuries of built up ethnic turmoil on
| each other.
|
| Anecdotal: I used to work with very right wing Canadian guys
| who cursed the name of the last president and called him all
| manner of names because of the trade war. These were the kind
| of guys who south of the border would have voted for him and
| bought the hat.
|
| It's not as simple as shared heritage == shared values.
| mandevil wrote:
| The Canadian's had their own counter plan:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1 It would
| have been a gigantic failure. The plan was to try and
| mobilize quickly, seize Buffalo, Detroit and Seattle, and
| hold on for dear life until the BEF arrived. But the
| British were clear from the beginning that they were never
| going to send significant reinforcements to Canada: the
| ocean was too large, the USN too strong, and the Canadian
| plains too vast for the British army to be able to
| effectively defend. At most they might try and send some
| troops to defend Halifax as a key naval base. So the
| Canadian plan ensured that their best troops would be lost
| quickly, that the Americans would be super-pissed off and
| unified, all for an ending that would never come. So while
| it might have made sense militarily, it could never have
| worked politically.
|
| The US war plan for the UK was similarly weird: according
| to Miller, _War Plan Orange_ War Plan Red was the result of
| a deal between the US Navy and Army. The Navy wanted War
| Plan Orange (war with Japan) and so they let the Army write
| War Plan Red (the UK). Which was why a war between the two
| mightiest naval powers on the planet in 1925 called for the
| US Navy to be on the defensive, at most seize the Bahamas,
| Jamaica, and Halifax to try and deny them as bases to the
| RN, and then the US Army would invade a separate nation
| (Crimson aka Canada) that would probably try and be neutral
| in the war!
|
| Basically, from what I can tell, the US, Canada, and UK
| were putting their best war planners on the likely threats,
| and putting their less experienced and good planners on
| these war plans. Because War Plan Orange was, at least if
| you squint, how the US defeated Japan. And the Canadian and
| UK's war planners for mobilizing in World War Two and
| sending them to France did a bang-up job. It was just these
| plans that were not thought through and would have been
| disasters if implemented.
| gen220 wrote:
| Respectfully, I don't think Canadian <> American cultural
| exchange is anything like the Russian <> Ukrainian cultural
| exchange; beyond potentially passing the "indistinguishable
| to an outsider" test.
|
| The modern and even pre-modern history of Ukraine is
| inseparable from a degree of violence that only existed in
| north america when directed towards slaves and indigenous
| population. There are not centuries of built-up
| ethnic/nationalistic turmoil between the U.S. and Canada,
| although I'm sure you could find some crazies who've
| convinced themselves there must be.
| mikrl wrote:
| It's because when the US thought it could invade and
| conquer, they were thoroughly trounced and had their
| original White House burned down. The strategic calculus
| never made annexing Canada a viable proposition beyond
| then, and there are enough cultural differences to
| prevent a peaceful annexation.
|
| Similarly, Poland once occupied Moscow in the distant
| past and has managed to persist as a distinct nation,
| though the Russian calculus sometimes worked out against
| Poland such as during Russian-Prussian or Soviet-Nazi
| alliances.
|
| Ukraine and Russia have their own history yet Ukrainians
| have managed to valiantly persevere as we can witness
| today. Unfortunately for geographic reasons the strategic
| calculus there is much tighter than US-Canada or Russia-
| Poland.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| If you're advocating for Annexing Canada, or at least Quebec,
| there's a meaningful amount of support for this within
| Canada.
|
| The only real opposition to this in the USA will come from
| conservatives who are upset at the large amount of "New
| Democratic" voters.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Didn't Doug Ford get elected repeatedly?
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> no war /trauma keeping them apart._
|
| Just this little hiccup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of
| _1812#Invasions_of_Canad...
|
| Although with our cooperation at D-Day maybe Canada considers
| that water under the bridge.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Also this:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_(1775)
| mbg721 wrote:
| To me there's an uncanny-valley effect. Maybe it's the
| Looneys or the kilometres on the road signs, but it
| definitely feels the tiniest bit different.
| rerdavies wrote:
| French-Canadians are not anything like English Canadians,
| except in the minds of English Canadians who don't know any
| better. English Canadians like to think we are one great
| nation, but we are in fact two great nations, deeply divided
| (more than that if you include indigenous peoples, which you
| should).
|
| French-speaking Quebecers self-identify as follows:
|
| - Canadians first, and Quebecois second.
|
| - Quebecois first, and Canadian second.
|
| - Quebecois, and not Canadian at all.
|
| The majority of French-speaking Quebecois do not self-
| identify as being in the first category, and a very
| significant percentage identify as being in the third
| category, with a plurality falling into the second category.
| I think it's safe to say that almost all French Canadians in
| Quebec identify as culturally Quebecois.
|
| I lived in Quebec during the Cultural Revolution in the 80s,
| and was there for the first referendum, but I left because it
| became clear that Montreal was a bad place to be if I wanted
| to raise English-speaking children. In the end, I didn't feel
| any great need to pay for the sins of centuries of Quebec
| Anglophones that weren't my ancestors.
|
| Once you wander outside of Montreal, into the countryside,
| dislike of Anglophones is common to the point that it feels
| almost dangerous, and gets even worse the closer you get to
| Quebec City.
|
| In my experience, tolerance of Anglophones in Montreal has
| decreased dramatically in recent years. I was in a clothing
| store on St. Catherine, neer Bishop Street (once the heart of
| Anglophone Montreal). When two American tourists came in, and
| asked for help, the young shopkeeper responded: "On ne parle
| pas Anglais ici" (one does not speak English here).
|
| A friend of mine graduated from a high school in Westmount
| (home to the Anglophone elite, most pointedly hated by
| Francophones). He said that of his friends in high school,
| none had remained in Quebec, because even though all of them
| spoke fluent French, being Anglophones, they were not able to
| find jobs.
| yurishimo wrote:
| What are some more resources you would recommend to learn
| more about this topic? A documentary or book would be
| awesome (or youtube channels, blogs, etc)!
| belval wrote:
| The first part of your comment was pretty spot on, but the
| rest I think is biased from living here in a different
| time, the populated areas around Montreal (Brossard, Laval
| especially) all have significant English-speaking-only
| populations. In downtown during lunch time it's pretty much
| 50/50 whether the fast food/cafe worker will speak French
| at all.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Anglo-Canada and the US have all the good things in common
| and no war /trauma keeping them apart_
|
| We did try to annex them in 1812, but they were technically
| still British so it doesn't count.
| hervature wrote:
| > Canadians think they're American
|
| As a Canadian who is in the process of immigrating to the US, I
| feel that most Canadians think they are more similar to
| European than American. I'm basing this from having interacted
| with many Canadians during grad school in the US whom it would
| greatly trouble them if someone thought they were American.
| Perhaps it is a generational thing because I think my parents
| would probably say American if forced to choose but would say
| they are Canadians. Perhaps it is an international student
| perspective. I think most Canadians who think they are American
| just immigrate.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Canadians think they 're American_
|
| In my experience, many (Anglo) Canadians behave like the
| coastal Americans who think of themselves as rather not
| American despite behaving very, very American.
| barbazoo wrote:
| The "news" are just another form of entertainment. And there a
| fraction of the entertainment going on in Canada that exists
| south of the border so people flock there.
| xemoka wrote:
| What's so annoying is that this isn't even true. There is a lot
| of local news and interesting happenings all across our
| country, yet no one here to cover it. It's cheaper to repackage
| US news as interesting to canadians (how does this US thing
| affect canada, with an opinion) or just for voyeurism. Watching
| televised news, I end up knowing more about what's happening as
| a "human interest" story in some small US town than what
| happened across our country.
|
| Canadian media has been gutted, and nothing our government is
| doing actually works---or just fiddles with the knobs ever so
| slightly so that it appears as we're doing something, when the
| results are indistinguishable from the null.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| This exactly. The US is great at exporting entertainment, and
| politics is just another form of it. People in Canada and
| Europe go to see American movies, listen to American music, and
| watch American politics.
|
| That's why American news isn't about actual things that
| actually happen, it's not about political positions and
| legislation, it's instead mostly about fights between people,
| about who is scoring points against whom, and who is doing
| better in the polls, and we're all part of a team, and we hate
| the people who are on the other team.
|
| It's sports, but easier to understand than football, quicker
| than baseball, and more violent than basketball.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| I am an American and I support having less "American
| news"...way....way less
|
| When I was younger I enjoyed reading my local newspaper (local
| news/local sports/classifieds), the USA Today (national
| news/sports), and the Wall Street Journal. Between those 3 I felt
| pretty well informed and enjoyed my daily ritual of reading them
| in the morning at school in the library. Unfortunately as other
| commenters have noted the quality of journalism has gone way down
| hill since then.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Well just because you felt informed doesn't mean you were. More
| sources are better. If you feel glued to 24/7 news, just don't
| do that.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| A counter point to your assertion is that more sources are
| better, if they are not all saying the same thing and being
| controlled by the same few owners. Which in today's world, in
| the west, most certainly are. Many years ago the news was
| covered from multiple angles so even with few sources I felt
| I was getting more insight to the story due to different
| perspectives.
|
| Honestly due to the deluge of news I feel people today are
| more opinionated, less informed, easier to manipulate/deceive
| via controlled narratives, and have way shorter attention
| spans. The quality of journalism is so far gone it is
| laughable, so having more of a bad thing doesn't make it
| better imho.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > if they are not all saying the same thing and being
| controlled by the same few owners
|
| Arguably, that just means they're just the illusion of
| "more sources" because really they're just one.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Reminds me of "This is extremely dangerous to our
| democracy"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE
| diggan wrote:
| > A counter point to your assertion is that more sources
| are better, if they are not all saying the same thing and
| being controlled by the same few owners. Which in today's
| world, in the west, most certainly are. Many years ago the
| news was covered from multiple angles so even with few
| sources I felt I was getting more insight to the story due
| to different perspectives.
|
| I've found ground.news to be a good tool for finding
| different angles on stories. Sadly it only split sources
| based on American left/center/right which certainly is
| different from where I am (South/West Europe), but better
| than nothing.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Thinking from 10,000 feet, the quality of the media seems
| bad at a time when anyone can publish contradicting
| accounts, with evidence, on the internet.
|
| Do you think the old media was actually better? Or was
| there just no platform for dissenting voices?
|
| If there are no dissenting voices heard, then the media
| seems like "the truth".
|
| This is exactly why authoritarian governments and religions
| are very concerned about counter narrative publications.
| They want the people to believe that the official sources
| are the truth.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean, yes, but they also love playing the "Firehose of
| falsehood game", and playing with 'Bullshit Asymmetry'.
|
| The problem with reality is it's way more complex than
| binary, things are not black and white. If you can't have
| and control a single news station, then make thousands of
| them that take small pieces of truth and stir them in a
| bucket of shit. Pump countless dollars of petro money
| into these sources so they have extreme reach into
| societies. Use the latest targeting tools to pull these
| people into their own little reality tunnels they'll have
| a hard time getting out of. Watch and laugh as the nation
| collapses in its own civil war.
|
| How much does a country allow foreign actors to dictate
| what their citizens hear?
| knodi123 wrote:
| > More sources are better
|
| I used Google News regularly for years, but I've had to
| abandon it. It has so many sources, and 9/10 of them are pure
| garbage. I mean absolute dreck.
|
| More perspectives are better, except you have to rank the
| perspectives by descending popularity and then pick the top
| X, where there's a strongly diminishing return on every
| source after that.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The quality and Quantity of journalists has fallen off a
| cliff over the past 30 years. In 1990's there were 500,000
| journalists, now we have around 100,000. Investigative
| journalism, where you get a crew of people and fly them
| across the world, and conduct first-hand research, is
| basically gone.
|
| It is surprising to me that this is not common knowledge and
| we have people disputing a basic fact.
|
| Many sources, just an example:
| https://patch.com/ohio/miamiuniversity-oxford/journalism-
| maj...
| scapecast wrote:
| You just described me in high school.
| proc0 wrote:
| Any amount of American news is unhealthy, unless it's local news.
| jmbwell wrote:
| American news is unhealthy and unhealthy for you.
|
| Local news is dying.
|
| We have wealth management to thank for all of it
| Eumenes wrote:
| Local news in the US is corporate owned as well:
| https://x.com/Deadspin/status/980175772206993409
| walthamstow wrote:
| Britons too. It doesn't help that there are always multiple
| stories on the BBC News front page.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I think they're, in all likelihood, responding to a growing
| readership. International papers do very well here: even Russia
| Today had started accumulating market share before it went over
| the edge and lost too much credibility. I think it is due to
| the credibility collapse that US-based media has suffered in
| the recent (years ago) past. Political partisanship had simply
| become too obvious, and now even the New York Times - our best
| paper - has all but declared an affiliation.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Difficult to consume Canadian content for many people since
| Facebook blocks news links from being posted due to the Online
| News Act.
| layer8 wrote:
| Why would Facebook be relevant for consuming anything non-
| Facebook?
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Most people get their news from social media.
| NohatCoder wrote:
| To some people Facebook is basically the way of browsing the
| web, in particular when it comes to news that people don't
| actively search for.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| To be clear, Facebook chooses to block it because they don't
| want to compensate Canadians news outlets, not because the act
| requires blocking, which is common misinformation that has been
| spread.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I think everyone understands that facebook had to pay a
| linking tax whenever anyone including government officials
| posted a link to a news outlet on a list. They decided not
| to.
|
| It was a crazy foolish law that hurt those news orgs that
| thought they were the reason Canadians used social media. It
| reminded everyone their are plenty of ways to get news
| outside of the mainstream Canadian news cartel. Canadians are
| not seeking out these news orgs shows what their value really
| is to the average person
| PierceJoy wrote:
| Many many right wingers in Canada do not understand that.
| They truly believe the government is requiring Facebook to
| block all Canadian news. I know this because I live in a
| small town and have talked to these people. It's also plain
| to see on any local Facebook group when the topic comes up.
|
| I agree it's a foolish law, but there's rampant
| misinformation being spread about it.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I live somewhere in the Northeast and have access to CBC and
| Global on my US television package and boy is it wild to sit back
| and watch the Canadian version of what's going on in America
| every night on their news.
| nequo wrote:
| In what way is it wild? How is the Canadian version different
| than what you get in the US?
| euroderf wrote:
| This was especially true under Reagan. In Buffalo NY you can
| watch Canadian news and it was enlightening.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Personally I find CBC to be the most watchable 'mainstream'
| news.
| ipaddr wrote:
| They are all the same. Same opinions. Same narratives. CBC
| seems more folky reading from the same page.
| duxup wrote:
| Give me some news that tells me ABOUT things going on.
|
| Not some rando political statement and then the nonsensical
| response and so on.
| seydor wrote:
| not just canadians
| trgn wrote:
| europe is the same. florida man human interest is just thrown
| in left and right. usually one or two days later after nypost
| ran it.
| efitz wrote:
| I would humbly suggest the ambassador STFU and read the Bill of
| Rights.
|
| Yes, our news sucks and is polarizing. Yes, our corporate news
| sources are largely captured by one side.
|
| But the government has no business trying to suppress discussion.
|
| I'm not claiming that the ambassador acted illegally; I am
| claiming that as an agent of the US Government he needs to stifle
| his own opinions when speaking publicly on behalf of the US
| government and not try to suppress legal speech.
|
| Ever since COVID the US government, especially the executive
| branch, has tried. Every means they could think of to suppress
| dissenting opinion while trying to stay just on the legal side of
| the first amendment. They need to stop.
| wk_end wrote:
| Absolutely nothing said here is "trying to suppress discussion"
| or "suppress legal speech". He's sharing his personal opinion
| on Canadian media consumption habits, which - I suggest you
| read the Bill of Rights? - he's completely free to.
|
| (that said: I believe he said this in Canada, where the Bill of
| Rights isn't applicable. We have a similar-but-not-the-same
| right to freedom of expression enshrined in our Charter,
| though.)
| arcticbull wrote:
| Further, it is worth pointing out to the Americans in the
| audience, Canada's freedom of expression isn't anywhere near
| as blanket-permissive as the US. That's before you get to the
| Notwithstanding Clause.
| bawolff wrote:
| This may be true, but i honestly think canada strikes a
| good balance. Like i'd be curious if anyone has any
| examples of things that would be protected by the first
| amendment in usa but not protected by section 2(b) where
| they think usa made the better choice.
|
| The notwithstanding clause is quite icky. Thankfully its
| rarely used outside of quebec although the recent "parent's
| rights" bill in saskatchewan is quite gross.
| bawolff wrote:
| We actually do have a bill of rights. It predated the charter
| but basically had no teeth, so its largely ignored. It does
| have slightly more rights than the charter.
|
| Laws (both federal & provincial) have to follow the charter
| (unless the notwithstanding clause is invoked). For the
| canadian bill of rights, basically any ambiguities in federal
| laws are supposed to be interpreted to be consistent with it,
| but it cant override anything. Which is pretty damn useless
| and the reason the charter was created.
| bawolff wrote:
| [In response to the flagged and dead post (i know its bad
| form, but i feel i must because this is a really important
| part of canada) - we do have free speech rights with teeth
| in canada. They just come from the charter of rights not
| the canadian bill of rights.]
| efitz wrote:
| Actually when acting as an agent of the government he does
| NOT have the right to try to influence people to deprive
| Americans of their rights.
|
| "Personal opinion" only applies in personal context. If he's
| wearing his ambassador hat then it's not personal, it's
| official.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Only America matters. Canadians cluster on the border with
| America because only America matters. Canadians read US news
| primarily because only America matters. Canada's independence is
| nominal. The nation depends entirely on the US for its security
| and will obey when commanded. A vassal state.
|
| Given that, it is normal for Canadians to consume American news,
| and it is only unhealthy in that it is unhealthy for Americans as
| well.
| wk_end wrote:
| This is both true and not true.
|
| From a geopolitical perspective this is correct. Canada is
| forced to operate in lockstep with the US and is completely
| dependent and ultimately subservient to it. Globalization has
| done a great deal to homogenize us.
|
| Culturally our differences are disappearing, due to the shared
| language (in Anglo-Canada) and the internet.
|
| Yet for all that: for the people living, working, and doing
| business in the respective countries, the actual on-the-ground
| experience is nevertheless quite different. Depending on the
| state/province in question, sometimes markedly so.
| peab wrote:
| Is the day-to-day really that different? I grew up in Canada,
| and then lived in 2 different states in the USA as an adult.
| I'd say Canada feels as different as say, California is to
| Alabama.
| peab wrote:
| With the exception being Quebec! Vive la province libre.
| wk_end wrote:
| I mean, California and Alabama feel _very_ different! In a
| lot of ways I 'd agree, or even go further - they're _more_
| different than, say, BC and WA.
|
| And there's factors like the urban/rural divide to bear in
| mind. The Canada along the border resembles the lower 48;
| north of that it starts to have more and more in common
| with Alaska.
|
| But everywhere you're interacting with the government the
| differences are quite stark. Health care, education,
| firearms, regulations, the social safety net, taxation,
| drugs, criminal justice...all of these and more are handled
| in a rather different fashion than in the US.
|
| Some of it depends on where you are in your life, and who
| you are. If you're a single middle-class white male in his
| 20s who rents in a major city, you're mostly interacting
| with the market economy, so the biggest differences day-to-
| day are the products available to you, your somewhat lower
| purchasing power, and the fact that you don't have anywhere
| near as much student loan debt as you would in the US.
|
| But as you drift further from that particular model - as
| you age and need to lean on health care more, if you want
| to start a family or buy property, if you have extreme
| wealth, if you move out further away from major population
| centres, if you try to start a business, if you're a
| woman/minority...the differences become more apparent. Not
| always in the ways you'd expect, too: open racism - against
| indigenous peoples rather than Blacks - is widespread in
| Canada, even in major urban centres.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I agree with the part about the halo effect of U.S. security. I
| don't agree with the part about the America mattering more to
| Canada than Canada. The problem with that argument is, there's
| no way in which your life in Canada would be different
| depending on whether you were aware of the political situation
| in North America or not. The area in one's immediate vicinity,
| and the people who live with you and near you, and whether you
| have enough to eat: that's the kind of thing that actually
| matters, in the sense of directly affecting your life.
| matteoraso wrote:
| This is an expected consequence of American hegemony. When so
| much of our culture is imported from America, we end up feeling
| American. To a degree, what happens in America really does affect
| our lives, even more than what happens in Canada in many cases.
| When everybody around you is focused on American issues and
| American politics, they start to vote based on these imported
| ideas and make them Canadian ideas.
| f6v wrote:
| Which is weird because their PM is such a clown already.
| ilamont wrote:
| Not just news. Movies. Music. Websites.
|
| It leads to some unusual cross currents. A few years back
| following the Canadian trucker protests, some of the defendants
| cited their "First Amendment rights":
|
| _Tamara Lich, the Alberta woman whose GoFundMe campaign raised
| over $10 million for the convoy, and her husband had their day in
| court--and Dwayne Lich said he was innocent, because: "Honestly?
| I thought it was a peaceful protest and based on my First
| Amendment, I thought that was part of our rights."
|
| The judge then asked, "What do you mean, First Amendment? What's
| that?"_
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tamara-lich-bail-heari...
|
| (The First Amendment is part of the U.S. Constitution, not the
| Canadian Charter)
| liotier wrote:
| "Objection votre honneur !" is a running gag in French courts,
| from litigants fed on US procedural drama... In French
| procedure, such interruption is wholly out of order.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Other people have pointed out that "American news" also displaces
| local news in the states, but it's worse than that: this stuff
| you see on CNN isn't actually about the important events going on
| in the world, it's an entertainment product engineered from a
| mishmash of urgent-sounding background music, very serious faces
| and sound bytes selected to compromise between sounding
| interesting, and supporting a pre-selected story arc. In other
| words, "American news," displaces _all real news, anywhere._
| rootusrootus wrote:
| At pretty much all levels of news (and discourse in general) it
| seems like all we really care about now is who the President
| is. Secondary to that, maybe the party (though I'd say it's
| less about party and more specifically about culture).
|
| Local politics get very little consideration unless something
| really controversial happens. I think the reverse should be
| true -- state, county, and city laws have _way_ more effect on
| my daily life than federal.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _all we really care about now is who the President is_
|
| With extra emphasis on who the President _is_ , and none at
| all on what they do!
| thunky wrote:
| I dream of an executive branch without a president. I don't
| see why we need one.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Well said!
| cptaj wrote:
| This is becoming a problem in latin america as well and you see
| people importing culture wars issues that are not really relevant
| to their local politics and further muddying the waters and
| distracting from the actual issues facing them
| aaomidi wrote:
| If this is in reference to Gaza, it is because the situation in
| Gaza is happening with US support and supplies.
| ben_w wrote:
| The UK also has a problem with the right wing trying to
| import American "culture wars" issues for their own benefit,
| and it has nothing to do with Gaza -- specifically, they
| bring in the US talking points about trans issues, using
| "woke" as the next step on the euphemism escalator now that
| "politically correct" has worn off, blaming millennials for
| everything, and a conspiracy theory about 15 minute cities
| (despite almost all of the UK being within 15 minutes of all
| the important things already, including the car-focused bits
| like Milton Keynes and small Welsh hamlets like Abermad).
|
| Still, at least it means the Tory party _completely forgot_
| about wanting to bring back the hunting of foxes on
| horseback.
| some_random wrote:
| These all seem like really bad examples, panic over trans
| people has some very real, very British sources and 15
| minute cities (and related concepts like LTNs and the ULEZ)
| is not something regularly discussed in the US.
|
| Much better examples are US Southwest/Californian concerns
| around water scarcity being imported to places where water
| is not scarce, or similar concerns around emissions from
| electricity generation being imported to places that use
| high amounts of renewables/nuclear energy. Another example
| is civilian disarmament fear mongering switching from being
| about cheap handguns to "assault weapons" after DC v
| Heller.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The reaction to George Floyd in UK was quite strange,
| with "don't shoot" protests and "defund the police", when
| the UK police is not even armed and gets paid like half
| of their American counterparts.
| blinkedup wrote:
| Although the pushback against trans activist policy has
| come mostly from the right in the US (with some notable
| exceptions - Kara Dansky of Women's Declaration
| International, for example), it's a different story in the
| UK.
|
| Around the mid-2010s, two events occurred in close
| succession: the Conservative government of the time
| proposed a policy of gender self-identification, and trans-
| identifying male prisoner Karen White was charged with
| sexually assaulting female prisoners while he was
| incarcerated in a women's prison. He was later convicted
| and it was uncovered that he'd been sent to the women's
| prison due to his "female" identity, despite having
| previous convictions of sexually assaulting and raping
| women.
|
| The reaction from women was immense, organised on Mumsnet
| and other forums, mostly by left-wing feminists. After a
| lot of protest and publicity, the Tories dropped this
| policy. It was only later on they changed tack with policy
| proposals that shifted the balance away from trans
| activism, mostly to draw a line between them and Labour.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| Cis women who rape women and cis men who rape men have
| always gone to prisons aligned with their gender
| identity. The issue with the normalization of rape in
| prison is unrelated, and should be solved without
| throwing trans people under the bus
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The UK prisons are a total clownshow atm, recently there
| was a string of female prison guards that were jailed for
| having sex with (male) prisoners, filming it, and of
| course smuggling drugs, etc. Also Prisons have run out of
| space so many offenders were let out early.
|
| - https://metro.co.uk/2024/07/02/inmate-filmed-sex-
| wandsworth-...
|
| - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
| birmingham-67955865
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > they bring in the US talking points about trans issues,
|
| The Cass report is certainly not a "US talking point".
|
| https://cass.independent-
| review.uk/home/publications/final-r...
| golergka wrote:
| Wow, I did not realise that US has provided supplies to Hamas
| to start the war and still backs up it's denials to ceasefire
| proposals.
| elzbardico wrote:
| No. The US has provided supplies to the terrorist State of
| Israel to finance aggressive illegal settlement on the
| occupied territories, as well as as continued acts of
| frequent aggression that Israel has been commiting for more
| than half a centure in defiance of UN resolutions.
|
| The US has provided support during the late 90s and early
| 2000s along Israel for Hamas at that time, to undermine the
| Palestinian Authority and Fatah as a two-state solution was
| becoming an inevitability, something that Israel never
| wanted and will never allow.
|
| Likewise, the US and Israel have supported ISIS rebels on
| Syria, to undermine the Syrian government as it is an
| obstacle to Israel's geopolitical goals.
|
| The list could go on an on.
| random9749832 wrote:
| "Whoohoo Israel is winning by smashing and decapitating
| those silly Palestinians". This is like signing a deal with
| the devil. Your country gets power and money but in return
| loses its sanity and identity.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Colombian here - that phenomenon has been present since I can
| remember. Lots of upstart people here wanting or feeling like
| they're part of the culture of the USA just because. Go to
| r/Colombia and see how many of those Dunning-Kruger commenting
| balls of ignorance profess a stupid and weird hatred for
| communism and socialism, and they don't even know what those
| words mean, let alone tell them apart.
|
| Another part of it is that the "international" section of our
| media is just about regurgitating whatever they say at CNN, FOX
| or whatever they have there, so the information almost always
| is arriving already biased (for example, they made here a big
| deal about the mishap of Biden's mental block at that debate,
| but they have never mentioned all the links between Trump and
| Epstein). Though I'd concede the phenomenon has aggravated due
| to social media, our hiperconnected reality and the increased
| amount of people moving there, legally or not.
| jeffbee wrote:
| They don't even need superficially American news channels to get
| the American viewpoint, since the overwhelming bulk of Canadian
| "news" outfits other than the CBC are owned by American vulture
| capital firms, including all of the ones that advocated for the
| link tax.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yea, really it seems the vast majority of privately owned news
| groups of any size are a means to control policy in a
| state/country.
| gspencley wrote:
| As a Canadian I appreciate his concern but kindly ask that he
| mind his own business. I will decide for myself how much U.S
| entertainment.. I mean, er, "news" is unhealthy for me, thanks.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Engaging in passive news consumption will quickly turn one into a
| brainwashed zombie. Active news searching on a specific topic you
| have some interest in and a at least a small amount of background
| knowledge as to where to look is a far more rewarding use of your
| limited time. e.g.
|
| site:oilprice.com canada | canadian
|
| Try it with ft.com or nytimes.com too. And then try it with
| rt.com and globaltimes.cn to get the Russian and Chinese spin.
| Somewhere in there you might get an accurate picture of reality -
| unless they're all on the same page about something they want to
| hide from public view. Don't forget to look at the negative space
| in the image.
| akomtu wrote:
| American news outlets are like food chains who've figured out
| that if you serve junk food with tons of sugar and some
| addictive chemicals, your customers will turn into addicts.
| bawolff wrote:
| To quote trudeau (sr) "Living next to you [America] is in some
| ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and
| even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is
| affected by every twitch and grunt."
|
| Fact is, as a middle power country next to a super power,
| american politics has an inordinate impact on us, and we can't
| even complain to our local congresman, since obviously we dont
| have one.
| parineum wrote:
| How does US policy tangibly affect Canada? Outside of NAFTA,
| what else is there?
|
| It seems like the worst thing that happens is a bunch of people
| threatening to move to Canada every 4 years.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Canada probably wouldn't have sent troops to Afghanistan if
| America hadn't led the charge.
| belval wrote:
| It's quite literally our main export partner. Entire
| industries in Canada (Airplanes, cars, wood) live and die by
| US policy.
| brailsafe wrote:
| > How does US policy tangibly affect Canada? Outside of
| NAFTA, what else is there?
|
| I think this is the wrong question, because U.S policy has
| many interactions with Canada (whether they're tangible or
| not is a valid question), but the point in my mind is how
| much of that is 1) Impactful enough for arbitrary Canadians,
| such that knowing about it would allow them to make different
| decisions or avoid negative outcomes 2) how many of what
| passes the first test makes it into news that people should
| be watching. Policy that impacts Canada is usually nuanced,
| detailed, esoteric, and you have to deliberately seek out
| fact-based documentation on it. If you're an
| importer/exporter, remote contractor, dual citizen, ya you
| should be doing that, but it's not likely coming from CNN or
| w/e.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The US is by far Canada's main trading partner, with 66% of
| Canadian foreign trade being with the US. It exports 17 times
| as much to and imports 4 times as much from the US than its
| next largest trading partner, which in both cases is China.
| Many companies operating in Canada are American owned, and
| many Canadian companies have a significant presence in the US
| as well. The Canadian financial sector is heavily integrated
| with the US.
|
| Canada and the US are close military allies. They share the
| world's only binational military command (NORAD) which is
| responsible for air defense of both countries. Canada has
| joined many US led military operations including Korea,
| Afghanistan, and both Gulf Wars. The US strongly influences
| military procurement in Canada, with Canadian units designed
| to be seamlessly interoperable with US forces.
|
| The US and Canada share the world's longest border, which is
| rather porous. Large numbers of citizens of each nation
| travel to the other frequently, and many people have family
| on the opposite side of the border. Many Canadians live for
| an extended period of time in the US for education or
| employment.
|
| Basically any economic, military, or immigration policy
| change in the US is going to have a huge impact on Canada.
| calf wrote:
| The Canadian brain drain, it fundamentally affects the
| Canadian culture and economy by the constant loss of talent
| and aptitude. The gravitational pull of the U.S. is too
| powerful. Even I studied at two elite US schools, which put
| me on a path to H-1B like my peers in grad schoolYi but I
| didn't pursue that for personal reasons.
| boguscoder wrote:
| I wish this was mirrored and Americans would consume Canadian
| news instead of local news about Canada. Maybe some more ppl
| would build more nuanced understanding of how universal
| healthcare care works beyond "they all die in the waiting line"
| spacephysics wrote:
| One step we can take for free markets in healthcare is to have
| transparency for medical procedures across all hospitals.
|
| You want to be allowed to take insurance money? Then you must
| report procedure costs for everything.
|
| This was pushed last administration but i dont believe theres
| any enforcement on it
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean, American companies pay a LOT for that message too. If
| Americans started wanting affordable services, think of how
| much money the pharma CEOs would lose.
| dtquad wrote:
| Annoying excessive coverage of US politics has been a thing in
| Denmark since 2008. Although nowadays we at least have the excuse
| that the US has replaced both China and Germany as our main
| trading partner and the Danish GDP probably fluctuates a little
| whenever the FDA looks in the direction of Novo Nordisk.
| Eumenes wrote:
| The Canadian grown news is soo0ooo much better:
| https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/cbc-paid-more-than-18-mi...
| morkalork wrote:
| Seeing bits of the DNC last week with celebrities like lil wayne
| making appearances, a packed stadium and whatnot, is there
| anything comparable in Canadian politics or even other
| parliamentary systems like the UK? American politics (and the
| news focused on it), is quintessentially American: big, loud and
| over the top.
| switchbak wrote:
| We've got spending caps and short limits on election campaign
| length to avoid exactly the kind of insanity that is the
| American election cycle. I'm not sure it works 100%, but it
| does seem a little more sane.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I missed that convention. Did President Mountain Dew Camacho
| make an appearance with Lil Wayne by any chance? Or did the red
| circus convention get him (I understand they did get Hulk
| Hogan)?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| To some extent it's reasonable for Canadians, Europeans etc. to
| be interested in American politics, say on trade or foreign
| politics because it affects us in real ways especially these days
| with the world situation, but I also think we're honestly past
| 'peak Americana' culturally.
|
| Personally speaking being German, my father (60) was in the West
| Germany army, stationed in Canada and the US for a while, you can
| tell he was deeply influenced by how Americans live, what cars
| they drive, how their houses and kitchens look, what their
| aspirations are, etc. For my generation, already not the case
| having come of age during the 2000s, seemingly less so for people
| who are even younger.
|
| I think it's tempting to think America still has a big cultural
| influence because of how prevalent English is and the media,
| memes and mannerisms that come with it, but at a deep level I
| think people have become much less influenced by it. It's the
| kind of error people made on China, were they thought the
| internet and media would just turn all the young Chinese into de
| facto Americans. People today are more fluent in American news
| and culture but they're also much more capable of just ditching
| it.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| I don't think we're past the peak. American companies are more
| important than ever, and American media dominates everything.
| Everything is centralizing in America, and that's why people
| are watching its news and adopting its culture wars. Every
| generation of Germans have less of an accent. China and India
| are not likely to become hegemons, but we could see LATAM
| become a larger player as the EU fades.
| parineum wrote:
| > To some extent it's reasonable for Canadians, Europeans etc.
| to be interested in American politics, say on trade or foreign
| politics because it affects us in real ways especially these
| days with the world situation...
|
| That makes sense to me but I also don't actually see that
| happening in practice. Disclaimer, I'm American so I really
| don't know but, whenever I hear/read a foreign politician
| talking about a President (elect), they aren't talking about
| policy.
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| I've noticed US culture war infecting Canadian university
| campuses. It's bizarre, and unhealthy.
| blooalien wrote:
| _Americans_ are consuming "unhealthy" amounts of American (and
| other) news.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| So they keep tabs on the country that realy rules them? Sounds
| based to me.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| TBH, we'll all do better with less of the US news.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder if it explains their massive levels of assisted suicide.
|
| Instead of dealing with their healthcare and community support
| problems and supporting people, it turns out to be much cheaper
| to just kill them. They just had to fire a bureaucrat who is
| recommending directly to veterans that they kill themselves.
| schappim wrote:
| I completely agree; we have the same issue here in Australia.
| When I came home to find my elderly father watching Fox News,
| claiming that the election was stolen, I realised that the cable
| box parental controls might actually be for parents!
| karaterobot wrote:
| The U.S. is a TV show the whole world watches. It's not healthy
| for anybody on either side. The news is making everybody insane,
| and not making them particularly well-informed in the process.
| wormius wrote:
| Dude must be from midwest, perfect midwest nice negging here:
|
| "I do think it is odd, particularly when I contrast it to the
| United States, where...virtually no one in the United States is
| paying any attention to Canadian politics," he said.
| AShyFig wrote:
| This is by design. Aside from the points raised by others on the
| reality of living next to the world's biggest superpower; our
| media landscape is fast becoming a monopoly. That monopoly is
| owned by Americans [1].
|
| [1]. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Asset_Management
| philipov wrote:
| That makes sense. Americans are also consuming unhealthy amounts
| of American news.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Everyone should probably consume less news but what is happening
| in the US right now will have a dramatic effect on our northern
| neighbors so I don't think being informed on the happenings is
| the worst idea
| brailsafe wrote:
| If you're constantly consuming American news, you might think
| so, but I'm skeptical anything sufficiently significant is so
| worth a Canadian occupying their mind with.
|
| > what is happening in the US right now will have a dramatic
| effect
|
| So... what is that and why would it have a dramatic effect? How
| do you define dramatic effect? We have our own issues that
| people are surprisingly uninformed about (to be fair, it's just
| an impression I get, I'm also only as informed as I am, there's
| only so much one can devote to it compared to the result), and
| yet deeply affected by. For example, a huge portion of people
| are affected by being priced out of having a home or even a
| stable life, yet they most likely couldn't name which level of
| government has authority over which (high level) facets of
| policy that might be related to that, or who any of the housing
| ministers are, and won't get off their ass to vote.
|
| I'm not convinced that for an average Canadian, other than
| getting something to talk about, it is or has been in recent
| memory at all useful to pay attention to American news, to such
| an extent that functionally zero aspect of most people's lives
| would have even a marginally different outcome having been
| completely ignorant.
|
| That's not to say that aren't _at_all_ useful things to keep up
| with depending on who you are, but it's wildly unlikely in my
| opinion that's going to come general news media.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Given the information on the "happenings" of US politics, what
| is someone to do with that information other than moan and
| groan?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Canadian mainstream news sit left but think they are
| neutral/unbiased because all other mainstream orgs speak from the
| same narrative. In the US they admit bias (for some reason cnn
| tries to pretend to be neutral).
|
| Leslyn Lewis is Conservative the cbc wouldn't write an article on
| her.
|
| Canadian news is shallow and doesn't allow a diversity of ideas
| so people ignore it.
| notadoc wrote:
| You really must consume your own domestic propaganda for maximum
| effectiveness, it's more targeted at you and your culture,
| customs, beliefs, biases, etc
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