Open Letter to America from a Canadian: “And so it has come to this. Your once-great nation has fallen into madness, an affliction of mass denial that brings shivers up the spines of millions outside your borders. Yours is a sick nation. But most of you carry on as though nothing at all is the matter. (…) America, you are a goddamn shame.”
Well he does have more than a couple of points…
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Thanks Barry… Just how I wanted to start my day…
For any who would embrace this treatise on “mainstream” Americans like me (I voted for Nader, BTW) as “right on” – Fuck You. I am well aware of the ‘horrors’ that surround me perpetrated by ‘my’ elected officials.
In case Mr. Head-up-his-ass doesn’t know it, the state of the world was/is created by more than America. Let’s have a letter or two regarding the “shame” that is Britain. Or China. Or India. Or Belgium.
Pretty fucking easy to sit back and point fingers. I know; I’m pointing one at my screen right now…
SOFA
Aw, Sofa, he’s just a wannabe American from up North. I’m getting tired of dealing with people who have the attitude that every American is an idiot. If all the things he says are true there is not much more that we can do then go on our way and do our business, hoping that something we do will make a difference. Or sit down in the dirt and cry. That’ll help. I’m not surprised the paper didn’t print it. What a hate-filled rant. Makes my day.
Barry, did you feel we were having too much fun with people finally getting Oz and the new site, so you had to balance it out with this? Thanks!
Over a million dead. Canada couldn’t possibly bear any of the blame. We’re not that kind of country. Right?
http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/an10gulf.html
-YH
Hey, I was just posting it for discussion, not because I agree with all he’s saying… 90% of what he’s saying is grotesquely over the top. Don’t shoot the messenger!
Yeah, this cannuck is a bit over the edge with the hyperbole, but also is a master of stating the obvious. Rather than point fingers, I prefer to paraphrase Frank on this matter – “Everybody in this room is wearing shit on their faces, don’t kid your self!”
Strange that places like MacDonald’s, though taken to the world from HQ in Chicago, are everywhere – and, as far as I can see, it ain’t just the americans plunking their coins down for the secret sauce!
The horror of this is that the large corporations – like McDonalds, Monsanto, Archer Daniel Midlands have no loyalty to an abstract concept like “America”. When they have done exploiting the rest of the world and paying slave wages in their factories in the Far East and making basic food stuffs too expensive for people in undeveloped countries to buy they will turn on us and imperialize their own people. It’s beginning to happen now. Their will be two classes of people in this country: The rich and the very poor.
Although the letter is filled with hate, and i don’t like that, i must say that i agree with the point that it seems, at least seen from the outside, that most American citizens stays oblivious to the way the USA influence the state of the rest of the world. Or maybe not, but it’s a fact that it’s very little what a conscious, worried citizen could do to change that reality, even knowing it. It’s just the way things are…and common people can do very little to change it. Of course the USA is not the only one responsible of that state of the world, every country contributes with its attitude to that situation, but, would it be the same an open letter to Uruguay or Burkina Faso for that matter? I don’t think so.
More open letters – like the idea. Here’s some starting suggestions…
UK – The uk’s misdemeanours are probably well known – empire/slavery/ireland.
China – Seems more victim than perpertrator. Can only think of self inflicted troubles. Great leap forward/cultural revolution.
India – Mostly as per china. Apart from kashmir, which is arguably a british misdemeanour.
Belgium – Colonial vandal. Started the crusades. (though wasn’t belgium at the time, did you know belgium as a country only achieved independence in 1831, and so is younger than america)
I mean, the idea of being anti – bad stuff, as opposed to just anti america (or any where else) is a great one.
Given that the letter in question has at least some factual errors, besides the maniacal tone, what should an open letter to america contain ?