The pitiful state of the 51st state

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SOLDIER OF FORTUNE JANUARY 2003

 

Flak Online

 

 

Gee-Whiz, Theyre Shooting At Each Other?

 

You could as well have titled your article:Canadian Media Discover War. It is essentially a new subject for them and so they fumble about in embarrassing ways, treating everything with a gee whiz.

 

I recently worked on a project requiring that I read a lot of old wire stories about the Canadian effort in the Second World War. I much preferred its matter-of-fact treatment of everyday soldiery to todays ultra-hype. Added to the Canadian medias lack of expertise is the problem clearly exposed in your article: the naive pacificism of so many Canadians, coupled with their anti-Americanism.

The anti-Americanism is an innate thing, going back to attempts by the U.S. to invade Canada during your revolutionary war and our mutual War of 1812, though I doubt many Canadians could identify these sources. It doesnt dominate most peoples thinking. It is more of a subtext. The pacificism is more recent. I suspect it has something to do with the Vietnam War, which had a pretty major impact on the thinking of the generation now in power in Ottawa.

 

And something to do with the fact that Canadians havent had to fight a war for two generations, thanks, doubtless, to the protection of the U.S.

 

So you see, we can blame the U.S. for just about everything another key concept for understanding our whiney, narcissistic, holier-than-thou nation.

 

Steve Weatherbe

Victoria, BC

 

 

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