The Fog of War

I just finished watching The Fog of War, a documentary that combines interviews with Robert McNamara with footage from WWII and Vietnam. Now, I knew nothing of him before seeing this movie, which I find amazing considering that he was a central figure in the last two major conflicts in the US, not to mention president of the World Bank for 13 years. But I didn't. I had heard his name, but who he was or what he'd done, nothing.

I've gathered that he is a hated and reviled figure in the US because of his involvement in Vietnam. I know that, having learned most of what I know about him from this movie, my view of him is biased, but I think it says something about the quality of the current US administration that he comes off as relatively humble and introspective. He, at least, seems to understand that the US and its economic interests are not the only factors that need be considered, and that there are moral consequences to actions, no matter what the reasons for carrying them out. There is ample audio evidence in the movie to show that he was trying to get the US out of Vietnam, so I wonder how much American hatred of him is rooted in their (justified) hatred of the war rather than in him personally.

It's amazing how similar the rhetoric used by Johnson and Bush are, though. The fact that both have a Texas accent doesn't help, of course, but it's like Bush just ganked Johnson's speeches wholesale sometimes. One soundbite in particular that I remember is Johnson claiming that the US was in Vietnam fighting for Vietnamese liberation. Ring any bells? I'm not sure whose genius idea it was to parrot Vietnamese rhetoric in support of the Iraq war, though.

Where McNamara lost me was in his justification of the actions of the World Bank. He talked about attending what I assume was the 1999 Seattle WTO meetings. He walked through the crowd, and most people didn't recognize him. One woman did, though, and confronted him about what the WTO/World Bank/IMF do. His response to her was to ask her why she was protesting that instead of taking action on the fact that infant mortality in D.C. was twice what it was in Cuba. Irrelevant! Yes, one might want to look at why Cuba, the "evil" communist regime, is twice as effective at preventing infant mortality as the US nation's capital. But that in no way invalidates concerns about the economic colonialism being carried out by the WTO. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

By coincidence, I was thinking today about the tsunami, and the way that Bush may try to use it to improve his image. I think it's important to remember that if the US is generous with disaster relief, it in no way exonerates them for their actions in the Middle East. They can't be allowed to deflect attention from that by using Southeast Asia as a shield. They're estimating over 100,000 deaths in Asia so far, which is about the same number that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are horrible, and one has nothing to do with the other.

Snow day!

We never get snow day in Saskatchewan! Even with a blizzard going, the most we can usually expect is that people who live in the country can go home early. The rest of us are expected to stay at work and make our way home as we can at 5:00. Not today, though! We're becoming wimps, just like the rest of the world.

Turns out it's a good thing, too. It took me about 50 minutes to drive a mile, and I got stuck six times (only had to be pushed/dug out twice, though). I've parked in front of my house because there's no way I'd make it through the alley to the garage, which means that tomorrow morning I'm going to have to dig myself out before I can go to work. Hopefully they'll have had a chance to clear the snow on the street by that time, though.

My parking job was pretty impressive, too. I knew that if I slowed down at all, I'd get stuck, because the undercarriage of my car was already plowing through the snow. So I drove up the street full speed to approximately where I wanted to park, threw the wheel to the right, and slid to a stop against the curb like a skier. The car is perfectly positioned, and you can see the trail it left behind through the snowbank.

Iraq social subsidies cut

This article talks about the IMF conditions that are being imposed on Iraq to get their economy on the track the US wants it on. It focuses a lot on changes that will ensure oil is handled the way the US wants it to be, but to me, that was expected and is not the interesting part of the article.

The interesting thing to me is that they will also be cutting back on the social subsidy system that was in place under Saddam. Let me get this straight, the "butcher of Baghdad" was more concerned about the welfare of his people than the US is. It's a damn good thing you went in there and liberated them, then, isn't it? I mean, really, what could go wrong? Just destroy the infrastructure and throw the country into complete chaos, while taking away their control over their main source of income. Anyone who can't swim under those conditions deserves to sink!

Merry Christmas!

Now, what are you doing here on Christmas? Go be with your family.

King Moon

Sun Myung Moon, who was recently crowned and robed by congressmen in a ceremony supporters say symbolized American surrender to Moon, is now leading a movement to remove crosses from churches because "mankind's obsession with the cross ... prevents us from recognizing the real "returning lord": Moon himself." Um, okay. It would be funny if it weren't so likely to succeed in the theocratic idiocy that is America today. Apparently this nutcase is a close personal friend of the Bush family. Is this what Bush means when he says that God talks to him?

Syria next on list

Looks like I was wrong - the US will probably invade Syria next rather than Iran. Presumably there are more reasons than just that there may be Ba'athist fighters hiding over the border, but I'm not sure. One interesting little tidbit I found when googling, though - Israel occupies part of Syria. Related cause? You be the judge.

Of course they did

According to this article, recently-released hostages were told by their captors that the resistance in Iraq wanted Bush to be re-elected because they would gain more recruits that way. So, you know, congratulations to the republican voters for doing the will of the "terrorists".

My guess is that the right-wingnuts will either ignore this completely or claim that the hostages are lying because they are French.

Team America: World Police

Did you know that if you do something in your own country that would be illegal in the States, the US believes that they have the right to stop you? According to this article, " U.S. courts have affirmed a right to enforce U.S. laws abroad if crimes affect the United States."

I'm just thinking about the ways that this could affect people in other countries. Right now, they're patrolling the waters around Ecuador, "block[ing] at least 37 Ecuadoran boats and detain[ing] more than 4,575 suspected illegal migrants over the past four years, records show. Then, over the past two years, they've sunk a dozen emptied migrant boats."

If Canada, as it had planned to do a couple of years ago, decriminalizes marijuana, how long before the US is invading our borders to arrest people for selling pot in Canada because they claim it is making its way into the US? Not long, I would venture to guess.

Let's be clear here: they have no right to do this. They've just decided that they're going to because they don't think anyone can stop them. In other words, more of the same.

This is a good example to keep in mind the next time I'm arguing with my boss about why US politics matter to us. He thinks Bush is just a typical politician, lying as needed and trying to maintain his position of power. He doesn't believe that it goes any further than that, and he certainly doesn't think it can affect him.

It's one thing to watch Americans vote away their freedoms. It's another thing entirely to know that they're also voting away ours.

And that's why it needs to be explicit

The Office of Special Counsel, responsible for preventing bias in the US federal civil service, has declared open season on homosexuality. Because gays and lesbians are not specifically mentioned in national civil rights legislation, the OSC says that they are not protected. There is legislation that "prohibits discrimination against federal employees or job applicants on the basis of off-duty conduct that does not affect job performance", but the OSC says that sexual orientation is not "conduct", not a behavior, so it is not protected. In other words, you can ride in the gay pride parade without risking your job, but if your supervisor decides you are gay and fires you, you're out of luck. Logical.

I remember back in 1996 when Canada's Human Rights Act was amended to specifically include sexual orientation, conservatives argued that it wasn't necessary because the legislation already promised equal rights for all. I remember thinking at the time that they were being disingenuous, and this is a really good demonstration of why.

A little trivia for you: as early as 1967, Canada's soon-to-be prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, declared that the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation when he proposed legislation to decriminalize homosexuality.

Regrettably omitted

This article points out that Bush may have condoned by executive order the torture of prisoners in Iraq and Cuba, and mentions that many papers "regrettably omitted the story's biggest bombshell". Two things here: how cowed are the newspapers that they are afraid to report that Bush is directly and demonstrably responsible for the torture? He gets away with this shit because we let him, people! It's time to start holding him responsible for the things he does.

Secondly, if this article can point out that the newspapers "regrettably omitted" the real news in the story, why not go further and examine the media's complicity in all of this? It wasn't an accident or an oversight. It was a deliberate choice by cowardly or biased newspaper editors/owners to protect him once again.

HOLD HIM RESPONSIBLE. It's the only thing that can stop him.

Let's call her Chad

A dolphin in Japan was given the world's first prosthetic fin. Aw.

Chloe Sevigny

I watched the clip from The Brown Bunny tonight. Yes, the blowjob was real and visible. I know she likes to think of herself as edgy, but man, I fear she's going to live to regret that particular choice. The world does not deal kindly with "sluts" (she says from personal experience).

It's not torture because they don't count

In response to the Red Cross's statement that the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is tantamount to torture, "'We certainly don't think it's torture', Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Indianapolis a short time later. 'Let's not forget the kind of people we have down there', he added. 'These are the people that don't know any moral values'".

So it's not torture because the prisoners are terrorists? Leaving aside the fact that these prisoners have not been charged, tried, or convicted, leaving aside the demonization inherent in the statement that these people know no moral values, this argument is like saying that if someone kills a drug dealer, it's not murder.

The definition of torture depends on the actions being performed, not the nature of the victim. There may be an argument (though not one recognized by the international community) that the ends justify the means, but the ends do not and can never change the nature of the means. Moral relativism, indeed.

ABC losing credibility

Either ABC has dreams of being a tabloid, or some pro-life gremlin is writing headlines for their website.

The eponymous woman is not being charged "over baby cut from womb," as if this were some sort of fetal rights case. The psycho strangled a pregnant woman, cut her stomach open, and absconded with the viable baby. She's being charged with murder and kidnapping, neither of which charges are related to cutting the baby out, specifically. The sensational headline almost seems designed to further the pro-life push to criminalize harming a fetus, which in fact didn't happen here.

The crime as it is should be horrible and sensational enough to report. It's actually kind of disgusting that ABC would misrepresent it to use it as some sort of political statement, if that was in fact their intent.

Voices from Iraq

This article is written by a man who has family living in Iraq, and it describes how the majority of people in the country are dealing with the war. Hoping for it to be over, and hoping to survive it, that is. He says that he doesn't see any meaningful difference between Saddam's army and the US military, Ariel Sharon and Bin Laden. They "are all cousins in an endless parade of foot soldiers for the same problem: the system of economic dominance we all live under that requires oppression."

Word.

US may have exaggerated North Korean nuclear capability

Shocking, isn't it? Yet oddly familiar.

I was under the impression that North Korea had actually announced they had nuclear weapons. Either I'm misremembering, or that was another lie.

Undoctored exit polls

This site is trying to preserve the original exit poll results that projected a Kerry win. You may have heard that late on November 2, the exit polls were "recalculated" to be brought into line with the reported actual results.

They're trying to bully us

I don't react well to bullying.

No gay marriage referendum in Canada

Thanks to Wing Chun for posting this link.

Paul Martin has said that Canadians will not be given a chance to vote on whether the definition of marriage should be amended to included same-sex unions. I tend to think that in a referendum, Canadians would agree to the amendment anyway, but I agree that the majority, whether for or against, does not have the right to vote on the rights of a minority.

I am really surprised that Stephen Harper is taking the same position. I fully expected the Conservative party to be officially opposed to the amendment. It looks like most of their members will vote against it, but it is a free vote, and the party is not pushing for a referendum. (Ralph Klein, on the other hand, is. Dick.)

Frank Zappa saw it coming

IFILM has posted a video of Frank Zappa appearing on Crossfire back in 1986, taking a position against government censorship of music lyrics. About 11 minutes into the video, he expressed concern that the US was moving in the direction of a fascist theocracy, which he defined as "When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code, derived from a certain religion, and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view". Frank knew what he was talking about, and saw it coming long before most others did. What he described is exactly what Bush is trying to do right now.

The Amazing Statistic

I just came across this poll on the Amazing Race. When I took the poll, there were 14996 responses, and these were the results:

Love it! Except for Flo winning - 92%
Hate it! It's totally overrated - 0%
Don't watch it - 7%

How amazing (no pun intended, this time) is it that, in a poll of 15,000 people, a statistical zero percent hate this show? Granted, there are many factors that might skew this result, not the least of which is the fact that the article is written by Tara Ariano, one of the creators and co-owners of Television Without Pity, whose regulars overwhelmingly love the show and its recapper, Miss Alli. Nonetheless, this is the internets, where everything and everyone has haters.

The show really is in a class of its own. Unlike any other reality show, the outcome is merit-based (not discounting a healthy dose of luck), depending on the effort, skill, and stamina of the participants; it shows people with a pre-existing relationship who are too busy and too stressed to spend much time worrying about how they come across on camera; the pace of the show is incredibly fast, all the time; the activities and locales are, for the most part, inherently exciting, exotic, and rapidly changing (from climbing a glacier in Iceland to descending some 300 feet into the Great Pyramid at Giza to riding a camel in the Sahara desert); the talented people behind the scenes (producers, editors, camera and sound crews, etc.) appear to be committed to creating a quality, witty show that respects its viewers; and the host, Phil Keoghan, is both pretty AND charming. They've made few, and minor, changes to the rules and format of the show, and only when it became apparent that a weakness needed to be addressed. Unlike some "reality" shows that use rule changes, or "twists" to try to keep the show fresh, this show just is fresh.

There is literally no other tv show like it, and while I'm surprised by the poll result, I also agree completely. I hope we get another six seasons.

Testing

Trying out the publish-by-email feature. Works better (I hope) when you
get the email address correct.

Identity crisis

Re-reading some of my posts, I notice that a lot of them are written as though I'm actually an American citizen. Of course, this isn't the case; I'm Canadian, living in Saskatchewan.

I tend to write "we" instead of "they" when I'm talking about liberals because that's the group I identify with most strongly. I spent a LOT of time before the election reading about the issues and the progress of both campaigns, so it feels as though I was actually involved, even though I really wasn't. I also believe very strongly that the election will have a huge impact on me and on the rest of the world, so in many ways it felt like my election, too.

Anyway, if my apparent appropriation of an American voice offends anyone, I apologize. I try to be aware of it, but sometimes, using the third-party "they" makes it seem more remote than it actually feels to me. In those cases, in all likelihood, I will continue to use "we".

Bhopal hoax

It's almost too sad to be appreciated. DemocracyNow.org hoaxed the BBC on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster (go to "browse recent shows" and scroll to Dec 6). The BBC interviewed "Jude Finisterra", representing himself as a Dow Chemical spokesperson, who said that Dow was now willing to take responsibility for Bhopal, and would clean up the site and liquidate Union Carbide so they could give the Bhopal residents $12 billion in compensation.

Listening to Mr. "Finisterra" talk about compensating the Indian people, pushing the US to extradite the man responsible for the disaster back to India, cooperating with future legal actions, and funding research on the safety of the chemicals they produce entertained me initially, but about halfway through I started to get sad. In the world I want to live in, this is how companies really would behave. The reality of the world I do live in is reflected in the fact that when this report was aired, company stock dropped 4.2% in 23 minutes, not because stockholders were horrified to find out about the disaster, but because they didn't want to take a financial hit from the compensation and cleanup.

The best part of the hoax is that Dow was forced to publicly state that they would not claim responsibility for the disaster. The worst part is the possibility that some residents of Bhopal heard the report and may have believed that they were finally going to get justice.

Canada likely to OK gay marriage

I'm not entirely sure how it has been legalized in some provinces when it contradicts existing federal legislation, but Canada's Supreme Court has given the green light to Parliament to change the definition of marriage to be the union of two people, rather than a man and a woman. It could go up for a vote as early as January, and so far at least, it sounds like it will pass. Even our most right-wing (mainstream) party, the Conservatives, are not taking a stand against it. They, along with the governing Liberal party, are allowing their members to vote their consciences instead of by party policy, and the NDP and Bloc Quebecois are expected to vote in favour of it.

If it passes, Canada will be the third country in the world to make gay marriage legal nationwide.

Alabama votes to keep Jim Crow

In the November 2 election, Alabamians were asked to vote on whether to remove Jim Crow language from their state constitution, and they said no. They preferred to keep language that says “Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.” Apparently, the amendment would also have removed a clause that said that children did not have the right to public (i.e. state-funded) education, and this is what presumably caused the amendment to fail, because some politician mislead state residents into believing that removing the clause might result in tax increases.

What he said

In this article, Robert Jensen explains that he thinks it's a good thing that the US is losing the war in Iraq because it contributes to the downfall of the empire that they're building. I fully agree with his assessment that their motive for attacking Iraq is not so that they can own Iraq's oil. Rather, they want to control who can access it. Their version of empire is not a clone of the old English or Roman models. They do not want to own and govern other countries; instead, they seek to make the governments of other countries subservient to them so that they can ensure their economic interests are protected and advanced.

This is part of why I believe Canada and other countries need to disentangle themselves from the American economy. I fear what would happen, though, if we did it on a formal, national level. If our government took a stand to impose economic sanctions on the US, I have absolutely no doubt that we would find ourselves "liberated" in short order. It really needs to happen at the U.N. level to prevent any individual country from bearing the brunt of the US's aggression.

However, if individual Canadians boycott American goods and services wherever possible, we can at least minimize their influence in our country. It's not as directly effective as government-imposed sanctions, and it depends on voluntary compliance, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Green Maine

I had no idea that Maine residents were so progressive. By 2009, 6% of cars and trucks sold there will be required to "have the newest emissions control technology", and another 4% will be required to be at least as fuel efficient as the current hybrids. If I remember correctly, they also went fairly heavily for Kerry in the election.

Kerik nominated to replace Tom Ridge

Some petty criminals get sent to jail for 55 years, and some? Some get made the head of Homeland Security.

Can a country have a personality disorder?

This is a list of the traits of an individual with narcissistic personality disorder.

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

It sounds disturbingly like the Bush administration and many of its supporters, to me. The posts and comments on this site, and some of the comments on Raed's website, demonstrate an utter lack of empathy and a sense of entitlement that is staggering. I know that the fuckwads posting on Raed's site are trolling, but what kind of person would say, in response to a post about efforts to get emergency aid to civilians in Baghdad, that he hopes Raed's friends "end up waylaid and you find their headless bodies in a ditch along side the road. The naive morons deserve it"?

Ballistic Missile Defence

Bush is trying to chivvy Canada into supporting the American BMD program, and our beloved prime minister is waffling, of course. He wants to say yes, I think, but knows that it would be political suicide. Since Bush publicly announced that he and Martin had discussed it, apparently liberal MPs' emails and phone calls on the subject have gone from 25/day to 200/day, with not one person saying they support it.

I expect to find out in a year or so that we have signed on to the program without letting Canadians know. Did I mention that I don't trust Paul Martin?

Meanwhile,

A summary of long-range plans for the U.S. Space Command says the Pentagon envisions developing a space weapon that can be used against "a small number of high-value targets" on Earth. (Globe and Mail, Dec 3/04)

It seems like a great idea to me to help the US develop a weapon that would allow them to blast any specific site on Earth without any possible defence. I'm sure they're trustworthy and responsible enough to only use it for the greater good of humanity.

Another Stuart picture - the prettiest cat evah

I recently started learning how to take proper pictures with a decent SLR camera, and I happened to get this shot. I think it had much more to do with luck than skill, but I absolutely love it. It also doesn't hurt that I have a very pretty kitty.

I don't know about you, but I have 46 chromosomes

If you've ever wondered why some Americans seem, well, undereducated, this might go a long way towards explaining it:

[T]he Why kNOw curriculum asserts "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual"

I know that it's kind of cruel to point and laugh at their ignorance, but COME ON. I'll tell you, though, this really gives me a lot of confidence in the claims of scientific rigour behind the theory of Intelligent Design.

Divide and conquer

In an article about the WTO and globalization, Mark Engler advances what I believe is the real reason behind most of Bush's policies:

Rather than being able to advance sophisticated arguments about what sort of international economic system we want to live in, we have been reduced to denouncing blatantly illegal foreign invasions and defending our basic civil liberties.

This is, I believe, why Bush's administration is blatantly attacking education, health care, the environment, civil liberties, freedom from religion, and just about everything else that liberals believe in. It may even be a significant part of the reason the US is at war right now. It's not because they give a good goddamn about abortion or gay marriage (though their supporters might); it's the classic divide and conquer ploy.

People who are busy fighting for their own rights don't have the liberty to fight for the rights of others. While we're distracted, burning up our energy fighting them to hold onto absolutely every bit of progress made in the last fifty years, they're busy pillaging the world's economy. I have absolutely no idea how to turn this around, either. The only way to stop them is to get them out of fucking office, and it seems like we can't even do that.

Those who forget the past...

Antonin Scalia, heir-presumptive to the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship, told the congregation at an orthodox synagogue in New York a couple of weeks ago that the best protection for Jews in the US would be to have Christianity play a part in the government of the country. He also suggested that the Holocaust was able to happen because Hitler kept church and state separate, when in fact the opposite is true. Scalia also claims that the founding fathers intended for Christianity to be part of the government. This article gives more information, and notes that the story has received almost no coverage.

Bush has said that Scalia is one of his favourite justices. I guess Bush figures he still qualifies as constructionist if he's allowed to rewrite the constitution before he starts interpreting it.

Corporate political donations

Speaking of boycotting American companies, if you'd prefer, you can just target the ones who supported Bush's campaign. This website lists the companies who made donations, and the amounts that each made to either Kerry or Bush. It's extremely well-organized, too. It's sorted into various different categories, and it has a search function. It also lists each company's parent company. We hear a lot about corporate consolidation, but did you know just how many television and cable tv companies are owned by Viacom, for example? Me neither.

Update: a weird anomaly, pointed out in the FAQ for the site - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp donated more to the Democratic campaign than they did to the Republicans. The hell? Maybe they figured that they'd give propaganda support to Bush, but slip Kerry some cash in case he won. I can't think of anything else that makes any sense.

Halifax protests peaceful

I can't tell you how happy it makes me that Canadians can protest without violence, without arrests, without hostility between the police and the protesters, without people being rounded up into "Free Speech" zones, without snow-fence-aided mass arrests, and without suppression. Instead of treating protesters like the enemy, and trying to intimidate them into silence, "Officers handed protesters pamphlets advising them of their rights and the duties of police." Just contrast this to some of the things that happened in Boston and New York this summer.

I'm telling you, you could not pay me to live in the US now.

TV news is just a baby

It just occurred to me that, with the retirement of Brokaw and Rather, we've really only gone through two generations of news anchors since TV became a mass influence on society. Cronkite was the CBS evening news anchor from 1962 to 1981. Dan Rather took over from Cronkite when he retired.

It reminds me of the way that people react when rulers of long standing die. They have been in power so long that many people don't remember anything else, so they can't imagine a world without them. I'm not entirely sure what I think this means, if it means anything. I just find it interesting.

US army using slaves in Iraq?

According to these articles from the Indo-Asian News Service and the Associated Press, the US army has been "buying" Indian workers who were told they were going to work in Kuwait:

"There were some 20 Indians in the bus. Once we knew that we were inside Iraq, we protested," Faisal said. "But the Americans told us that they had paid a Kuwait agency $1,000 (U.S.) for each man and therefore it was a must that we work for them."

This is an old story (from May '04), but I don't remember ever hearing about it before. Words fail me, here. Anything I can think of to say seems like it should go without saying, and only serves to belittle the magnitude of this atrocity.

The chickens come home to roost

Noam Scheiber at the New Republic posted yesterday that the Bush administration appears to be having trouble hiring economic advisors since they're not actually allowed to advise, but are instead expected to be cheerleaders. Funny how that works.

Bush, go home

Bush is in my country right now, being his usual obnoxious self, and outing his discussion with Paul Martin about Norad and missile defense, much to Martin's dismay, I'm sure. It infuriates me that Canada, as a country, is so closely tied economically to the States that we feel we have to placate Bush despite the fact that most Canadians believe him to be a war criminal. People are afraid to offend him. Tonight I watched Lloyd Robertson interviewing some talking head about the visit, and trying to figure out a way to say diplomatically that Bush is a vindictive asshole who will make it his mission to destroy any country that pisses him off.

It's a scary situation for Canada (and Mexico) to be in, being the US's closest neighbour and being completely tied to their economy. Although I understand the desire to be diplomatic right now, I really think it's time we started focusing our trade on other countries. If we don't, we're going to find ourselves giving up more and more to the States. We've already given them, to some extent, control over our natural resources with NAFTA. We're being coerced to shut up and act like we support their illegal war right now so that we can get the border reopened to Canadian beef (the perpetual carrot being dangled in front of us - surprise, surprise, they still haven't come to an agreement).

I recently had this conversation with a friend of mine who has a lot of business ties to the US through her consulting business. I recognize that it's easy for me to say, because I have a job, not a business. But I think I've commented before on how the US likes to loudly proclaim that nobody can stand up to their military. They're right; our only option is to make their actions have economic consequences. Right now, economic support is tantamount to support for the war, and that is just not acceptable to me. That's why I've decided to boycott US-made products wherever I can.