Yesterday's Mail: Two Letters from Canada

To: The Freeway Blogger

Yes!

I am your archetypal Canadian neighbour, an old man now, who has lived in your country and even, for a time, went to school there. I've worked and studied in several of your states. For all that time, I was in awe of America's creative ingenuity, it's wealth-generating capabilities and capacity, and the notion that freedom and the empowerment of the individual could accomplish such wondrous things - for everybody - when channelled through the enthusiastic, surging effort of life-loving, freedom-loving, highly-intelligent people that I enjoyed so much being amongst.

Then I witnessed America gradually morph into the self-proclaimed world's policeman, marginalizing and denigrating the United Nations during that organization's nascent efforts to grow itself into a larger, balanced, global roll.

And that, unfortunately, was followed by the perfect storm: the symbiotic interlocking of the Republican neocons with the Christian right. And then came the war, predictably enough; yet another war, the current war. This one too has gone badly; wars which are of other than the not-for-profit or not-for God varieties seem to end up ultimately being hurtful to the prosecutors. It's a high price to pay, even for the initiating politicians, to create a protracted patriotic distraction for a populace which might otherwise quickly become restive over pressing issues closer to home.

So, now, with God apparently guiding George (there are possibly two Gods, at least: the one which, in the end, probably isn't; and the other one, Dick Cheney) you have a situation where a few very unusual people are empowered to wield the undisputed might of the American war machine in whatever direction they might feel inclined, against whomever they don't really like at the moment.

It gives some of us up here the shivers. For, up here, we have oil; more than most. We have fresh water, lots of it. We have softwood lumber, even more of which could go south for free. Are we perhaps somewhere near the front of America's queue of countries to be 'democratized' and 'liberated'? It's all a bit scary, if you live up here.

But then I'm old, and probably have too little to do other than to think and worry about what kind of world my grandchildren will inherit.

I am encouraged, though, to see that there are folks in America - tens if not hundreds of millions of you - who disapprove of what's going on, and who are taking initiatives such as yours. That quiet near-majority is probably standing, with stoic determination, behind a vanguard of the kind of Californians that I came to know and love. So, don't give this up. Do whatever you've gotta do to win back your country. You will, if you persist...I'd bet Monica's dress on it! That's why I'm writing this. To encourage you.

Bill, where are you when we need you? We all, on this continent, need you. Sigmund said it first: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. We've all had our chuckle; I'm rather regretful that it was at your expense. Talk to your people, again, like you're talking now to us. They loved you! So do we.

David (who respects, but doesn't fear, Goliath)


Dear Freewayblogger,

First of all, I absolutely love what you are doing and I think that you have a lot of guts for just speaking up to the bullsh*t that continues to flow from the White House. As Canadians, most of us know about the lies and their connection to the big (oil) business agenda being sold to Americans as a "war on terror". Sure there are a fair number of Islamic extremists who hate America but rather than deal with the seeds of violence that beset your great country in 2001, unfortunately there had been such incredible hubris as to dismiss it all until now. What's worse is that rather than dealing with the problems underlying terrorism and anti-Western sentiment, George W. Bush and his cronies have chosen to use those issues to smokescreen a major money-grab for their rich political supporters. All the while, the rest of the world shakes its proverbial head in utter disbelief. We just don't understand why this "criminal" was re-elected.

But we're just at ignorant here in Canada it seems. As you may know we have troops actively fighting a so-called "war on terror" in Afghanistan; essentially hunting down Taliban. Most of our citizens aren't really sure why our troops are even there. They think that we're just supporting the American troops. The truth is that Canada is also engaged in a war with questionable motives and even more questionable legalities. In speaking with a friend who works in National Defense the other day, he indicated to me (over a cup of coffee) that we're over there killing "suspected terrorists" and "active enemy combatants". I'm not sure what to do about all of this.

Every day that I wake up I feel like the world is becoming more corrupt, violent and offensive to our collective future. I'd like to start something up here but I'm not sure if it would make any difference. Did you ever feel that way? Do you ever worry about being audited or harassed in any way by your government? You've made me think about my voice. That's a start. Maybe I'll come up with something useful to do that will help shape the majority of Canadians' voices because we don't want these wars. Most of us don't even want our current (right-leaning) Prime Minister because of his "deep integration" strategy with the U.S. Thanks for reading this. Let me know if there's anything a Canadian can do about this Iraq war nonsense.