Farewell to my American friends. It's over. (Page 1/3)
Patrick FEB 10, 04:24 PM
Opinion: Farewell to my American friends. It's over.


The following article appeared in the Vancouver Sun several days ago. I saw it for the first time just a few minutes ago. It's written by a columnist whose works I have enjoyed and appreciated for over 40 years. I believe he's captured the essence of how the majority of present day Canadians feel.


quote

Author of the article: Pete McMartin
Published Feb 03, 2025

Goodbye, America.

It’s been nice knowing you.

Goodbye New York, and your Jewish delicatessens with corned beef sandwiches stacked as high as your skyline.

Goodbye Detroit, my boyhood neighbour, and so long to Tiger Stadium, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Motown.

Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland — how I’ll miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities. And while I’m at it, goodbye to the cheap gas and shoreline cottages of Point Roberts, America’s appendix dangling just below the border not a mile from me. What was once so close has never been so far.

Goodbye Stag Leap’s Pinot Noir, Maker’s Mark bourbon, and Hebrew National hotdogs. My tastebuds mourn.

Goodbye to the cowards on both sides of the border who have demonstrated that whatever fidelity to democratic ideals they profess to have extends only so far as their self-interest. They should get a real job, say, in a chain gang.

Goodbye to anyone, again on both sides of the border, who bends the knee to Trump, rather than standing up to him, as any self-respecting person would and should, and telling him to piss off. Goodbye to a culture that demands we bend the knee.

Goodbye languid vacations in Maui and Palm Springs. My next winter vacation will be in a sunny climate other than any America can offer, and preferably in a country the U.S. has treated as disdainfully as mine. I’ll have more than a few to pick from.

Most painful of all, goodbye to my American friends, some of whom I have known all my life, and some of whom I’ve collected along the way. I can cross your border but no longer wish to: Your Narcissist-in-Chief has decreed that my countrymen and I have the choice of becoming destitute, vassals or enemies. I’m choosing the latter.

Meanwhile, your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I — we — have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.

Goodbye to the image of America I once held dear — the America of Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley and James Brown, of George Gershwin and Aaron Copeland, of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain, of Martin Luther King and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Goodbye to what I envied as the country that prided itself on encouraging unparalleled innovation in science, art and business. Any good that remains of it has been overshadowed by rapacity, cheap commercialism and egotism.

Goodbye to that ever-present sense of inferiority I once had when considering the relationship between Canada and America. What doubt I had of our own greatness is gone, and in its place is a certitude that Canada is superior to the U.S. in all the ways that matter. I look across the border now and see a violent, burgeoning autocracy now ever on the edge of civil war, and a population that is either cheering on this new brutalism or quaking in fear from it.

Goodbye to tepid patriotism. If Trump has done us any favour, it is awakening us to the fact that we can no longer take Canada’s existence for granted, that the bad actors in the world have begun to look covetously upon our improbably vast land that is laden with riches, that they want those riches and that niceness as a national character is not enough to dissuade them from taking them. Schoolyard bullies don’t want to be buddies. They want your lunch.

And after a long era of living a geopolitical life of convenient economic and military subservience, we’ve awakened to the fact that we are going to have to relearn our independence and fight any way we can to keep it.

Goodbye to living under the American nuclear umbrella, or any form of American hegemony. Goodbye to negotiation, wheedling, genuflecting or feel-good hands-across-the-border fairy tales. The American government has shown that established alliances mean nothing to it now, and so cannot be trusted. In Trump’s new world order, all the old verities are off the table, so let us make new ones.

Do levy tariffs, as we have promised to do, and do grit our way through the inevitable economic pain that will come. Re-arm as if we were on a war footing, because we are on a war footing. Conduct the mother of all public relation campaigns that let Americans know how badly they are perceived in the world, that they’ve gone from the shining city on the hill to just another empire with the same tired territorial ambitions as Russia or China. Do anything to impress upon Americans that their government is without real friends or allies, and that they, in essence, are alone.

So, goodbye America, it’s been nice knowing you, but I don’t know you anymore. I’ve reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I won’t consort with the enemy.



Not that it'll make any difference to a select few here, but I'll try and continue to be helpful and civil in the tech areas of PFF... for now anyway. Here in P&R though, it's probably best if I spend as little time as possible. Nothing stated in this section of the forum will have any impact whatsoever on world affairs... and it's not exactly uplifting to read what's being posted. So what is the point? There is no point.
Doug85GT FEB 10, 04:41 PM
jdv FEB 10, 05:23 PM
Just another lefty loosing it. America first. USA
Jake_Dragon FEB 10, 06:14 PM
You had me at good bye.
Perhaps now you can go enjoy that scoop of ice cream
RWDPLZ FEB 10, 07:08 PM
Goodbye, joke of a country that couldn't exist without our continued economic and military support and drain on our resources. Welcome, new Americans!
olejoedad FEB 10, 07:20 PM
I would say that he is over reacting.

I would also say that IF Canada would somehow join with the USA, that rather than being a vassal, the residents of Canada would become citizens, rather than being subject of the Crown.

Either way, stick around this section Patrick, I may not always agree with you, but I still count you as a friend.
Vintage-Nut FEB 10, 08:37 PM
Funny, from 2021 thru 2024, the 'left' pounded the 'right' repeatedly and mock former President Donald Trump...

Now, with the pendulum going back to common sense,
and with the "majority of present-day Canadians feel" which are left-wing voters;
they're in denial and want to leave the USA...

Edit - Going back to USA, the next two years will be interesting in California; Newsom approves $50M to fight against the common-sense approach; again

[This message has been edited by Vintage-Nut (edited 02-10-2025).]

Mike in Sydney FEB 10, 11:42 PM

quote
Originally posted by Patrick:

Opinion: Farewell to my American friends. It's over.


The following article appeared in the Vancouver Sun several days ago. I saw it for the first time just a few minutes ago. It's written by a columnist whose works I have enjoyed and appreciated for over 40 years. I believe he's captured the essence of how the majority of present day Canadians feel.

Not that it'll make any difference to a select few here, but I'll try and continue to be helpful and civil in the tech areas of PFF... for now anyway. Here in P&R though, it's probably best if I spend as little time as possible. Nothing stated in this section of the forum will have any impact whatsoever on world affairs... and it's not exactly uplifting to read what's being posted. So what is the point? There is no point.



The author makes some really valid points. It's interesting how clear things can be from a few miles or a few thousand miles away. It's like the old saying, they can't see the forest for the trees.

Patrick, I've always found you a straight-shooter. You've corrected me a few times as only you can but never with malice or spite. I'll miss you and will keep in contact with you on PMs and email. You're welcome visit anytime.

By the way. Canadians may want to rethink becoming a state. I'm assuming if it came into the union, it would come in as 10 states so there would be 20 Senators and a mass of representatives.

The Reapportionment Act of 1929 set the number of members in the US House of Representatives at 435 so unless this law is changed, the other 50 states would have to give up Congressional representation. Imagine what would happen if the Canadian states came in. As a group, you would have as many representatives as California AND 20 senators. I would expect the majority of the voters would be Centrists instead of far right MAGAts.

BTW, do you know the reason that Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are not states? The likelihood is most would vote Democrat which would make it difficult for MAGA to gain control of congress.
Mike in Sydney FEB 10, 11:59 PM

quote
Originally posted by RWDPLZ:

Goodbye, joke of a country that couldn't exist without our continued economic and military support and drain on our resources. Welcome, new Americans!




Do you really believe this? There are 24 members of the Commonwealth including the United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These five alone could match or exceed the economic and military support of the U.S. Commonwealth countries may have their differences but they certainly don't wait until forced into something to react and they tend to do what's best for the Commonwealth, not the individual nations.

Calling Canada a joke of a country that couldn't exist without the U.S.' continued economic and military support is foolish and spiteful. You should open up your Trump Bible (the one printed in China with the Constitution in it) to Matthew 7:3-5. It says: "Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye."
blackrams FEB 11, 12:17 AM

quote
Originally posted by Mike in Sydney:

BTW, do you know the reason that Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are not states? The likelihood is most would vote Democrat which would make it difficult for MAGA to gain control of congress.



Seriously? You don't remember or realize that House of Representatives, the Senate and the Oval Office have in the past and very recently been under complete control of Democrats and, had the Dems wanted PR and the DC of Columbia then it could have happened. While I don't know all the reasons, what I do believe is that if either side wanted statehood for those two it would have happened already.

Rams

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 02-11-2025).]