* With apologies to Iggy Pop.
So, a House of Representatives committee report indicates that anti-Americanism is at "record levels". Apparently, the committee members agree that this lamentable situation flows primarily from global horror over the Iraq war and "Washington's perceived hypocrisy". I wonder how much money American taxpayers had to fork over to hear their legislators propound a fact easily deducible from even a cursory reading of the news.
Fortunately, we hear, the committee believes that the world still admires American "values", although the committee fails to elaborate upon what those values are. I suppose we're supposed to just know.
Elsewhere, we read that a Marine was caught on video hurling a dog off a cliff while his mates egg him on and chuckle, that the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (currently presiding over an obscenity case) has been caught posting hard-core pornography (including scenes of bestiality) on his family's Website, and that a California high-school has done Thomas Paine proud by banning its newspaper indefinitely after its editors ran a photo of a burning American flag.
Values? What "values"?
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7 comments:
"Values? What "values"?"
You know, apple pie, motherhood...the freedom thing.
I'm just being cynical. American values are found in the sunrise over a dewy Kansas cornfield, in the cordial "howdy, folks" Gus the bus driver from Sacremento greets the passengers, in the smile of a little native child from the Taos Pueblo...in the step of every man, and the wave of every woman, in the...
....PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAAAAAJESTIES, ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAAAAAIN!
*ahem*...Sorry. Lost it there for a bit.
I thought they hold these values to be self-evident.
Sir Francis,
No comment on aboriginal Canadian's?
I will.
We now need to continue working forward on land claims. We should err on the side of being generous. I refer to land claim negotiations being linked to previous settlement packets.
We need to re-build or pitch out the Indian Act. This must include rights, status, reserve definitions, administrative assistance, governance. We need to listen during the next five years.
That will give us a start.
Tomm
Hmmm. Why do I always feel the urge to defend my American friends whenever I come here? ;)
Surely, you must realize how unfair it is to single out a handful of instances where quintessential American “values” (at least as they’re imagined, idealized and celebrated) are flouted as outrageously as they are in the examples cited.
That will give us a start.
Indeed--so will moving forward with the Kelowna Accord, rather than burying it under a malignant indifference, like your friends in the CPC are in the process of doing.
Red:
Surely, you must realize how unfair it is to single out a handful of instances...
Yeah, well life isn`t fair, is it? :)
Anyways, I`ve time to make note only of a handful, but, as you know, those instances could be multiplied a thousandfold.
But, yes, I`ll admit it was a lazy post. I`ve a right to write the odd one, I suppose, especially since I rarely resort to the "here`s a cool YouTube clip" or "here`s a Globe and Mail editorial reduntantly cut and pasted in its entirety for your reading pleasure" expedients.
And especially when I`m just minutes away from stepping into the taxi I`ve called to take me to the bus station; but more on that in the next post.
Sir Francis,
You see my point.
Each item that I think the government of Canada needs to move on most quickly, are missing from the Kelowna Accord.
Tomm
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