Dance, Puppet!! *Jiggles strings*
Yeah, so I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I'm any less disgusted.
I was reading cbc.ca this morning (Yay, lock-out over! Fuck you management, you pricks!) and of course the top headline besides "More than a thousand feared dead in South Asian quake" is "PM accused of hurting free trade." *Gasp!* I may just have a heart attack that Paul Martin would dare sully that all powerful thing known as ..free..trade...
First off, Canadians never wanted it. Yeah, we like trade, et cetera ...but it was widely seen as a big mistake. It was an election issue, actually. Chretien was all for it (yeah, no one's perfect) and Mulroney wasn't...guess who won? Yeah. And guess who, right after, instituted free trade anyway? Oh yeah. Talk about lying bastard politicians. And people think Canadian politics is staid.
Anyway, the Americans have been going at this softwood lumber bullshit for some time. They want free trade, but only by their rules. It's funny that they don't even try to pretend to not be bullies anymore (not that they ever really pretended, but they mostly did to other "first world" nations. I'm sure people in South America would tell me otherwise). They want free access into our market, but they don't want us in theirs in return. Case in point: Beef. One cow was found, on a fluke, to have mad cow and how long was Canadian beef banned in the US? ...Even after they found a cow with the same thing in the States? Protectionism. They want to be able to sell their bullshit vegetables and coca cola and whatever else all over the world, while still doing whatever they want to protect their own markets.
They basically have done a big "fuck you!" to the Invisible Hand, while pretending to worship capitalism. But then again, they don't follow the principles of real capitalism at all anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter. It's one of those "do as I say, not as I do" things. [Editing note: Isn't it funny that in Wikipedia, the purpose of the Invisible Hand is to protect against protectionism? That tickled me a bit.]
And this takes us to softwood lumber. They've been ignoring the rulings literally, I think, forever. EVERYONE has told them to comply; even the UN. And still, they drag this on. It's hurting the Canadian lumber industry; something significant in a country full of woods. I don't even believe in capitalism to begin with, and this is bugging the hell out of even me.
So I think Paul Martin has every right in the world to threaten the US with some sort of reciprocation. What've we got that grabs them by the balls? Energy. So it's time we stopped being so nice and played hardball with the big boys. I was on this back in the day when Jack Layton was saying it. He's had the right idea all along, and bravo to Paul Martin for finally having some balls. (See, I'm not above giving props where it is due.)
But that, in turn takes us to the Panderer's Party. Oh, I mean C.R.A.P. Oh, sorry. The Conservatives and my most favourite target, Peter MacKay. C'mon. Only the Conservatives would tell us to continue to lay down and take it while the US fucks us. I know it's icky imagery, but please. We're supposed to protect this lie?! To continue to pretend that we're happy with the scrap that we're being given? To settle for having our sovereignty stomped on? I don't fucking think so. If we seriously want to pull ourselves from the teat of the Great Satan we need to stand up for ourselves for once. We need to stop trying to make everyone happy and look out for us. We're the definition of wishy-washy and it has. got. to. stop.
If we want to be taken seriously, we have to do something serious. And fuck the Conservatives. They say they want to protect Canadian interests, but what that means is, only if Canadian interests are in line with their master's, the US. They'd have us dance for the Americans when we should be kicking them in the shins.
I don't know, does this seem like common sense to anyone else? I know people can say that trade is a two-way street, and friends don't do this sort of thing ...but friends don't fuck each other out of money, either. Friends don't ban our beef and watch our industries flounder. Friends don't try to bully us for not backing wars we don't believe in. So I think we've moved beyond the point of friends and have to start looking at it as what we really are: neighbours who are becoming increasingly less alike. And I think we're at the point where we have to take a stand and say, we're not going to hold up this fascade anymore if you aren't going to act like a friend.
Because that's what true friends do. We know when to end it, if it's becoming unhealthy. We don't allow ourselves to continue to be bullied by a friend, who I'm sorry to say is looking more and more like a sociopath every day.
I was reading cbc.ca this morning (Yay, lock-out over! Fuck you management, you pricks!) and of course the top headline besides "More than a thousand feared dead in South Asian quake" is "PM accused of hurting free trade." *Gasp!* I may just have a heart attack that Paul Martin would dare sully that all powerful thing known as ..free..trade...
First off, Canadians never wanted it. Yeah, we like trade, et cetera ...but it was widely seen as a big mistake. It was an election issue, actually. Chretien was all for it (yeah, no one's perfect) and Mulroney wasn't...guess who won? Yeah. And guess who, right after, instituted free trade anyway? Oh yeah. Talk about lying bastard politicians. And people think Canadian politics is staid.
Anyway, the Americans have been going at this softwood lumber bullshit for some time. They want free trade, but only by their rules. It's funny that they don't even try to pretend to not be bullies anymore (not that they ever really pretended, but they mostly did to other "first world" nations. I'm sure people in South America would tell me otherwise). They want free access into our market, but they don't want us in theirs in return. Case in point: Beef. One cow was found, on a fluke, to have mad cow and how long was Canadian beef banned in the US? ...Even after they found a cow with the same thing in the States? Protectionism. They want to be able to sell their bullshit vegetables and coca cola and whatever else all over the world, while still doing whatever they want to protect their own markets.
They basically have done a big "fuck you!" to the Invisible Hand, while pretending to worship capitalism. But then again, they don't follow the principles of real capitalism at all anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter. It's one of those "do as I say, not as I do" things. [Editing note: Isn't it funny that in Wikipedia, the purpose of the Invisible Hand is to protect against protectionism? That tickled me a bit.]
And this takes us to softwood lumber. They've been ignoring the rulings literally, I think, forever. EVERYONE has told them to comply; even the UN. And still, they drag this on. It's hurting the Canadian lumber industry; something significant in a country full of woods. I don't even believe in capitalism to begin with, and this is bugging the hell out of even me.
So I think Paul Martin has every right in the world to threaten the US with some sort of reciprocation. What've we got that grabs them by the balls? Energy. So it's time we stopped being so nice and played hardball with the big boys. I was on this back in the day when Jack Layton was saying it. He's had the right idea all along, and bravo to Paul Martin for finally having some balls. (See, I'm not above giving props where it is due.)
But that, in turn takes us to the Panderer's Party. Oh, I mean C.R.A.P. Oh, sorry. The Conservatives and my most favourite target, Peter MacKay. C'mon. Only the Conservatives would tell us to continue to lay down and take it while the US fucks us. I know it's icky imagery, but please. We're supposed to protect this lie?! To continue to pretend that we're happy with the scrap that we're being given? To settle for having our sovereignty stomped on? I don't fucking think so. If we seriously want to pull ourselves from the teat of the Great Satan we need to stand up for ourselves for once. We need to stop trying to make everyone happy and look out for us. We're the definition of wishy-washy and it has. got. to. stop.
If we want to be taken seriously, we have to do something serious. And fuck the Conservatives. They say they want to protect Canadian interests, but what that means is, only if Canadian interests are in line with their master's, the US. They'd have us dance for the Americans when we should be kicking them in the shins.
I don't know, does this seem like common sense to anyone else? I know people can say that trade is a two-way street, and friends don't do this sort of thing ...but friends don't fuck each other out of money, either. Friends don't ban our beef and watch our industries flounder. Friends don't try to bully us for not backing wars we don't believe in. So I think we've moved beyond the point of friends and have to start looking at it as what we really are: neighbours who are becoming increasingly less alike. And I think we're at the point where we have to take a stand and say, we're not going to hold up this fascade anymore if you aren't going to act like a friend.
Because that's what true friends do. We know when to end it, if it's becoming unhealthy. We don't allow ourselves to continue to be bullied by a friend, who I'm sorry to say is looking more and more like a sociopath every day.
posted by Justine at 8:15 a.m.
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