Posted on 11/30/2002 10:28:02 AM PST by quidnunc
This being the heaviest shopping day of the year, I'm sure many of you today will be donning your Gap scarves and your MP3 player full of bootlegged seasonal songs and heading out into the beckoning world of holiday commerce.
And straight into an ethical minefield.
Face it, these are dark, dangerous and complex times, full of shifting allegiances, shadowy geopolitical landscapes and foreboding ramifications wafting up from almost everything we do, say and buy. Unless you're reading the New York Times cover to cover each day or mainlining CNN, you really have no idea if cousin Lucy, upon opening that "perfect sweater" you bought her, won't coolly inform you (and, of course, your entire household) that the garment was manufactured by a company that gleefully slaughters several species of endangered platypus each year. And this being the holiday season, reacting to this situation with a snappy comeback like "Stuff it, you ungrateful snob" is not entirely appropriate.
'Tis a far better alternative to avoid such situations altogether, and I'd like to lend a hand. And while I can't offer much help in assessing the political- and environmental-correctness of agricultural products or textiles (I don't know what a "textile" is and hope to never learn), I can point out some potential un-PC purchases in the world of entertainment. In short, you're better off not to buy:
"Travelogue" (album) by Joni Mitchell; "In Search of America" (book) by Peter Jennings; anything by Neil Young; anything by Celine Dion — I have nothing personal against at least a couple of these artists, but the fact is, they are of Canadian descent and, tough as it sounds, this is no time for any U.S. citizen to be supporting anyone even remotely connected to those sniveling back-stabbers who share our northern border.
This might strike you as an odd stance unless you are familiar with the case of Francoise Ducros, an aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who this week had the audacity to call our President Bush "a moron." Say what you like about Bush's policies or the fact that his speeches tend to be the grammatical equivalent of a rugby scrum, he's our president, and nearly 48 percent of us voted for him. Ducros has been shown the door for her remark, but it's too little, too late. I say, Oh Canada, you're on your own this holiday season. Heh, heh, heh.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...
I guess that means I'll have to cease and desist looking at Pamela Andereson, then. Rats!
I won't be able to watch Jeopardy, because Alex Trabeck is Canadian too, and Jag, one of my favorites, is going to be verboten, because David James Elliot is also Canadian.
Sheesh! I feel utterly unpatriotic.
As a practical matter it is virtually impossible to avoid all Canadian-made products because, just like Chinese-made stuff, they are so pervasive.
What this article does help illustrate though is that the anti-American blatherings of the Canadian pols and intelligentsia do not occur in a vacuum.
We are well aware of them and are beginning to lose patience.
I think I'm as patriotic as most folks but I also think it's occassionally helpful to relfect on how lucky we are to have the neighbors we have.
My 2 cents worth (.013 cents, Canadian)
Canadians have been aware of anti-Canadian ranting from the US for decades now. Perhaps that's why they only buy 25% of American exports rather than 35% or more.
BTW, since the rant you posted comes from the Bay Area, I'm hoping that Californians do the patriotic thing and boycott Canadian electricity. Now that would really hurt the Canucks. You can still be patriotic in candlelight, can't you?
"They"? You mean You don't you?
You are a can'tadian.
Yeah, the unintended consequence is ineffective pettiness. That ought to learn them something.
A mean-spirited person might retort that "ineffective pettiness" personifies Canada — especially vis a vis America.
However I am not mean-spirited and so I won't say it — particularly since I'm of two minds about the question.
For what I remember of you..... that ought to be good. :-}
Don't have to, never voted for the bas..... ever.
Don't forget Japan, since Mikako Tanaka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, once called Bush a total azzhole in August 2001. The words of a foreign minister certainly carries more weight than a communications aide.
Instead you'll spend a portion of each day of your vapid life posting anti-Canadian rants and negative articles about Canada on several discussion boards. If that doesn't define the term mean-spirited, then perhaps it does the word obssessive.
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