[Leica] Cloud Cuckoo Land & Yankee Bashing

[kargue at sympatico.ca (Kevin Argue)]

Marc- I have read enough on the LUG about Americans that I am forced to
respond. I am a Canadian living 15 minutes from Niagara Falls and the US
border. That is the largest undefended border in the world between 2
countries whose free trade makes them the largest trading partners. Yes
America, Canada is your largest trading partner-- not Japan or China. But as
Canadians discover Americans know nothing about this side of the border. My
friends in Buffalo are prime examples. Worse when America makes trade deals
like NAFTA they turn on Canadians when we seem to have an advantage. Look at
softwood lumber. Look at how many Americans were outraged when the Blue Jays
were in the world series. Hillary Clinton blamed Canada for the great power
failure last summer. 911 terrorists were blamed on Canada even though they
entered the US legally and were trained in Florida.
You asked why the world hates America. Bin Laden, Saddam, Noreaga of Panama
and others were all supported by the US until America turned on them. Kerry
says in the debates about making some foreign policy on what the world
thinks, Bush says you make your own policy. Iraq- most of the world has
turned on you because of your decision to go to war and now you want them to
take over. That's why the world is unhappy with Bush.
As for your reference to World War 2, Canada was fighting along with Britain
long before you guys showed up. I didn't see the US airforce in the Battle
of Britain! More important, during the early years of WW2, German prisoners
were brought to Canada and in on famous escape the moment he crossed into
the US he was a free man!!! As for the end of the war how many nazis ended
up in the US? Have you heard of Werner von Braun?
It is the attitude of do as I say but don't do as I do that you live by.
This is what is turning the world against you.
One final note, my friend and former teacher teacher returned from 2 weeks
in Italy and talked about the graffiti every where they went-- f*** Bush!




Kevin Argue
Ontario near the US border

> From: Marc James Small <msmall@infionline.net>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:11:34 -0400
> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Cloud Cuckoo Land & Yankee Bashing
> 
> At 04:39 PM 10/15/04 +0100, Beddoe, Neil wrote:
>> Sorry Buzz, you are just plain wrong. I do live in a utopian cloud cuckoo
>> land.  Graham Battison has posted plenty of pictures of clouds to prove it
>> and I'm sure I've got a picture of a cuckoo around somewhere.
> 
> Actually, Buzz is dead on-target. Many Europeans, Australians, and
> Canadians regard the US as a suitable target for a cheap shot or three.
> Yes, our nations have different nterpretations of the role of government
> and of the role of individuals withhin society.
> 
> None of that matters, I guess, at this remove.  Still, if the British,
> Canadian, or Australian members of this List believe that the First or
> Second World Wars could have been won without the US contribution, you are
> quite possibly wrong.  (World War I without the US would have led o a
> stalemate in 1919, despite the huge improvements in the British Army which
> made it the finest in the world by the later part of 1918.  World War II
> without the US would have led to a Nazi Europe, a free UK, but a UK
> divested of Burma, Malaya, Saawak, and Bruei.)
> 
> We are proud of our contributions to your freedoms and occasionally ask
> that you acknowledge your respect for US lives lost in defense of the
> French and British Empires.  Several years back, a group of French
> hooligans defaced a US and UK cemetary in France.  The French government
> has yet to acknowledge the problem or to offer an apology, but they did
> repair the damage posthaste.  Sill, those in the US feel that the remains
> of our dead, who gave all they had to give in the liberation of France, are
> worth more than nazi crosses on their tombstones, and, yes, a French
> apology is certainly in order.
> 
> Me?  I am a rational anarchist and an isolationist.  I am sorry that the US
> ever got involved in the World Wars and its later conflicts.  But, then, I
> am also a retired military sort, so I feel a great regard for those who
> have died for this country.  They do not deserve mistreatment and dishonor.
> 
> Buzz is, again, quite right.  Positive contributions are always welcome, of
> course --  suggestions from non-USians are always of interest.  But
> dismissive attacks on US policy is neither helpful nor productive of sound
> relations between our respective natons.  The US saved European butts in
> the First World War and we did far more in the Second.   And then we spent
> the best years of our lives paying taxes to keep you Europans free of the
> Soviet menace.  And, in the end, it was our national deficit which paid for
> your being freed from that Soviet threat.   My grandson is due to be born
> in a month:  he will pay for your liberation into his dotage, while you
> guys walk free.
> 
> If I were a European, I would simply bow my head when an American passed
> by.  We gave our all for your liberties for 75 years and now all we get is,
> "yeah, but what have you done for us lately?"
> 
> Quit being greedy.  Be grateful and be understanding.  Hell, my Uncle Bill,
> a great person and a great influece on my life, suffered the indignity of
> having his ass shot up when he was at the third wave on D-Day.  He then
> spent six weeks on his stomach in England before rejoining his unit, which,
> by then, had become a Civil GREG unit, burying dead civilian Frenchman.  I
> never heard him say an unkind word about the French, even when de Gaulle
> insisted on gold payments from the US for its balance-of-payment debts.
> 
> Grow up, Europeans, and act mature.
> 
> Marc
> 
> msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
> 
> 
> 
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