From an American-
I’m sure by now you all have seen our government’s ‘official response’ to your wildfires. I saw that, and as an American I am beyond appalled. Please know that the public statements made by our government do not reflect the thoughts and beliefs of the majority of the American people.
When the US had wildfires, Canada sent us significant support including numerous firefighting aircraft, air crews, and support equipment. This was not a small token contribution, it made a real difference. It saved lives and property and forest. That is how neighbors and friends are supposed to help each other out, and we appreciated the hell out of it. It is not forgotten.
To hear that our ‘official response’ to your wildfires is to threaten… I have no words to describe the feeling. I am proud to be American, I love my country, but today I am ashamed. That these things are being said as representative of me and my countrymen… it is beyond shameful. We are supposed to be better than this. Better allies, better neighbors, better humans. I am ashamed and angry that my government is representing me and my fellow Americans in this manner.
I can only say that the majority of Americans do not feel this way. Forget the propaganda you see on the news (and it is mostly propaganda). The people of this country love our northern friends, we feel for you. We don’t want to annex Canada or punish you for a natural disaster or any of this crap. We want you all to be safe. We want to help.
THAT is who we are, even if we suck at electing politicians that represent that belief.
Stay safe. Be well. We love you.
Je passe ce texte par Google Traduction car mon français est médiocre…
De la part d’un Américain…
Je suis certain que vous avez tous vu, à présent, la « réponse officielle » de notre gouvernement face à vos incendies de forêt. En tant qu’Américain, j’en suis profondément indigné. Sachez que les déclarations publiques de notre gouvernement ne reflètent ni les pensées ni les convictions de la majorité du peuple américain.
Lorsque les États-Unis ont été touchés par des incendies, le Canada nous a apporté un soutien considérable, notamment en envoyant de nombreux avions de lutte contre les incendies, des équipages aériens et du matériel de soutien. Il ne s’agissait pas d’un simple geste symbolique ; cette aide a fait une réelle différence. Elle a permis de sauver des vies, des biens et des forêts. C’est ainsi que les voisins et les amis sont censés s’entraider, et nous avons énormément apprécié ce geste. Nous ne l’avons pas oublié.
Apprendre que la « réponse officielle » de notre pays face à vos incendies consiste à proférer des menaces… les mots me manquent pour décrire ce que je ressens. Je suis fier d’être Américain et j’aime mon pays, mais aujourd’hui, j’ai honte. Que de tels propos soient tenus en mon nom et en celui de mes compatriotes… c’est tout simplement honteux. Nous sommes censés valoir mieux que cela. Être de meilleurs alliés, de meilleurs voisins, de meilleurs êtres humains. J’éprouve de la honte et de la colère de voir mon gouvernement nous représenter, mes compatriotes et moi, de cette manière.
Je tiens à dire que la majorité des Américains ne partagent pas ce point de vue. Oubliez la propagande que vous voyez aux informations (car il s’agit bien, pour l’essentiel, de propagande). La population de ce pays aime ses amis du Nord ; nous sommes de tout cœur avec vous. Nous ne voulons ni annexer le Canada, ni vous punir pour une catastrophe naturelle, ni rien de tout ce non-sens. Nous voulons que vous soyez en sécurité. Nous voulons vous aider.
C’est cela, notre véritable nature, même si nous sommes incapables d’élire des responsables politiques qui incarnent ces valeurs.
Prenez soin de vous. Portez-vous bien. Nous vous aimons.
Not just one American sees this. There’s many of us. I fear not a majority in that regard, but many.
Unfortunately I’m pretty sure we can’t. That’s not to say we won’t try- we will. But what happens next will largely be due to luck.
Our education system is shit. We are doing a shit job teaching kids critical thinking and analytics skills. We are doing a fucking fantastic job teaching kids that learning and research are boring and tedious activities that should be avoided when possible. Then we bathe them in a diet of short-form videos (which we’ve exported- sorry :( ) and throw them in a world where it takes two incomes just to keep the lights on. And then we expect them to take time and effort to use critical thinking in elections.
Then we act surprised when this doesn’t result in the best leaders.
Fact is for almost all elections now, the majority of people rely entirely on information ‘pushed’ to them- candidate ads, TV news, etc. Either that or they blindly support one party or another and vote for everyone that party puts forward without consideration for the individual candidate.
The result is a system heavily biased against honest candidates, at least for the Presidency.
Because you start out with the primary elections in your party, which most voters don’t participate in. That means to win the primary you have to win over the people who do vote in primaries, which are mostly wingnuts and old people. Then you have to make a mad dash for the center in order to win the general election.
Every now and then a decent human being makes it through and gets elected. But luck plays a big factor in that.
And while the immediate task might be pushing MAGA out to the fringe, really taking back the country and getting good leaders is much, much, much harder.
Yep, well said.
I remember the… genuine glee amongst those I was with, back in college, when Obama won.
People really thought he was gonna fix everything. I was skeptical.
I was saying we needed ranked choice voting, some kind of massive overhaul to the entire Federal election system. People acted like I was speaking an alien language.
… so anyway Obama did some good, fair bit of bad, not enough to actually change the course… squandered the only possible moment where Citizens United could have been countermanded by a law he could have demanded the Dem trifecta push.
Now I contrast that moment, with the hellscape we are in, and causing globally, now.
Most of those people in that room? Went on to work for big tech firms, and more recently, get laid off.
As a people, us Americans got high on our own supply, and now things are so bad that if back then, in that room, I told them what is now happening, would happen?
They’d have not only shunned me but also actively spread rumors to ruin my reputation.
… yeah, I… I like some Americans, but generally speaking? I’m with David Bowie, I’m Afraid of Americans.
Remember that it takes many times more effort,time and money to build or fix something than it does to break things.
What Trump broke in his first term would have taken multiple terms for following administration’s to fix, assuming thwy put in constant effort.
And what he is breaking now will take even longer to fix.
Simply voting in non-republicans the next time is only the first baby step.
That’s been a [problem with Americans]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism) generations.
I wholly agree.
What I am trying to describe is… that room thought it was done, with Obama getting elected.
They tought that was ‘the end of history’.
I was trying to tell them what you are saying… no, this never ends, you are never safe to rest on your laurels after declaring ideological victory.
… but they did. They ‘won’, that was that, onto the rest of life, making big bucks in an ethical capitalist megacorp… thats what they thought, thats what they did.
Arrogance. Entitlement. Declaring victory far too early, ironically, just like Bush who they all hated.
Those kinds of people… they are our current ‘illiberal liberals’, if that makes sense. They’re actually just class elitists, interested in the appearance of moral superiority, but not the substance of it.
…only now dawns on me that I was different from them: significantly poorer upbringing, but I got excellent grades in spite of it.
… didnt matter in the end though, i ended up poor anyway, because people like them get ‘the ick’ from people like me, calling them on their bullshit, highlighting their privelege in undeniable detail.
A society of entitled narcissists… oh god we are doomed lol.