Friday, December 31, 2010

The Resplendent Canadians

Look at these people.  I love them.  I'm one of them.  We all are.  We are the resplendent Canadians.  
Resplendent Canadians
 I sometimes wonder if newspaper editors request copy that is inherently offensive.  A congratulatory piece about Canada would get a general yawn from even the most patriotic Canadians.  Kevin Libin's self-loathing year end  feature in The National Post had the opposite effect.  The article was designed to raise my ire and the formula worked perfectly.

The photo above was taken during the historic Gold Medal Hockey Game between the United States and Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  Which red blooded wild eyed Canadian wasn't hooting and cheering the moment this picture was taken?  The title of Libin's article, the de facto caption for picture was "The Ugly Canadian."

Hey!  That's me right there.  Well not me exactly but someone exactly like me.  A Canadian.  A proud Canadian.  Boy.  It takes a real weenie to pout about so many happy enthusiastic citizens.

Libin actually suggests at one point that instead of enjoying pride and patriotism we should try "abolishing war or eliminating world hunger," as if those things were mutually exclusive.  So lets do that.  I hearby abolish war forever so long as nobody starts a war.  Done.  World hunger?  That one is tougher.  Every Miss Universe has tried and failed to crack that one.  I'm sure if we just stopped cheering at curling events the solution would present itself.  Call it the Libin Anti-Hunger Doctrine.


Listen to this:

The Economist observed a “jingoistic mood” in Vancouver. A Dallas columnist notoriously compared the display of Canadian “chauvinism” to that of the Nazis in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He raised some valid points—that Canada, at times, forgot to act graciously to the world’s Olympians; that organizers dwelled too much on local winners and not enough on the memory of a killed Georgian luger—but being a sports columnist, not an academic specializing in group dynamics, he was forced to apologize after Canadians erupted in outrage. “[It] doesn’t excuse me from making what may have been seen as an insensitive comparison,” Gil LeBreton wrote. But in all the previous 14 Olympics he’d attended “never were the cheers for the visiting countries’ athletes drowned out so ferociously.”
The cockiness of Sport Canada’s “Own the Podium” program left the world cold—especially after it was fingered as possibly one reason the luge track had been made deadly fast, and so unavailable to non-Canadian athletes for practice—wondering how we had become so cutthroat. The U.K. press lashed out at our “lust for glory” and the “perversion of the Olympic movement for national gain,” ours had become a “culture of worthless aggrandizement and pride.” The Olympic hosts had “mislaid their manners.” Canadians had grown so obnoxious, British skeleton champion Amy Williams recalled: “other nations began looking at it as the Rest of the World versus Canada. You wanted your own country to win, but beyond that you didn’t care who it was as long as it wasn’t Canada.”
Call it sour grapes, except Canadians saw it, too. How could they miss it in those extravagant ceremonies so dripping with pro-Canadian propaganda? This “hayseed, own-the-podium nationalism … was excruciatingly embarrassing,” wrote one Hamilton columnist. “When my beloved Canada resorts to cheap patriotism, when Canadians lay phoney claim to being the best country in the world, I feel a little ashamed,” added another, from Guelph.
Wow eh?  Take a wild guess who the unnamed Hamilton columnist probably votes for?  Imagine for a second what their politics is like?  Our Prime Minister gave us all explicit permission to sing and wave our flags and cheer for our athletes.  Thats what its really about isn't it.  What sort of person refers to true patriot love as "cheap patriotism?"

That my friends is your typical self hating liberal. That individual is ashamed we aren't ashamed at our shameful lack of shame.   

-And what is this about a "phoney claim to being the best country in the world."  Excuse me but most of us like it here a whole lot.  Every time I go abroad I'm relieved to be back home when its over.  I love visiting other countries and I love returning.  I know Canada is the best country on earth precisely because I've seen a lot of it.  Do we really care if someone who doesn't like Canada is embarrassed by the rest of us?  Even if this person happens to like Canada it would only be because they think it sucks enough for them to feel suitably low. 

No Thanks.  These people have nothing to teach us.  There is no nobility in self righteous misery.  Humility is not self loathing.  Canadians are the hobbits of the world.  We like to have fun whatever it says on the scoreboard.  If the score is favorable then so much the better.  The competition is no more entitled to success than we are.  Why not set out to win and forget the pouters and doubters. 


We are winning too.  That is the best part.  Shall I list the real successes and advantages there are to being Canadian?  Thats more like gloating.  I'll leave it to you.  Just look at the picture above and you'll see what we've got is love and we are willing to share.

2010 was a historic year for Canada and more than that.  2010 was a fantastic opening to our greatest decade yet.  It is a decade that will see Canada resplendent in the eyes of her proud citizens.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Tomorrow When The War Began

This film was surprisingly good.  Tomorrow When The War Began is the modern equivalent of Red Dawn set in Australia. 

The invasion is so complete that one must assume there is a larger war happening elsewhere in the world.  If NATO was busy, distant Australia would have to wait some time for liberation.  They might even see years of brutal occupation.

My Girlfriend pointed out to me as we watched that an invading army is about 1000 times worse than a zombie apocalypse.   Zombies don't fly jets and intern your family.  Armies are for real and some of them don't give a damn about the Geneva Convention.  There are still people out there that don't think we need a military at all.  They think history is over and bad things don't happen to good countries and their people.  They don't understand that its a standing military that allows us to grow so spoiled and stupid that we can conceive of disbanding them.  Tomorrow When The War Began is a good reminder of how bad things could be.

Don't get me wrong.  This isn't the best movie ever made.  The last Aussie film I saw was about a tranny road trip so the bar was set pretty low.  I saw Tomorrow When The War Began a few days ago now and it has been sticking in my mind ever since.  I think it has made its point very well and I'd love to see a Canadian version.  A remake of Red Dawn is also in the works.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas All!

Its been a busy one for me but I can't let the happiest day of the year go by without special mention.

Here's my heartfelt wish that you have special and Merry Christmas with your family. 


Alex

Friday, December 3, 2010

Right Back At Ya Greenpeace.

You've probably heard about the Greenpeace contest to spoof the CAPP adds.  Here is my submission. 
Unfortunatly Facebook doesn't allow a 'dislike' option so I'll submit it here.  It wouldn't last long there anyway.  Dissenting voices are not Greenpeaces forte. 

Here is some of what you would find if you went to their pathetic FB group.  These are my favorites anyway. 


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

CBC gets caught in the Wikileaks crossfire

While successfully embarrassing the US Government Wikileaks has caused some embarrassment to the CBC as well.  John Ivison of the National Post revealed today that the US Embassy in Ottawa believes the CBC to be biased.  Leaked memo's to The White House describe the CBC programming  as “insidious negative popular stereotyping.”

Gee you don't say?  I thought an independent state broadcaster could do no wrong.

The US Embassy quotes go on like an early Christmas present saying that the CBC has “long gone to great pains to highlight the distinction between Americans and Canadians in its programming, generally at our (American) expense.”

To fight the CBC anti-American propaganda the US Embassy recommends that “We need to do everything we can to make it more difficult for Canadians to fall into the trap of seeing all U.S. policies as the result of nefarious faceless U.S. bureaucrats anxious to squeeze their northern neighbour.”

Its good to know that our annual billion dollar bailout for the CBC is put into setting traps for Canadians and pitting us against our closest ally.  How strange to find find that while the White House is publicly at odds with FOX News, its Embassy here in Canada secretly feels the same way about the CBC.

Nothing in the Wikileaks data is new or shattering.  What is new is the independent confirmation of CBC bias by American officials in the action of their office.   They weren't blogging for fun like I am now.  They were doing their job.  They were providing their best information so that Washington could make the best decisions regarding Canada.

Let us finally say once and for all that the CBC has a biased agenda that doesn't necessarily coincide with the best interests of Canada.  They do not deserve special media status, nor do they deserve federal funding or must carry licenses.  Many voices have called on the CBC to change it ways and they have been met with a renewed pursuit of the progressive agenda.

The CBC is unable and unwilling to even acknowledge its bias.  The liberal progressive culture of mass opinion control is so deep and so thick that it should be sold off.  Nothing is more important to them than their narrative.  Facts and opinion are only broadcast when they can be suitably spun to their rhetorical advantage.  They are trying to teach us lessons with programming that are neither true nor helpful to the taxpayer. 

Hopefully, SUNTV can break the monopoly of the left wing media establishment to such an extent that the daily farcical narrative belching from that tax pig the CBC will be widely recognized for what it is: Social Engineering Propaganda.  -Otherwise known as lies and spin.