To my American cousins (that is the title)

Actually I do have cousins Stateside, quite a lot of them, but these are not the people to whom I’m writing. I’m writing nation-to-nation, not person-to-person. I don’t represent all Canadians, but probably quite a few.

From day one we have lived under your heel, as has most of the world, Simon Bolivar called it the shadow of the eagle. But our heeling has been more gentle, because we English Canadians share so much with you. A similar colonization (we came from the losing side after 1776, but we don’t hold that against anyone). We treated our First Nations with the same brutality you did.

We are almost always on board with your world views, have been with you when things got tough in modern times: we were proud of getting a few diplomats out of Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis, and my brother took advantage of Greyhound’s ‘Thank you Canada’ reduced fare. We sat in horror of 9/11, and readily sent our best to Afghanistan (though we couldn’t buy into Iraq, sorry).

I could list many ways how it often feels the same country, with until recently, a very free-flowing border. But it’s more easily expressed by French Canadians, or by New Canadians and tourists, such as when they say they don’t see the difference between the two of us. They are essentially right. We are just softer, less individual, more community-oriented Americans.

So I ask you, when will this crap STOP?! You live in the best house in the global neighbourhood, have the best lawn furniture, drive the best car. Why are you have been having a biker party (as in Hell’s Angels) these past few years? Some say it preceded Trump, when news agencies were no longer legally obligated to try to tell the truth. We have always looked up to you, no matter what our political views. Not only has it been great to pop down to NYC for a weekend, many other people around the world see you as, yes, the city on the hill. Recently I saw a quiz game among English language learners (Bosnians and Poles). The verbal clue was: What is the most free country in the world? …You get my drift on what the right answer was.

So you have made it through another election, this one with violence. Not that it never happened before. Your Boomers in the 60’s tore things up a bit, and did sit-ins, so they could stop being sent to a wrong war. We marched with them. But the discussion is now unstable as you roll towards the second acquittal in a year. You have abandoned reason, are making a cold break for unreasoned power. You want to ‘democratically’ hold onto selfish paranoid privilege, which will lead to violence again. In Toronto, we once had a mayor who also rejected reason and ran the show on personality. He was there with Trump when Donald opened his hotel in our city. But when our mayor went over the edge (like Donald J. did in a much bigger way) we took away his keys to the city, and he became a figure head.

It’s not democracy when the majority, or an almost-majority, get their way by intransigence instead of thought. When the media is calling for fact-based decisions, you know there is something wrong in the democracy. Toronto newspapers were saying the same thing under our illustrious mayor (his name was Rob Ford, who did some crack with a few of his constituents).

So please, get rid of your biker culture that refuses to think rationally, it has made the world neighbourhood a bit more hellish. We just want to have a predictable (if not always just or safe) society to live in. You decide whether it relates to guns, or health care, or race. We will be waiting, and praying. But please start thinking once again.