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October 14, 2003 By Uncategorized

Lynn Sislo is a blogger I have a lot in common with, despite the fact that at some moments we might seem to have a lot to disagree about. She is passionate about her politics, a music lover, interested in engaging the world and she is generous enough to first of all keep a blog, and secondly respond to email. I like to call her out when she posts something that seems “reactionary” or reductionist, and she like to let me have it right back. I am probably the exact opposite politically of her (i.e. soft left to her soft right) but that hasn’t stopped me from reading her blog regularly and learning from it.

Recently, in a discussion on weapons of mass destruction, I pleaded my case that the US was taking the world’s support for granted. I talked about how the US asked for (and received) our support, troops and commitments for the “war on terror” but then slapped massive (questionably illegal) duties on our softwood lumber exports just before the Iraq invasion began. Our country chose not to participate in that military exercise, and many Americans openly wondered why we would abandon a neighbour in a time of need. Truth be told, many of us here wondered the same thing about them, but softwood lumber just doesn’t hit the radar when there’s a war on. To the devastated communities in coastal British Columbia though, it seemed a strange reward for helping out in Afghanistan.

Lynn has quoted me in a post today on this adding:

Anyway, the point of all this is that the U.S. should really treat our friends much better and of all nations we should be especially concerned about maintaining good relations with Canada. Canada is like a shy, quiet sister, always ignored and taken for granted. It is difficult to even think of Canada as a separate country. It ranks slightly higher than North Dakota in our thoughts. It’s there but it doesn’t give us much trouble so it never occurs to most of us that we should give it any thought. We ordinary Americans should be as concerned about politics in Canada as we are about politics in California, even if they’re usually not quite as entertaining.

That’s nice to see.

My friend Michael Herman (definitely an American!) has described conflict as “passion that hasn’t yet grown to encompass the whole.” North Americans are pretty passionate about the countries they have scraped out on this continent. But it’s a big place and sometimes that passion doesn’t get big enough and “anti-Americanism” breaks out or some haywire fundamentalist American preacher calls us “Soviet Canuckistan.” Then we lose our heads and things get ugly. But when we can extend our passion to encompass the whole, wonderful things happen, as I have found working and learning with the many Americans I am privileged to call friends and colleagues. We cannot on the one hand say “I like you as a person” and then say “your country sucks.” We can learn from the constructive and peaceful dialogues between us and imagine extending that to our common future. We don’t expect Americans to worry too much about our politics, nor do we expect the American government to be everything to everyone. But a little courtesy and consistency goes a long way, in personal relationships as well as in the highest diplomatic realms. That’s the kind of thing I learn from reading and engaging with Lynn.