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My Canadian quest for the American Dream

January 30, 2009 on 9:07 pm | In Social & Political Issues | 1 Comment

Like most immigrants, I came to Canada in search of the American Dream. The fact that I came from America to find it is purely incidental, because the America that I left had long been tossing in its troubled sleep.

Richard Nixon was trying his best to override the nation’s admirable principles and was simultaneously turning the dollar into a mere scrap of paper with no backing, controlled by some bankers instead of the U.S. Treasury.

His vice president, Baltimore mobster Spiro Agnew, was busily lining his pockets from influence sales, as was his wont.

They were amateurs compared to the recent Bush-Cheney characters, who perfected the now-fashionable Republican/Tory governing style of lying, cheating, scheming and thieving until they are driven from office by a swelling blister of victims.

Before Nixon, we had one of history’s most overrated nominal Democrats in the skirt-chasing persona of John Kennedy. He pulled frat-boy pranks like abandoning Cuban recruits to their deaths or capture in the midst of his plotted Bay of Pigs Invasion, appointed his kid brother Bobby who had no legal experience as Attorney General and started the Viet Nam War, which was eventually lost.

Fortunately for his legacy, he was assassinated and thus elevated to near sainthood by a stunned and grieving nation. His phatic inauguration speech line was widely quoted: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

As if people would eagerly do anything for a country that does nothing for them. Countries exist—in the American Dream—to do good for their citizens; then there is incentive for patriotism.

The Nixon regime was engaging in a war against the press (Agnew famously called us “nattering nabobs of negativism”) and the president was growing ever more threatening toward journalists.

So I sought the lofty American Dream in Canada. It’s based on the lately ignored U.S. Constitution which, when it’s adhered to, guarantees the right to life, liberty and “the pursuit of happiness.”

That’s a very broad brush. Canada doesn’t guarantee that in those words, but in spirit we do. And when the U.S. was weighted down by the totalitarian Bush regime, we retained our same spirit.

Using the 2001 attack against the World Trade Center as an excuse, the U.S. government violated its Constitution and abandoned its high ideals in what it falsely claimed were necessary atrocities to keep America safe. It created a police state.

It went to war in Iraq to satisfy the oil industry’s lust for illicit profits. It allowed itself to be ruled by monstrous corporations. When Bill Clinton deregulated the financial “industry,” the corporations set about lining their pockets and demolishing the U.S. economy with scams and toxic “assets.”

Flawed as he was, Jean Chrétien kept us out of the Iraq mess. And Paul Martin to his credit, refused to let the nation’s banks merge.

There’s absolutely no benefit to Canadians to have some colossal bank with a Canadian head office operating in foreign lands. National pride? Baloney. How about cutting the usurious rate on credit cards instead?

As for free trade, it’s a heartless swindle that serves the monster corporations with cheap labour. We lose jobs so foreigners can take them and CEOs can land multimillion-dollar bonuses. It’s no good for Canadians, only for the huge corporations. Sadly, they buy off many U.S. Democrats and Canadian Liberals as well their usual cabal of lackeys and lobbyists. So we lose our industries and livelihoods to “diversity.”

The American Dream, as most of us understand it, is a land where fair laws and fair play reign for all. Where you can become a billionaire, if you’re energetic, smart and provide true value.

Yet where billionaires can’t deprive others of equal opportunities through monopoly control or other unfair tactics.

We’re far from realizing the American Dream in Canada.

But for a long time we’ve been closer than America has been. Perhaps the Americans, with their new president and fewer NeoCons in Congress, will be able to renew that bright promise.

Perhaps, for a change, the Americans will light the way for us.

Frank Touby