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1036 comments
You know what? You are right about Atwood, much like Stanley Kubrick she is over rated. Margaret Lawrence was a much much better writer than Atwood.
I have always felt that the working poor need daycare. Let's get women off Mother's Allowance and out in the workforce but help them with daycare. Let us also give them free birth control, help them where they need it most. Stop screwing over men with child support and help working parents.
Well: Recycling is a waste of time and money.
As an enthusiastic recycler, I have to disagree with this. I feel much better when I carrie my own bag to the store, my reusable lunch box to work, and when I drop the recycling where it belongs. It's a lot what Canada has achieved worldwide, that is just my little contribution.
There is something I would add, the so called "Employment Services" are a nightmare. I was at couple of offices and no matter how polite they are, they make you feel just like a number in a computer. You are "the client", the reason for what they receive grant from the Government. I find this very odd, I would prefer half of those agencies disapear and the money be sent to support Second Career.
Thanks, Margaret! Wise, clever and amusing as your articles always are.
So...what you're saying is Canadians really just pretend to care about social programs, people, the environment, and freedom? lol...I took this article as a total joke intended to stir up some laughs.
Quoting: "The truth about recycling is that it’s a giant waste of dollars and doesn’t help the environment. " That's like saying the truth about reporters is that they are all bloody liars that just mix words to max out their paychecks. Sure, some are, but some are honest and just want to inform the public. Recycling is similar, recycling items, particularly things that revert to methane within a landfill, can reduce carbon emissions significantly. Things that can't be easily recycled in a traditional sense can be put through gasifiers to obtain energy and reduce emissions from COAL, which is much dirtier. Let's not jump to conclusions!
Wow. I agreed with just about everything she wrote.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, so I think you can definitely say those things - if you want to show the others what a moron you are.
On the one hand I have to agree that your list is definitely right on in the sense that these are likely sentences that will get you hated if you utter them in Canada. On the other hand I also have to agree that you will be hated for saying these things because they are wrong. "Recycling is a waste of time and money. ... But don’t tell your kids. They won’t believe you. They’ve been brainwashed."
Well thankfully one day these kids will be the ones who will lead this world and they will have been taught that tolerating that an island of plastic nearly the size of Texas state floating in the pacific ocean is not an acceptable world to live in. But there is no point in trying to discuss this with someone pretending otherwise, you can't teach an old litterer respect for its environment. "Only private enterprise can save public health care. ... The cost to the government would be exactly the same." it may be the same now but you have to be totally ignorant of the most basic principles of economy if you think that changing the rules would not send the price of health care even more through the roof than it currently is.
Being a surgeon or any form of physician is a highly specialised skill requiring years of education and having life and death implications. There is no way you can expect a private enterprise to make a profit while treating poor people. You want to know how much health care would cost if no longer public, then look into how much was charging Michael Jackson's physician, and we all know hoe this ended. The disparity between the rich and the poor is just too big to allow health care to be played by the rule of the marketplace. "A national daycare program won’t do a thing to help poor kids....Few poor parents use the system." Likely it is because less families fall below the poverty line since they live in a country that has a proper social net which includes among other things public health care, education and daycare programs.
"The United States is the greatest force for good the world has ever known." You go tell that to all the countries the USA have bombed since the last WW: China 1945-46; Korea 1950-53; China 1950-53; Guatemala 1954; Indonesia 1958; Cuba 1959-60; Guatemala 1960; Belgian Congo 1964; Guatemala 1964; Dominican Republic 1965-66; Peru 1965; Laos 1964-73; Vietnam 1961-73; Cambodia 1969-70; Guatemala 1967-69; Lebanon 1982-84; Grenada 1983-84; Libya 1986; El Salvador 1981-92; Nicaragua 1981-90; Libya 1986; Iran 1987-88; Libya 1989; Panama 1989-90; Iraq 1991-; Kuwait 1991; Somalia 1992-94; Croatia 1994 (of Serbs at Krajina); Bosnia 1995; Sudan 1998; Afghanistan 1998; Yugoslavia 1999; Afghanistan 2001-; Iraq 2003-; Libya 2011-. The difference between Germany and the USA in their "force for good" effort is that when Germany deploys it, it is called a world war whereas when the US do it it is called peace. If you want to call forcing democracy -or more appropriately capitalism- using bombs and guns a "force for good" well, it is your call. As per Margaret Atwood, David Suzuki and the Group of Seven, well, I am a Quebecer so they are as culturally foreign to me as JK Rowling, Gandhi or Picasso. But I do tend to like them.
"will crowd out more practical measures to cut smog and clean up our waste sites" Clean up our waste sites? You seem to think we should stop recycling, which would add millions of tonnes of garbage to our waste sites each year. What 'practical' measures are you referring to exactly? Throw EVERYthing in the garbage and pretend a problem doesn't exist? Reading Margaret Atwood would be less painful than reading this garbage.
Here is one more, legislated Canadian content has given us better music, television, and arts in general.
I am a 40+ year old Canadian and you can say any of these things they are all true. Oh and not only can you say these things you can shout "David Suzuki is bad for the environment." You will be applauded, as most agree that he is a nutjob. He drives around in a huge bus yet criticizes others for doing so...lol. Do a little research next time.
Oops actually everyone here recycles so I guess that one is for sure false.
Oops actually everyone here recycles so I guess that one is for sure false.
Still better than the 6 things you'll never hear in the US: 1.My house is worth more than I owe 2. I have a prosperous employment outlook 3. I have a zero credit card balance 4. I can afford college (college loan balances > total credit card balances) 5. I can go to the Dr. and not worry about having to file bankruptcy to pay the bill 6. If we had to pay back our total debt we'd be poorer than any third world country AND other things you WILL hear in the US: 1. Why don't ANYONE from any other country likes us? 2. Yalls gonna eat yur grits and then go pak the ca and have a cowffee?
Please. Mags. You are an American, born and raised in the Chicago area, of upper middle class parents. Privileged. Don't pretend to know us Canadians. You are NOT one of us. Don't make fun of us.
"I will be elaborating on these points over the months to come." Oh, please do. I wrote a 20 page research paper on garbage incineration, please explain to me why you think recycling is "a giant waste of dollars and doesn’t help the environment."
What is frustrating about this article, is some of the "comments" are untrue in their own right. Not being able "say them in Canada" has nothing to do with avoiding causing a ruckus, rather because they are inaccurate. The worst, I find, is "[a]fter all, America-bashing is part of our national identity." A country full of people who apologise at every turn does not accommodate the deep-rooted resentment implied here. Being proud of our Canadian-ness is not something that deserves mocking. If RD/Margaret Wente believe these to be true, than perhaps they should consider doing some genuine Canadian research first, and take a second crack at it.
This is an opinion piece and like any opinion piece open to interpretation. There are blanket statements such as the one regarding recycling with no fact to support the opinion. As with all Canadians this writer is entitled to their opinion just as I am entitled to think a lot of it is silly stupid drivel. This article is written in a way that the author can use the "proverbial" I told ya so when you don't agree with her opinion. Rarely do I agree with blanket statements written in a way that they represent all Canadians, they simply don't.
It's interesting that some of your points are the exact same comments made by Conservatives as part of their ideology, so I view this article as little more than propaganda used to proselytize. Your assertions remain unproven until supported by facts. David Suzuki has his facts, and I don't find him all gloom and doom at all. Recycling? The evidence is against you on that one too. The United States is the world's best source for good? That's taken straight out of the Reform / Conservative talking points.
Atwood wrote some good books when she was much younger. In recent years she is little more than a legend in her own mind and a mouthpiece for the socialist feminazi hoardes.
I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess that Maragret Wente votes conservative. I'm also going to bet she would vote for the Tea Party if she had the chance. Enjoy your flat earth while you can.
More of the usual White People's Problems and Trash Talk from everybody's favourite Torontocentric Yankee. Seems she has move upscale from her usual cell at Canada's National Newspaper.
I hope few people experience the true misfortune that is reading this article. My grandfather has more progressive opinions. Our children have been 'brainwashed' into wanting to ensure our planet doesn't become one giant garbage dump? Oh, those little creeps!!
One could note that something that Canadians who've suffered through her columns say loudly and often is that Margaret Wente is a smug, insufferable, upper-class, small-c-conservative cow who revels in her own profound ignorance. Given that virtually every second column Wente writes denies the existence of global warming and viciously attacks anyone who is trying to stop it, why should anyone take anything she writes at all seriously??
Not hard to figure out what political party paid for this.
Just because people will disagree with these issues doesn't mean that they are correct.
Margaret Atwood: I could say this name to 100 people and 3 might know who I'm talking about.. Recycling: Free (IN BC) and you are allowed to put more recyclables on the curb than garbage Health Care.. Private or Public or mixed.. I don't care if a rich person pays to get a scan before me, it'll shorten the wait lists in the public sector I'd think.. David Susuki... he's got a cause.. we all do.. personally I'd like the planet to be in decent order for my grandchildren, and the guy could have picked worse things to do with his life. I'd probably go crazy if nobody listened to the facts for 30 years as well.. Poor people most likely don't use national childcare because they are unemployed/on welfare.. meaning they have the time to watch their kids Who cares about the group of seven.. not me or anyone I know. OK..OK, sayin the US is the worlds greatest form of good isn't allowed.. haha.. but is it allowed anywhere besides the US? :p
Sorry folks but Margaret Wente is either having one over on you as a devilish contrarian or her head is lost somewhere where the sun don't shine. Although there's a sliver of truth in some of her haughty pronouncements, most of them are wildly off the mark and some would do harm if anyone in a position of influence acted on them. My favourite was the U.S. as the greatest force for good one. The U.S. is a complex country with a lot of great people and yes, the principles of democracy have been a positive influence in many places. But I and a lot of others could easily make mincemeat of that arrogant and ignorant view of America. In the real world, by far the most significant motivation has been control—moving wealth upward. And that hardly touches it. Margaret is welcome to continue playing the agent provocateur role but please don't grant her an undeserved reputation as a social commentator worth taking seriously.
The number 1 thing you cant say is "Merry Christmas" unfortunately
The digest is so right wing. Are you trying to be Fox north? Private health-care, the sacred cow of conservatism, works well only for the rich. And remember all those Canadian doctors were trained at public universities; so how does a private clinic solve anything except the doctor's yacht budget problem??
This article should be called "How to be negative on anything Canadian." You forgot to attack Mowat and Montgomery. You also were too cowardly to attack great beer and Don Cherry.
I agree with Russel Romick..Suzuki should be banished from Canada to Fukishima. He is a shill for al gore. And to Mara who is so proud of carrying her own bag to the store..did you ever stop to think how much pollution the chinese add to the world environment making those bags, and how much space they take up in a landfill when you throw them away when they start to fall apart?
Seriously Ms. Wente, are you sure you just didn't cut-n-paste this article's points from the Harper Government Playbook?
I cant believe how insulting this was to read.. Not only did i find it offensive and poorly pieced together, but found it even harder to stomach due to the fact that it's readersdigest.com that I'd found it on. You might be entitled to your opinion Margaret Wente, as we all are, but placing that ignorant opinion ((because in MY opinion, you're quite ignorant)) as a piece for RD is just awful. I expected more from this site, to be honest- I thought this was a joke when i read the first one. You should be ashamed of yourself and this article. If you are a fellow Canadian, then double shame on you for embarrassing us with this garbage.
Funny I found the link to this article on CNN. This article sounds like a right wing conservative American wrote this, perhaps why a US news channel linked it.? You bashed the environment and praised the US. You also backhanded the group of 7 among other things. Im surprised you didn't throw in something about how Godless Canada is. Your article was a cute way to trash Canada. Nice job.
I'm glad to live on top of America you ignorant Dolt.
Restores my faith that old fashioned Canadian common sense is not dead ... only on life support.
The title brings a reader in with thoughts of "this could be amusing" only to find misguided political and social bric-à-brac laid out whimsically. This embarassing "counterpoint" needs to be deleted.
Your list pretty well resumes my own personal view of how Americans perceive us as a nation.....I guess our oil, gas and water ressources outweighs all irritants that we have worked so much, as canadians, to share the wealth more equally amonst us..... God bless America
People being liberated because the USA which has spread its idea of economic freedom—and its purchasing power—around the world? May be true, but there are few more american-brewed ideas that are definitely more harmful to the world and its future! Check again!!
People being liberated because the USA which has spread its idea of economic freedom—and its purchasing power—around the world? May be true, but there are few more american-brewed ideas that are definitely more harmful to the world and its future! Check again!!
Those of us in Canada see Margaret Wente as part of the right wing march of militant parochialism and mostly disregard her ignorant rants.
This has to be the most poorly researched, poorly written waste of time I have ever been exposed to.
What audacity, unbelievable, how can you say such things? I too could not find what is exciting about our painters. In fact, everything you write, is truthful, how you say such truthful things. People cannot handle the truth. I am also deeply suspicious that water conservation and saving electricity will lead us into lesser water and electricity.
Mrs. Margaret Wente shows again how Reader's Digest is only another propaganda arm of the political right from the US (read GOP). Her "humor" is unable to hide the very known reactionary litany that is the political credo of the conservative (republican) party.
Well, she had me at Atwood and then lost me at the Group of Seven.
Thank you for exposing Reader's Digest as the Conservative propaganda machine that it is.
8th thing you should say to a Canadian, "Margaret Wente is a Canadian". Who let her in and how can we moved her out.
So i don't get this article, was this list made by a FOX News editor? crazy right wingers at reader digest as usual dont have any facts, the whole thing about canadian healthcare - america is private 3.8 beds per person and 3.9 beds per person in canada while spending less money. Canada is also a free country, you can go to any country to any hospital - we are free. Now if someone cant afford to go overseas for healthcare they would at least get care in canada, in the states they would just die.