The Collapse of America

 

Graffiti found on the site of the now demolished Motel Raphael,
12 September 2016.

1. Trump's betrayal

Donald Trump has betrayed Canada's long-term relationship with the United States, it was a relationship based on mutual respect and shared values, in doing this Trump has betrayed a close neighbour and friend. Trump has decided that Canada should be annexed by the United States and become their 51st State. He thinks this kind of statement, of annexing a neighbour, is normal, that it is nothing out of the ordinary. A country’s sovereignty is sacred and, yet, Trump wants to destroy our sovereignty, and he presents this as though it is for our own good, but he presumes too much. Trump thinks that he can take, steal, grab, make a deal for whatever he wants; he also wants to annex Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Gaza. On whose authority does he want to do this? "On the authority of the United States of America” Trump says, as though this means anything to Canadians, to Denmark or Greenland, to Panama, or to the people of Gaza. We have never seen anything like this, but it reminds us of Hitler's invasion and occupation of Poland, Hungary, France, The Netherlands, and other European countries in the late 1930s; it reminds us of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The statements by President Trump that Canada should be the United States' "51st State", that our prime minister should be addressed as "Governor Trudeau",  shows such contempt and disrespect for us that it threatens our present and future relationship with the United States of America; he has betrayed the higher ideals on which the United States was founded.

2. Trump’s lies                                                

Donald Trump’s lies, and he lies constantly, including that the United States subsidizes Canada and there would be no Canada without this subsidy; it's all lies, it's all a fabrication by someone who has no adherence to truth. Trump’s lies compound and make worse his aggression on Canada, it is exactly Hitler’s Big Lie; this is frightening because there is little defence against a liar who has political and military power. Trump’s ostensible reason for imposing tariffs against Canada are punishment for allowing fentanyl and illegal migrants to enter the United States from Canada; in fact, one pound of fentanyl entered the United States from Canada as opposed to 1,580 pounds of fentanyl from Mexico (www.USAfacts.org); less than one percent of illegal migrants to the United States came from Canada as compared to the number of illegal migrants from Mexico (National Post, 04 February 2025). Canadians have been nothing but positive, supportive, and  a true ally of the United States; we are their greatest trading partner, we are the best neighbour they could have and now Trump aims to destroy Canada and our relationship with the United States. This is the evil one might expect from an enemy, not an old and trusted friend. 

3.  Armed invasion of Canada

It is true that Canada has not spent as much as we should have on our military, but even if we had it would not have prevented the possibility of an American military invasion of Canada. This is all the doing of Donald Trump. If you ask ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, about the American’s invading Canada, as I have, you are met with disbelief. But allow me to entertain this possibility: I doubt such an invasion would take long, our citizens are not armed, our military has been weakened by underfunding, and resistance by average citizens (most of whom live within a two hour drive from the Canadian-American border) would be futile against the world's greatest military force. Montreal is about an hour’s drive from Plattsburgh, New York; Vancouver is near Bellingham, WA; Toronto can be reached from Buffalo; Windsor from Detroit. There is little we can do against such an enemy. My four-part discussion with ChatGPT on an American invasion of Canada will appear here beginning next week.

4. The collapse of America

We thought Donald Trump was a populist, we didn’t understand that he is in fact a fascist and that his election was part of a worldwide new fascist era. Our conflict with the United States is solely the result of Donald Trump’s narcissism and lies, it is not with the American people. Trump, a man who lies and has no respect for others, a narcissistic bully, is a symptom of America's moral collapse. Here is a long poem I wrote in 2020, "The Collapse of America". American society is heading for inevitable collapse, consider the following: America has become a society of division, violence, loss of spirituality, loss of humility, loss of modesty, extreme extroversion, loss of integrity, total emphasis on material things, violent entertainment, addiction, Woke culture; it is a country that has no moral compass, it is a country that is now a part of a New Fascist Era.

Visiting the Alexis Nihon Plaza on 27 March 2009

 

Phillip's Square across from The Bay, March 26, 2011

Just announced: The Hudson's Bay Company is going out of business, closing all but six stores.

The hidden trail on 22 March 2025

Canadian Cottage Garden, 15 March 2025

It's 10 C this morning, 15 March 2025; spring is here and winter has come to end. This was a winter we are happy to see the end of, very cold, a lot of snow, and hard on all of us. Right now the garden doesn’t look like much, it's still winter, it's still covered with snow, but soon it will be green and full of flowers, birds will be at the bird bath, life will return to life.     

   

Walking to Meadowbrook Golf Course, 14 March 2025

This was a week ago. Fresh spring air, +3C, and the imminent arrival of the first day of spring. Birds singing.

Snow on 20 March 2013

 

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
            We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
            We wear the mask!

Think like an Immigrant

 

Newly arrived immigrants at Pier 21, Halifax, Canada, mid-1950s

                                        

             

The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialisation. If a nation’s spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand.

                     --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There is something unsettling about seeing the happy, laughing, vacuous faces of the wealthy and their happy, vacuous children; privilege doesn't evoke empathy. For some, the parents or grandparents of the wealthy were born here, for others their parents or grandparents were immigrants to Canada. In either case, people had to work for what they had, they put in long hours of  work to make money and to build a legacy for their children, to make a good life for their families, they didn't want their children and grandchildren to go without as they had. And they succeeded; see the expensive cars in the driveway, the big houses, the mansions, the fine clothes, the Patek Philippe watches, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, and other brands indicating status. It's from rags and being poor to riches and wealth and back to rags and poverty in three or four generations. Material stuff doesn't last forever, eventually it ends up in the landfill, the dumpster, or dust.

So now I suggest that we think like immigrants. These are people who arrived here with nothing but a suitcase and five dollars; they were willing to live in small apartments, several generations living together and being frugal, working several jobs. I am not suggesting that we all live exactly this way but at least we could reduce our level of acquiring stuff we don't need, stuff that we just want, we could be frugal and careful with money. We could remember what it was like in the past. We could prepare for the hard times ahead of us.

It is with this in mind that I wrote a memoir of my grandmother, Edith Morrissey; it is a memoir of her Girouard Avenue flat. I wanted to remember her--she whom we all loved--and so I wrote Remembering Girouard Avenue. My grandmother had little money but she lived in a large flat and family members who needed a home were welcome to live there, her door was open; she always had family members living with her: her Aunt Lib, her father, one of her sisters, and then, later, another sister lived with her and also her daughter, my Auntie Mabel, who never left home; and in the early 1950s my parents, my brother and I, lived with my grandmother for several years. The irony of this is that when my grandmother's husband died in 1932 my father told her to move to a smaller place, that family would want to live with her, he knew her generosity and what do you know, almost twenty years later, we were also living with her.

In the past few people were homeless, now there are homeless people everywhere. Now homelessness is a possibility for all of us; indeed, many Canadians are one pay cheque from being homeless, one rent increase from being homeless, one visit to a food bank from being hungry and eventually homeless. Homeless people live on the street, in a tent, in a bus shelter, they have no home to return to, they have no home to return to, no bedroom with a comforter on the bed, a night table and a book to read, food to eat, the heat turned up in our cold northern climate. There were always a few homeless people, they were usually older men who were often alcoholics; and they were taken care of by mission halls or the Salvation Army that fed them and put them up for the night or as long as they needed; it was not an easy life but it was not as widespread as it is now. Now, the homeless are everywhere and they include young people. What family did in the past is being replaced by government services, and while there are well-meaning people in government we can't rely on government to provide for everything people need. 

I remember two elderly women in Vancouver, they lived a few blocks from where the billionaires now live in West Point Grey in their $45M homes, 15K square feet for two people, indoor swimming pools and a helicopter pad on the roof, a view of the water, and these two old women had a large house but it was getting old and looked a bit run down. It would eventually be sold for the land it sat on, that's how it works when a city lot costs $5M and higher, you don't live in the old house on the lot, you tear it down and build something new. These two old women drove identical cars parked in their driveway, cars maybe forty years old. Here's the point: prepare for an uncertain future, be anonymous, don't draw attention to yourself, don't forget where you come from. Think like an immigrant.