It is a great relief to know that Canadians are standing up on our behalf. Thank you.
I grew up near the border, and still live close to it, so most of my life, I've not really "seen" the border. We were like sister nations, with different temperaments and personalities, but still family, though like most families, both nations had issues…
It is a great relief to know that Canadians are standing up on our behalf. Thank you.
I grew up near the border, and still live close to it, so most of my life, I've not really "seen" the border. We were like sister nations, with different temperaments and personalities, but still family, though like most families, both nations had issues that needed tending. I had friends in Canada and frequently crossed the border (inevitable anyway, since I lived part of that time on an island whose ferry served both nations).
Then the Department of Homeland Security was created under George W, consolidating a lot of agencies with dissimilar duties and responsibilities into a single department for administration, thus weakening transparency about what agency did what as well as oversight. The border became an ugly place of confrontation, and we on the US side discovered that Border Patrol (and other agencies) had jurisdiction over our border states. I hate the term "border security": too much like the rationale used by both Japan and Germany to invade their neighbors during WW2, and with Trump
I now feel like I live in occupied territory. Soon as I cross the border into Canada, I'm back in a free country. It's like whiplash. And the potential consequences of what Trump et al is gut-wrenching for both nations. Of the two, I think Canada will come out the best if we fail to control what our government does. Canada at least has friends. We are driving ours away.
But the resistance is coming together rapidly, taking many forms. By working together and not obeying in advance, we hope we can hold the line at merely irrational until we can use upcoming local and state elections to move the dynamic closer to where we need it when we go into the 2028 election.
Of course, at the rate things are going, Trump Inc, might just implode itself. Still messy, but easier to clean up.
Either way, we who are resisting need the support and recognition of our allies in democracy beyond our borders, to keep alive the awareness of what is happening here, and shining a light on it so that we can come out of this with the ability to once again play a role as a living democracy in action.
It is a great relief to know that Canadians are standing up on our behalf. Thank you.
I grew up near the border, and still live close to it, so most of my life, I've not really "seen" the border. We were like sister nations, with different temperaments and personalities, but still family, though like most families, both nations had issues that needed tending. I had friends in Canada and frequently crossed the border (inevitable anyway, since I lived part of that time on an island whose ferry served both nations).
Then the Department of Homeland Security was created under George W, consolidating a lot of agencies with dissimilar duties and responsibilities into a single department for administration, thus weakening transparency about what agency did what as well as oversight. The border became an ugly place of confrontation, and we on the US side discovered that Border Patrol (and other agencies) had jurisdiction over our border states. I hate the term "border security": too much like the rationale used by both Japan and Germany to invade their neighbors during WW2, and with Trump
I now feel like I live in occupied territory. Soon as I cross the border into Canada, I'm back in a free country. It's like whiplash. And the potential consequences of what Trump et al is gut-wrenching for both nations. Of the two, I think Canada will come out the best if we fail to control what our government does. Canada at least has friends. We are driving ours away.
But the resistance is coming together rapidly, taking many forms. By working together and not obeying in advance, we hope we can hold the line at merely irrational until we can use upcoming local and state elections to move the dynamic closer to where we need it when we go into the 2028 election.
Of course, at the rate things are going, Trump Inc, might just implode itself. Still messy, but easier to clean up.
Either way, we who are resisting need the support and recognition of our allies in democracy beyond our borders, to keep alive the awareness of what is happening here, and shining a light on it so that we can come out of this with the ability to once again play a role as a living democracy in action.