I teach film at a university. I used to teach at film boot camp. One has pretty good gear. One has scratch-together DIY gear through and through. Guess which one produces better films?
It isn't about production values or being able to pull off some nice special effects. Those are all icing: the cake is baked by a good story, and good process. University or expensive film schools just seem to lack that heart, and the process is usually borked.
The problem, to me, is pedagogy. The indie spirit is collaborative, vision-driven, passionate, and do-it-yourself. Constraints become creative possibilities. At a well-endowed school, the tech is alluring, taking energy away from the fundamentals of telling a good story and getting a good camera angle. Usually, the schedule is dissipating, so that from one week to the next, there are huge gaps in production, which mean gaps in memory and experience, and gaps in the energy. Life there is full of distractions and other claims on your attention.
The reason film 'boot camp' (and I mean camp, away from the bright lights) is so effective is the continuity of purpose, the ability to truly focus on your work and peers. The pedagogy is what film students need most. The ability to use the latest and greatest is always going to be a race up a sand dune anyway.
"why the hell would you be affriad of being sued if two seperate rullings have indicated its perfectly legal because of the coppyright levy?" [sic]
Believe it or not, most Canadians are so heavily propagandized by watching Hollywood TV and consuming other US media that many of us have trouble discerning between USA institutions and laws and Canadian. They hear the mantra "downloading is stealing" and since they didn't read page 14 of the local tabloid three years ago, or watch the National news one evening last March, they don't know that it's okay to copy off a friend, or download, they just hear "stealing music," "piracy," etc. The vast majority haven't even heard of the levy we're paying for recording media, since it's just folded into the price.
iTunes will fly because it's convenient and clean, a whizzy high-tech experience that just works. You can get album art and check out the video, preview the songs, and they aren't sabotaged by the RIAA or SOCAN 30 seconds in.
That and CMD-Y (Put Away) are what I teach my 4 year old to do. He's completing his 7-year-old sister's CD-ROM's successfully, so maybe he'd 'get it', but I don't want him intrigued by that trash can in OS 9!! 20 years of living with that trash thingy, and I still don't like it.
The desktop interface in general has always been problematic.
jayminer, read the thread, I made no comparisons to Turkey's current situation, merely pointed out that both nations have genocide in their national histories. I was responding to a query about how other nations deal with separatists.
However, since you brought up language as a point of comparison, almost all of the sovereignty publications by indigenous people in Canada, including websites, are in English or French, not Cree or Stlat'limc etc. (Inuit is a notable exception.) This is the result of many decades or even centuries of actively suppressing those languages.
The issue of whether the Kurds are a 'distinct people' deserving of a Kurdistan is beyond this discussion, really. As if 99% of the people on/. have a clue about global cultural sovereignty issues!
Robert McNamara, the former US Secretary of State (Kennedy-Johnson) and President of the World Bank for many years, was interviewed by Errol Morris for The Fog of War.
He discusses his role in the firebombing of Tokyo and many other cities, and points out that had they lost the war, he and his compatriots would have been justly tried as war criminals. He then asks " But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
Despite this admission, the two million dead in Vietnam (not to mention Cambodia and Laos) and the years of suffering that the World Bank visited upon the poor, the guy wanders around being applauded. Amazing, but there you have it: the victors control the emotional framework around history.
For the human rights ussue, yes we don't provide rights for people who like to divide our country (I don't know if any other country provides this or not), but there are no problems other than that.
Canada, that oh-so-boring nation of the north, has had a long internal struggle with separatism, which may be instructive.
Quebec is francophone in a largely anglophone nation, with a distinct culture and long (for canadians) continuous history. Separatist sentiment runs high, including strong positions in various media, many organizations, and strong political institutions at both the provincial and federal level. The Bloc Quebecois, part of the official opposition in the federal government, is a powerful alliance of mostly separatist interests.
Canadians don't shut down this discussion, on the whole. Oh, there is some rudeness (for canadians, who tend to be pretty courteous in public, except for Parliament), and some shouting, and some strong rhetoric in both directions. But, except for a brief period in 1970 (which was actually pretty mild by international standards), it hasn't erupted into violence and oppression.
The key seems to be the right to dissent within reason. We don't disappear people for political opinion anymore in Canada (okay, well, not for long anyway), even though we have a genocidal history, like the Turks. While there has been federalist and separatist propaganda and some dirty tricks, there was also a referendum in the '90s in which Quebec voted 51-49% to stay in Canada, and surprisingly that has settled things for awhile.
The nation-state is a malleable entity, and viciously protects that secret. Very few modern nation-states' borders are undisputed, and very few were formed without trampling on sovereign rights. How a nation deals with the fallout from that is an indication of its social maturity. Canada's major failure has not been Quebec separatism, but its dealings with the indigenous population (the continuing fallout from genocide).
The ALT-E thing to call a menu, for me, is a big thing.
Uh... CTRL-F2? What's wrong with that keyboard combination to get full menu access? If you don't like it, you can always change the key in keyboard preferences. If it isn't on, hit ctrl-F1 to toggle it.
'll edit a few things to the timeline in premiere with keyb and hit ALT+F->A to save as, type the filename, and alt-f->n with a new project
CMD-SHIFT-S (for save, get it?) is "Save As" in many Mac apps (CMD-S saves in ANY Mac app that needs saving). I prefer pivoting on my thumb to using my pinky for command keys, feels more ergonomic.
The alt-tab addition to OSX is great
WTF? the Mac is getting a new keyboard? There's no alt key. Maybe you mean CMD-tab;-)
This is still missing though... Some of us like GUI with heavy keyboard shortcuts.
Easy, turn on full keyboard access in the keyboard control panel! You can tab to nearly any user interface element. I have to say, screaming around with the keyboard, especially through directories (CMD-arrowkeys and the first letters of a name), is pretty slick on a mac. Then add Quicksilver, and blow your mind, for some nearly prescient keyboard control. I only use the mouse to draw/shoot things, or for variety when I'm feeling leisurely, or to use the nice drag and drop that actually works across all apps.
In the days of classic mac OS, I used KeyQuencer, a really light, really powerful system-wide macro program, and am hoping that Tiger's new automation will bring back some of that one-keystroke-does-half-a-day's-work-in-multiple-p rograms goodness.
allows you to edit QT content in many ways that the free version doesn't: add/remove tracks, adjust a plethora of attributes (size, aspect ratio, graphics mode, sound levels etc.) For example, I do a fair amount of basic video editing with iMovie, but iMovie won't let you swap the video track left to right, ie. car entering frame left now entering from the right. Full QuickTime does that in two or three clicks, without re-encoding.
Quick trick to make a super-quick rough cut of a short sequence: directory with your source files, make a new quicktime, open your files up one by one, cut/paste, save file using dependencies. For those with deadline panic when your editing software just feels bloated and kludgey, or effects are too tempting. Quicktime is much more powerful than even most video editors realize.
One of the downsides of owning a Mac is poorly ported software. Windows Media is a classic example; it's painful to try and use, so go for VLC instead.
Don't forget that most of their best properties were "borrowed" from stories for which the copyright laws did not apply.
This is a key point: even steamboat willie (AKA Mickey) was borrowed from Buster Keaton. Nothing wrong with that per se, as Larry Lessig points out in Free Culture, that's just the nature of cultural production, and should be encouraged.
However, what Disney's been particularly guilty of last few decades, excepting Lilo and a few others, is regurgitation, not simply borrowing or being inspired by other stories. Their stories are sappy, flat, and smell bad, and, as a parent of culturally vulnerable cartoon consumers, demonically cross-marketed. They exploit the audience, who are mostly kids.
From an academic point of view I can quote say Encyclopadia Brittanica article
From an academic point of view you'd better not quote any encyclopedia unless it's for effect: e.g., in a chapter heading. Quote from an encyclopedia as though it were an authoritative primary source and we profs / your peers will usually mark you down in flames. They're for reference only, as a precursor to further research--even Brittanica.
For myself, I've read a few articles in Brittanica that were revealed to be either obviously wrong or, after further research, subtly misleading.
"...the allure of consumption of US goods..."
Nah. Too expensive, too crappy. Practically everything we wear and most of our appliances are "Made in China".
I remember watching "He Man, Master of the Universe" in a tiny little dark kitchen heated by yak dung (no sh*t!), with the whole family and some neighbours huddled around, way up behind the Himalaya. I remember watching Dallas dubbed into german, and strangers were standing in the street talking to each other about it and talking back to the box, really involved. I remember some young Thai monks who had snuck me into their dorm, asking me to help them work out a cowboy blues song they were writing.
America exports its mass culture, and it has at least as much influence abroad, in a different way, as the over 700 military bases on foreign soil.
Oh gawd folks, the poor felcher probably lives in London or Guelph or some other emotional backwater. I agree, there are horrible places like that in Canada, most of them smaller cities in S. Ontario dominated by smug white people, or anywhere in monochrome Alberta. The rest of Canada? well, we mostly feel that it's our right and responsibility to hold a range of views amongst us, and that's pretty much what happens... which is in part why we have a whole bunch of political parties, who actually range across the spectrum.
Canadians generally don't like bullies or the excessively arrogant, though, so maybe that's what you've been getting for a response.
I'm only addressing anglophone canadian issues in this response.
Even a so-called "free-market" in culture could never actually be free. It is, and would be even more if we just removed all content restrictions, dominated by the commercial interests of American producers.
Those who call for an unregulated cultural market obviously don't make commercial cultural content in Canada. Access to the public is not based very heavily on demands by an audience; it is provided by producers, funders, and distributors. Those folks have business allegiance to stars-and-stripes interests, in many cases, either through ideology or direct economic ownership.
When demand by audiences is considered, it is presumed that people make rational choices based on an informed perspective. Well, sometimes we actually do, and turn off the TV in disgust because it's yet another American show that pretends Canada doesn't exist. Mostly, however, we suck up what's in front of us; we choose from what's available. If what's available preys upon our particular demographic, or for the most part presents things in a certain way, that has an influence on us, much like advertising. Audience demand is continually being manipulated. Remember, the purpose of mass media is not to provide you, the audience/reader with entertainment or information; rather, it exists to provide you as a consumer to advertisers. You are the product, and Canadians are manufactured audiences like Americans.
I believe most of the power of the USA comes from it's economic power.
I actually understated the case with respect to economic power, because that's fairly well known and it's a real shocker to Americans just how many foreigners have to put up with a US base near their town.
I left out just how much power the WTO and FTAA and other trading organizations wield, the highly ideological agenda of the IMF, and the nature of foreign aid agencies in the role of vanguard. Not to mention a vast global series of spy networks who also work semi-openly for US late-industrial-capitalist supremacy. (Is there a corollary to Godwin's Law for the word capital? Does using it make me a pinko?)
The last two decades of trade agreements typically make local regions subject to the whims of foreign (USA) corporate interests, with rules like being able to sue municipalities for hundreds of millions in lost speculative income because they won't let them put in a toxic dump or their environmental laws prohibit the use of a certain poison in a product. These agreements are usually codified terms for extortion, based on a shift of power towards US-based transnationals (who are closely linked to the political plutocracy in the Great Republic).
It's not just a US parent that's a risk, but even Canadian companies (such as the major banks) that own subsidiaries in the US - Royal Bank owns Liberty Insurance and several bank chains, TD owns an investment arm and some bank chains, BMO owns some bank chains. The US government can technically use the subsidiaries to weasle through to obtain information on the whole enterprise.
Just one more example of how the current direction of the globalization process works to undermine local sovereignty and concentrate international power even further.
Of course he's taunting: he won. He managed to force the hand of the NeoCons, and Americans are slowly starting to realize that it stopped being the Land of the Free a while ago (and never was for some). His analysis seems outrageous from inside the States, and uncomfortably familiar from outside.
I used to think 'how can the current Administration with all its resources be manipulated so easily by a lowly scumbag who is hiding in caves?' -- but now am thinking that their goals may not be so far apart after all; the NeoCons got what they wanted in Congress--and so did Al Qaeda.
When will the world realise that it does not have to take shit from the US?
Oh, but it does. The US has over 700 military bases in over 130 countries, all strategically located of course, and another 6000 bases at home oriented towards exporting agression. There is an express military policy of being able to fight multiple engagements around the world simultaneously. That's shock and awe for you: the sudden realization that it is the american military, not the UN, that has a truly global presence. Pax Americana is here, and it is scary.
You can also look at the lobbying spirit with which american business is conducted around the globe; US foreign policy has a powerful mix of hard-ass negotiating government-to-government on behalf of corporate interests, and intergovernmental cooperation with a huge power imbalance (see above mention of bases). Combine that with the allure of consumption of US goods (including cultural forms), and you have a compromised position--you have to take it wherever they want to put it.
Don't want to leave canada? Just wait until a couple more generations get raised on that violent american TV you're so eager to import. Detroit is right across the river and, unlike the beer sellers at tiger stadium, the people who sell black market guns don't give a shit where you're from.
Actually, I am right across the river from Detroit, and if one looks at a satellite photo of the region you'll see that central Windsor is where the other half of downtown Detroit should be.
It's very strange being here, moved here a couple of years ago, and it throws many of the quirks of being Canadian in my face.
1) We're more prudish, but more lenient, so you can export your vices here--lower drinking age, explicit strip clubs, gambling--and be surrounded by fellow Americans. We're inundated with your bad behaviour. It has a third-world feeling to it here.
2) Gun problems come with Americans, not the guns. We have a lot of guns throughout Canada, but they're rifles mainly--for food. Nowhere else have I been so worried about guns, as most of the shootings in this town involve an American and a handgun.
3) Even in a border city (Detroit surrounds Windsor on the North and West) the US norm is extreme parochialism (signs of an imperial consciousness). That infects the Canadians who live here since they have relatives, friends, work, and TV channels etc. across the border--and lowers their willingness to consider non-American opinions on American politics.
4) Canadians orient ourselves, in part, via an internal compass that points South, as in "we're not American, and they're down there" -- evidenced by the fact that here in Windsor, things are reversed, the US is North, and people in this town always make a mistake and have to correct themselves when using compass directions. We tend to identify ourselves in the same way, as non-American.
5) Canadians say "you can't win" and Americans say "you can't win 'em all" -- we're more cynical and sarcastic and defeatist on average, and derive humour from that, and the American way is being optimistic and forging ahead. Or, as Canadians like to quip: "ready, fire, aim!"
Stay out of our elections--give us your obedience
on
What's Going On in Canada?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is an example of why the US citizenry has the strange experience of people from all over the globe pitching in on their election. The empire (that they don't have) consists of surveillance, business interests, and >700 military bases installed in foreign countries.
Yes, who wins your election will have hegemony (well, dominating power) over us. It IS our business.
I remember hearing a radio show a few months back, maybe it was the show about the spying game on CBC's Ideas, about how OS X is becoming a preferred platform for some NSA-affiliated government spy agencies. Ease of configuration for decent security and quick development platform, unfamiliarity with the platform by many means better stealth, and the fact that many bad guys are OS X switchers too. You won't read that on Apple's switch campaign site.
As someone who breathes in the incredible smog production of the Ohio Valley steel industry, I can safely say that it's horrible. The cancer rates and thyroid problems in this area (across the lake) are believed to be linked (of course it's difficult to get facts). It isn't just radiation or particulates, it is a whole cocktail of poisons dumped up and away. However, I wan't playing a comparative game, as it leads into a philosophical discussion about energy use and production in general and I don't have time to explain my unconventional notions.
So, yes, by all means, get rid of coke-and-coal plants first. I'll gladly pay more for steel to protect children from thyroid disorders, if that's what it takes.
Slashdot Mirror
She's 18 years old and getting paid to use a camera indie-style after a couple of weeks of training. Your point?
It isn't about production values or being able to pull off some nice special effects. Those are all icing: the cake is baked by a good story, and good process. University or expensive film schools just seem to lack that heart, and the process is usually borked.
The problem, to me, is pedagogy. The indie spirit is collaborative, vision-driven, passionate, and do-it-yourself. Constraints become creative possibilities. At a well-endowed school, the tech is alluring, taking energy away from the fundamentals of telling a good story and getting a good camera angle. Usually, the schedule is dissipating, so that from one week to the next, there are huge gaps in production, which mean gaps in memory and experience, and gaps in the energy. Life there is full of distractions and other claims on your attention.
The reason film 'boot camp' (and I mean camp, away from the bright lights) is so effective is the continuity of purpose, the ability to truly focus on your work and peers. The pedagogy is what film students need most. The ability to use the latest and greatest is always going to be a race up a sand dune anyway.
Jeeeeeezuz-murphy you hoser mods, that isn't informative, it's frickin' hilarious...
Oui.
"why the hell would you be affriad of being sued if two seperate rullings have indicated its perfectly legal because of the coppyright levy?" [sic]
Believe it or not, most Canadians are so heavily propagandized by watching Hollywood TV and consuming other US media that many of us have trouble discerning between USA institutions and laws and Canadian. They hear the mantra "downloading is stealing" and since they didn't read page 14 of the local tabloid three years ago, or watch the National news one evening last March, they don't know that it's okay to copy off a friend, or download, they just hear "stealing music," "piracy," etc. The vast majority haven't even heard of the levy we're paying for recording media, since it's just folded into the price.
iTunes will fly because it's convenient and clean, a whizzy high-tech experience that just works. You can get album art and check out the video, preview the songs, and they aren't sabotaged by the RIAA or SOCAN 30 seconds in.
That and CMD-Y (Put Away) are what I teach my 4 year old to do. He's completing his 7-year-old sister's CD-ROM's successfully, so maybe he'd 'get it', but I don't want him intrigued by that trash can in OS 9!! 20 years of living with that trash thingy, and I still don't like it.
The desktop interface in general has always been problematic.
jayminer, read the thread, I made no comparisons to Turkey's current situation, merely pointed out that both nations have genocide in their national histories. I was responding to a query about how other nations deal with separatists.
/. have a clue about global cultural sovereignty issues!
However, since you brought up language as a point of comparison, almost all of the sovereignty publications by indigenous people in Canada, including websites, are in English or French, not Cree or Stlat'limc etc. (Inuit is a notable exception.) This is the result of many decades or even centuries of actively suppressing those languages.
The issue of whether the Kurds are a 'distinct people' deserving of a Kurdistan is beyond this discussion, really. As if 99% of the people on
He discusses his role in the firebombing of Tokyo and many other cities, and points out that had they lost the war, he and his compatriots would have been justly tried as war criminals. He then asks " But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
Despite this admission, the two million dead in Vietnam (not to mention Cambodia and Laos) and the years of suffering that the World Bank visited upon the poor, the guy wanders around being applauded. Amazing, but there you have it: the victors control the emotional framework around history.
Canada, that oh-so-boring nation of the north, has had a long internal struggle with separatism, which may be instructive.
Quebec is francophone in a largely anglophone nation, with a distinct culture and long (for canadians) continuous history. Separatist sentiment runs high, including strong positions in various media, many organizations, and strong political institutions at both the provincial and federal level. The Bloc Quebecois, part of the official opposition in the federal government, is a powerful alliance of mostly separatist interests.
Canadians don't shut down this discussion, on the whole. Oh, there is some rudeness (for canadians, who tend to be pretty courteous in public, except for Parliament), and some shouting, and some strong rhetoric in both directions. But, except for a brief period in 1970 (which was actually pretty mild by international standards), it hasn't erupted into violence and oppression.
The key seems to be the right to dissent within reason. We don't disappear people for political opinion anymore in Canada (okay, well, not for long anyway), even though we have a genocidal history, like the Turks. While there has been federalist and separatist propaganda and some dirty tricks, there was also a referendum in the '90s in which Quebec voted 51-49% to stay in Canada, and surprisingly that has settled things for awhile.
The nation-state is a malleable entity, and viciously protects that secret. Very few modern nation-states' borders are undisputed, and very few were formed without trampling on sovereign rights. How a nation deals with the fallout from that is an indication of its social maturity. Canada's major failure has not been Quebec separatism, but its dealings with the indigenous population (the continuing fallout from genocide).
/me smacks forehead...
You're right of course, I've just never ever called it that or seen or heard it called that in 20 years of Mac use, it's always simply the option key.
Uh... CTRL-F2? What's wrong with that keyboard combination to get full menu access? If you don't like it, you can always change the key in keyboard preferences. If it isn't on, hit ctrl-F1 to toggle it.
'll edit a few things to the timeline in premiere with keyb and hit ALT+F->A to save as, type the filename, and alt-f->n with a new project
CMD-SHIFT-S (for save, get it?) is "Save As" in many Mac apps (CMD-S saves in ANY Mac app that needs saving). I prefer pivoting on my thumb to using my pinky for command keys, feels more ergonomic.
The alt-tab addition to OSX is great
WTF? the Mac is getting a new keyboard? There's no alt key. Maybe you mean CMD-tab ;-)
This is still missing though... Some of us like GUI with heavy keyboard shortcuts.
Easy, turn on full keyboard access in the keyboard control panel! You can tab to nearly any user interface element. I have to say, screaming around with the keyboard, especially through directories (CMD-arrowkeys and the first letters of a name), is pretty slick on a mac. Then add Quicksilver, and blow your mind, for some nearly prescient keyboard control. I only use the mouse to draw/shoot things, or for variety when I'm feeling leisurely, or to use the nice drag and drop that actually works across all apps.
In the days of classic mac OS, I used KeyQuencer, a really light, really powerful system-wide macro program, and am hoping that Tiger's new automation will bring back some of that one-keystroke-does-half-a-day's-work-in-multiple-p rograms goodness.
Quick trick to make a super-quick rough cut of a short sequence: directory with your source files, make a new quicktime, open your files up one by one, cut/paste, save file using dependencies. For those with deadline panic when your editing software just feels bloated and kludgey, or effects are too tempting. Quicktime is much more powerful than even most video editors realize.
One of the downsides of owning a Mac is poorly ported software. Windows Media is a classic example; it's painful to try and use, so go for VLC instead.
This is a key point: even steamboat willie (AKA Mickey) was borrowed from Buster Keaton. Nothing wrong with that per se, as Larry Lessig points out in Free Culture , that's just the nature of cultural production, and should be encouraged.
However, what Disney's been particularly guilty of last few decades, excepting Lilo and a few others, is regurgitation, not simply borrowing or being inspired by other stories. Their stories are sappy, flat, and smell bad, and, as a parent of culturally vulnerable cartoon consumers, demonically cross-marketed. They exploit the audience, who are mostly kids.
From an academic point of view you'd better not quote any encyclopedia unless it's for effect: e.g., in a chapter heading. Quote from an encyclopedia as though it were an authoritative primary source and we profs / your peers will usually mark you down in flames. They're for reference only, as a precursor to further research--even Brittanica.
For myself, I've read a few articles in Brittanica that were revealed to be either obviously wrong or, after further research, subtly misleading.
Nah. Too expensive, too crappy. Practically everything we wear and most of our appliances are "Made in China".
I remember watching "He Man, Master of the Universe" in a tiny little dark kitchen heated by yak dung (no sh*t!), with the whole family and some neighbours huddled around, way up behind the Himalaya. I remember watching Dallas dubbed into german, and strangers were standing in the street talking to each other about it and talking back to the box, really involved. I remember some young Thai monks who had snuck me into their dorm, asking me to help them work out a cowboy blues song they were writing.
America exports its mass culture, and it has at least as much influence abroad, in a different way, as the over 700 military bases on foreign soil.
Oh gawd folks, the poor felcher probably lives in London or Guelph or some other emotional backwater. I agree, there are horrible places like that in Canada, most of them smaller cities in S. Ontario dominated by smug white people, or anywhere in monochrome Alberta. The rest of Canada? well, we mostly feel that it's our right and responsibility to hold a range of views amongst us, and that's pretty much what happens... which is in part why we have a whole bunch of political parties, who actually range across the spectrum.
Canadians generally don't like bullies or the excessively arrogant, though, so maybe that's what you've been getting for a response.
I'm only addressing anglophone canadian issues in this response.
Even a so-called "free-market" in culture could never actually be free. It is, and would be even more if we just removed all content restrictions, dominated by the commercial interests of American producers.
Those who call for an unregulated cultural market obviously don't make commercial cultural content in Canada. Access to the public is not based very heavily on demands by an audience; it is provided by producers, funders, and distributors. Those folks have business allegiance to stars-and-stripes interests, in many cases, either through ideology or direct economic ownership.
When demand by audiences is considered, it is presumed that people make rational choices based on an informed perspective. Well, sometimes we actually do, and turn off the TV in disgust because it's yet another American show that pretends Canada doesn't exist. Mostly, however, we suck up what's in front of us; we choose from what's available. If what's available preys upon our particular demographic, or for the most part presents things in a certain way, that has an influence on us, much like advertising. Audience demand is continually being manipulated. Remember, the purpose of mass media is not to provide you, the audience/reader with entertainment or information; rather, it exists to provide you as a consumer to advertisers. You are the product, and Canadians are manufactured audiences like Americans.
I actually understated the case with respect to economic power, because that's fairly well known and it's a real shocker to Americans just how many foreigners have to put up with a US base near their town.
I left out just how much power the WTO and FTAA and other trading organizations wield, the highly ideological agenda of the IMF, and the nature of foreign aid agencies in the role of vanguard. Not to mention a vast global series of spy networks who also work semi-openly for US late-industrial-capitalist supremacy. (Is there a corollary to Godwin's Law for the word capital? Does using it make me a pinko?)
The last two decades of trade agreements typically make local regions subject to the whims of foreign (USA) corporate interests, with rules like being able to sue municipalities for hundreds of millions in lost speculative income because they won't let them put in a toxic dump or their environmental laws prohibit the use of a certain poison in a product. These agreements are usually codified terms for extortion, based on a shift of power towards US-based transnationals (who are closely linked to the political plutocracy in the Great Republic).
Just one more example of how the current direction of the globalization process works to undermine local sovereignty and concentrate international power even further.
I used to think 'how can the current Administration with all its resources be manipulated so easily by a lowly scumbag who is hiding in caves?' -- but now am thinking that their goals may not be so far apart after all; the NeoCons got what they wanted in Congress--and so did Al Qaeda.
Oh, but it does. The US has over 700 military bases in over 130 countries, all strategically located of course, and another 6000 bases at home oriented towards exporting agression. There is an express military policy of being able to fight multiple engagements around the world simultaneously. That's shock and awe for you: the sudden realization that it is the american military, not the UN, that has a truly global presence. Pax Americana is here, and it is scary.
You can also look at the lobbying spirit with which american business is conducted around the globe; US foreign policy has a powerful mix of hard-ass negotiating government-to-government on behalf of corporate interests, and intergovernmental cooperation with a huge power imbalance (see above mention of bases). Combine that with the allure of consumption of US goods (including cultural forms), and you have a compromised position--you have to take it wherever they want to put it.
Actually, I am right across the river from Detroit, and if one looks at a satellite photo of the region you'll see that central Windsor is where the other half of downtown Detroit should be.
It's very strange being here, moved here a couple of years ago, and it throws many of the quirks of being Canadian in my face.
1) We're more prudish, but more lenient, so you can export your vices here--lower drinking age, explicit strip clubs, gambling--and be surrounded by fellow Americans. We're inundated with your bad behaviour. It has a third-world feeling to it here.
2) Gun problems come with Americans, not the guns. We have a lot of guns throughout Canada, but they're rifles mainly--for food. Nowhere else have I been so worried about guns, as most of the shootings in this town involve an American and a handgun.
3) Even in a border city (Detroit surrounds Windsor on the North and West) the US norm is extreme parochialism (signs of an imperial consciousness). That infects the Canadians who live here since they have relatives, friends, work, and TV channels etc. across the border--and lowers their willingness to consider non-American opinions on American politics.
4) Canadians orient ourselves, in part, via an internal compass that points South, as in "we're not American, and they're down there" -- evidenced by the fact that here in Windsor, things are reversed, the US is North, and people in this town always make a mistake and have to correct themselves when using compass directions. We tend to identify ourselves in the same way, as non-American.
5) Canadians say "you can't win" and Americans say "you can't win 'em all" -- we're more cynical and sarcastic and defeatist on average, and derive humour from that, and the American way is being optimistic and forging ahead. Or, as Canadians like to quip: "ready, fire, aim!"
This is an example of why the US citizenry has the strange experience of people from all over the globe pitching in on their election. The empire (that they don't have) consists of surveillance, business interests, and >700 military bases installed in foreign countries.
Yes, who wins your election will have hegemony (well, dominating power) over us. It IS our business.
As someone who breathes in the incredible smog production of the Ohio Valley steel industry, I can safely say that it's horrible. The cancer rates and thyroid problems in this area (across the lake) are believed to be linked (of course it's difficult to get facts). It isn't just radiation or particulates, it is a whole cocktail of poisons dumped up and away. However, I wan't playing a comparative game, as it leads into a philosophical discussion about energy use and production in general and I don't have time to explain my unconventional notions.
So, yes, by all means, get rid of coke-and-coal plants first. I'll gladly pay more for steel to protect children from thyroid disorders, if that's what it takes.