The Spreading Fire
When I was 25 I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor which had been growing in me for unknown years but reasonable speculation places it as having developed at some point in my early teens. My MRIs, CAT scans, x-rays, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, blood work, follow up appointments, and the screenings I have received multiple times a year since have cost me nothing. I have covered the cost of the medicine I will likely need for the rest of my life at a cost of $70 every six weeks or so. Otherwise I didn’t pay a cent.
But you pay it in taxes some naysayer says. I do, and when you get sick my taxes will pay for that too. And our health care systems need a serious overhaul and greater investments for doctors and nurses to want to come work in Manitoba but I will always stand by universal health care.
If I were American I would have had no health coverage. I was a line cook for God’s sake. There’s no insurance when you’re a making a couple bucks over minimum wage slinging burgers and fries. A low-ball estimate of my situation would have cost at least $200k. One doctor who worked in the US for many years told me it could easily be much higher. So, when a tangerine-colored freak of nature taking the office of president in two weeks threatens to take over my country that afforded the universal health care which saved my life and kept me from rotting in debt, I’m agitated to say the least.
Not to mention I wouldn’t qualify for health insurance anyways. Who the hell is going to insure someone diagnosed with cancer in their 20s? No one looking to make a profit, that’s for sure.
There are hard truths and this is one of them: if Canada became the 51st state I would be forced to accept redeveloping cancer without my knowing and losing my mind by the time I’m 55 before I died from the seizures I could not afford to prevent through diagnosing a return of my cancer. Black and white, that is the reality. And for the 1 in 2 Canadians who will be diagnosed with cancer it is a similar story. If we were swept up in the American Nightmare it would become immediately clear why a health insurance CEO was gunned down and no one making less than $100,000 a year really gave a shit. But God bless those holiest among us on CNN and The Daily Wire who gasped and clutched their pearls at the indifference of tens of millions.
Someone I used to know well supports the Americanization of Canada. A poll from a few weeks back showed 15 or so per cent of Canadians agree, a bizarrely high proportion of whom are Manitobans. This was disappointing but not wholly surprising. We’ve always had very Americanized media and I guess ignorance is a piece of the great American pie. Not that it’s all Americans, certainly not. I’ve known many good people from South of the 49th parallel, really good people. But I prefer my flag red and white, hold the blue.
If I told you I am not afraid I would be lying. But if I were to say I feel like rolling over while the Trump Reich throws its weight around that would be equally false. When I see these arrogant Americans shouting Canada will be the 51st state I feel a nationalistic rage I did not know existed in me. If they come kicking down the border January 21st, what options do we really have? This is the largest military in the history of the world being steered by a legitimately unstable wannabe dictator, ready to unleash his insecurity on the world.
If the worst really comes to be and the United States really tries coming for Canada I say come try taking it. I don’t want this to happen and I hope these weeks have only been more of his insane ramblings that will amount to nothing, but I don’t feel optimistic on that point. They have the guns and the military power to bomb the hell out of innocent people, they’ve proven as much by now. No matter what happens I will never pledge allegiance to their failed state and I will buy a thousand American flags just so I can burn one every morning. Invasion didn’t work in Afghanistan, it didn’t work in Vietnam, and the Ukrainians will keep fighting after that Orange coward puts his chips in Putin’s pocket.
Today there are only words and speculation. Maybe I’m the crazy one for taking him seriously. I guess we’ll see which way the wind blows. Maybe Pierre Poilievre can sweet talk ol’ Donny into playing nice. Here’s hoping.