Gratitude: Let us give thanks that our nation is not an imperial power. I am thinking mainly about the effects of empire not on the ruled but on the rulers, like our southern neighbours, who may not directly colonize but extend their control in unmistakable ways. Wielding power over others undermines your sense of commonality with them and with the rest of your fellow humans. It has to.

Look at the tatty spats in New York right now about the 9/11 memorial. There’s a debate over whether comparable disasters should be included in the commemoration. That day could have augmented Americans’ sense of shared human destiny, because on it they experienced the kind of carnage other societies know, too. Instead, it seemed to create a proprietary sense of victimization, so that including the tragedies of others makes them feel diminished.

Look at how hard it is for them to get clarity about the bog in Iraq. The issue gets framed as: When will Iraqi forces be ready to take over, so our troops can leave? But the nationality of forces fighting against the “insurgency” isn’t what counts; the imperial power always tries to use the locals as its police (as the British did in India and Africa). What counts is who has power over policy and resources in Iraq, and there’s no sign the United States plans to relinquish any. So the debate on when to “draw down” U.S. troops and leave is hollow. Some of it is diversionary propaganda from the Bushites; but much of it is sincere self-delusion, because many Americans just don’t want to see themselves in their imperial reality.

Canada’s biggest headaches have come from our subordinate status in someone else’s empire: France, Britain or the United States. But at least we had the good fortune to not possess or run our very own breeding grounds of illusion and denial (even if we get embroiled at times in places like Haiti).

Ingrates: A jeer to Canada’s top CEOs, who last week sanctimoniously and in unison decried Canada as “a nation adrift” for “frittering away the fruit of years of sacrifice” in a burst of “skyrocketing government spending” via “a steady stream of special deals” with provinces and cities, in order to “cling to power.” What rings so ungracious in these lads is that, for the past 20 years, they got everything they asked for, almost without exception. It was their agenda that took us into free trade, NAFTA, deficit obsession, tax cuts for the sake of being competitive with the U.S. — on their promise that everything would be even better as a result. Now those results are largely in: decimated public goods in health care, education, housing etc. People can look back and compare their promises to the shredded realities, and then start to rebuild a bit.

But the CEOs don’t admit to a botched job, they just whinge on, demanding yet more of the same. Most of us would be grateful to have merely had the chance to try out our theories in practice. (The recent No votes in French and Dutch referendums amounted to rejection there of a similar CEO-like orientation in the proposed European constitution.) The boys seem especially peeved at Paul Martin for not staying as stingy and accommodating as he once was.

But there were many worrisome Martin omens. Back in 1995, during his happy slasher phase, he told David Frum fretfully that some “people seem to enjoy the blood sport of cutting spending, they forget that a country is about people, and a government is about representing people.” The guy has always been a cluster of contradictions — not the worst thing for a person in politics to be.

Gratitude II: During the past hysterical months, I often found myself flipping to the parliamentary channel to see what was on, as I would to a sports or news channel. They’d be debating issues that mattered, with evident passion and involvement. MPs, even backbenchers, emerged as personalities, there was genuine back and forth and, above all, uncertainty of outcome, as in sports. They passed significant legislation and had meaningful debates. It was — entirely due to that disparaged, belittled, uncontrollable minority situation — a great Parliament. I’ll miss them over the summer.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.