THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA – THEN AND….NOW.

In my first blog entry, and subsequently the first blog entry I have ever written, I will be discussing Margaret Atwood’s “Letter to America”.  This is an interesting article in that the writer basically came of age in the U.S.A’s golden age, including the rise of television and movies.  She has deep seeded feelings of sentimentality for literature as well as radio/television/film programming that broadcasted the values of Americans from a time that came from a more wholesome and pure era.  The writer is essentially looking at the current situation the United States is in and attempting to use nostalgia in order to wake up our southern neighbors and remind them of how great they can, and used to be.  If you think about it in the sense that the writer was approximately 16 when the U.S. had just concluded a war that saw to the death of millions of people but prevented the death of millions more.  A war whose veterans returned with a sense of accomplishment and went on to make the United States the richest country in the world during the car manufacturing boom.  Now in her 70s, the country she once regarded so highly now has its military entrenched in a nearly un-winnable war to ensure the supply of oil is safe.  It is no doubt easy to see how the writer would reminisce in her article, and I find it difficult to blame her for doing so.  One example I found to be ineffective was a reference to "Marley's ghost", I felt it was a tad obscure as I had to look up what exactly it meant.  I do, however, enjoy the paragraph where Atwood compares Canadians to “Roman Gauls” in that we try so hard to emulate Americans, yet we fail to do it 100% right.  In the past the United States appeared to be a good yardstick for Canada to measure itself by, have times changed?