how I viewed USA as a kid

So in my childhood I can't remember the number of times I was stunned at what I saw coming out of America and had to turn to my older brothers asking: is this true? that's real? Americans are really like this? And they had to confirm that erecting remakes of the Tour Eiffel or the Kheops pyramid, or even their food, of which we had Canadian lighter versions... was for real, idk everything coming out of USA seemed excessive. Not great. Excessive. Ridiculous. Laughable.

Not one American auto maker had one good vehicle on the road while european cars were not only wayyy outperforming them, also were much safer. For anyone who knew about car performance in the 1960-70's, it was obvious that Italian, German, French and British cars were in a another league, and the Japanese very quickly rising then.

For any product, it was quite obvious an European import would be of better quality and more importantly better designed and engineered than any equivalent product coming out of the USA.

Well that was my perception anyway, and as I'm writing, I recall my mother claiming while shopping for shoes for me that Canadian shoes were tougher and better made, she looked for them (but also Czech shoes, then communist). They were probably all ugly and I hated them. Of course here again probably, the American flashy designs and probably lighter (therefore not as durable) and synthetic materials were more appealing.

That's what the USA seemed all about: appeal; flashy cheap non durable items, all about the looks, probably so to sell more as the vogue changes. Everything from USA from shoes to cars to music to food to ways to build seemed flashy cheapo non durable and not well thought.

That was our perception. I'll say our as all my doubts about that as a child, as a teen, were confirmed by my peers, although they all drove american cars and used american devices, from tools to booze, from cakes to clothes. All of us mostly used things from America anyways, knowing it's not the best. Since USA is an hour drive away their products were more affordable, and filled the shelves, and the streets, although the Japanese products flooded the place with very cheap stuff in the late 1970's, but it took them 10 years to become very good and reliable products, same for their cars. They went right by USA and fast enough everyone was using Japanese radios and TVs and driving a Japanese car.

I cannot recall one product, let alone one car, that I could think of that came from America that'd make me go: that! That is good. When this started to happen with Apple products, they were probably mostly made of Chinese parts, then directly made there. Maybe I don't remember well, maybe KitchenAid had good products, maybe there were a few exceptions, it's mostly a matter of perception.

Then when I was 16, my parents decided to get cable TV, so I got to watch directly American TV, and American advertisements... Oh My God! I couldn't believe it, really, it was so flashy, so corny cheap, all of it. So I stopped watching TV.

So I had never heard of Donald Trump when he first ran for office.

That president the Americans elected TWICE!!! is the blooming flower of the roots of cheapo exagerated gold plated ways that demonstrate in a very vulgar way that... this is what the United States of America are: cheap flashy gold plated with no memory of history and no knowledge of the World; very egocentric; not a good friend, just the big neighbour flooding our market with their things and cheap culture and forcing us to like them.

And of course, now it's said clearly: Canada should be the 51st state of the USA; we knew that all along, it was just never formulated clearly in the recent decades, but that's nothing new. And just now Canada wakes up. About time câlice d'estie! Probably too late.

Anyways....

I'm from America too, the USA doesn't own the "America" name.

Please note that Amerigo Vespucci never sailed north of the Central Americas, and that name shouldn't even apply to that territory. Rather, Vespucci proved Columbus wrong by sailing south, then even more south, demonstrating it could not be Asia.

So anyways idk if you can feel how angry Canadians are at USA; we're also very well aware of the size and influence of our big neighbour and that our situation is quite desperate right now: we don't want to become Americans, we really don't. But if the bully doesn't fall because 60% of their revenues goes half for debt, half for defense (so USA actually might fall), well Canada is doomed on the long term. We all know that. All we can do is duck and cover, and wait for the storm to pass. But wait we have a hero, he's a banker. Ok LoL, well... Better than a TV clown I think. We'll see

Dominique Rock