Is it weird to be an American interested in Canadian news?

Americans consume an unhealthy amount of American “news”. And food.

@brianpeiris@lemmy.ca
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I would absolutely love to stop following American news, and that will happen when I don’t have to worry about Trumpf infecting world politics.

Well, Canada is a part of North America so it makes sense

They are. As an American I don’t get why my Canadian friends are so engaged. It’s not right.

deleted by creator

For instance, half of the content on Lemmy is American politics and news. It can be hard as a non-American to find a good balance of content that’s closer to home.

Half is a bit conservative. For non news/politics stuff, it’s a fraction that has anything to do specifically with the USA. If it’s news/politics related it’s well over 75%

To be fair, it’s because US politics at the moment is a train-wreck in progress and its hard to look away. Or, more accurately, the US news portrays US politics as a train-wreck in progress, with civil war and right-wing dictatorship just over the horizon. Both political parties and the whole media establishment are literally spending billions of dollars to attract eyeballs, so the drama of US presidential politics is off-the-scale and the whole world is watching, not just Canada.

Canadian politics at the moment is a snooze-fest by comparison. However, when crazy US-style drama does go down in Canada, like when our COVID trucker convoy noisily occupied Ottawa for a few weeks, we were glued to that instead.

For Americans, you can think of Canada as being like Minnesota. Sure, we get a dramatic event every once in a while, but mostly it’s boringly reasonable, center-left, earnest, and low-drama.

I treat it like a reality TV show. The characters are pretty engaging and if I acknowledge that it’s real life I get depressed

acargitz
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We are worried about what we would have to do if you guys starts shooting at each other. Like where would we put the refugees.

Just be like us and say “fuck you, fix your own shit in your shithole country! Don’t come here and take our jobs!” Hell maybe even start a wall and make Trump pay for it.

We deserve it. :/

acargitz
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Nah man, we are Canada, that’s not us. Plus, you’re our cousins, we love you guys. We just need to make sure you comply with our language laws.

Yeah but its an Americans right to take other countries as they need, its in the bloody constitution - and we all know that is equivalent to global law

The US is the greatest threat to all life in the world with their massive Nuclear arsenal. If New York takes an ICBM, it’ll affect Toronto and likely Ottawa too.

I’m American and I don’t willingly watch most American news

We have some great news media, though. I haven’t found a good SA or EU or Canadian equivalent for Democracy Now

Never heard of Democracy Now but don’t write off CBC just because they’re gov funded. As long as you know their bias I’ve found CBC to be pretty good in delivering factual news. The thing they engage in most is lying by omission - not covering inconvenient topics.

How’s their coverage of the genocide in Gaza? And the conditions of your prisons? When there’s a protest, who do they interview? Do they actually go to the protest and air interviews with protestors?

(Honest questions: I don’t watch CBC)

For example, did they publish any interviews with students who were protesting their universities profiting from the Israeli Genocide, making clear what the students demands actually were?

This, I think, is one of the most important things that separates DN from many other news outlets. They focus on giving a voice to those who are often voiceless. When some oppression is taking place, they focus on interviewing the oppressed (eg the students and the prisoners), while most mainstream media mostly just airs interviews with the oppressors (eg the universities and the State).

That’s ok, so are Americans.

@j4k3@lemmy.world
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Watching any American media is toxic to one’s health

Drusas
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It’s not all the same and your comment is bigoted.

@j4k3@lemmy.world
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It is the same, and your less than two week old account and comment history are highly questionable in both intent and motivation. While your accusation lacks depth and merit.

Drusas
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I’ve been here since the Great Reddit Migration of June 2023. But first I started on kbin.social. Died. Moved to kbin.run. Died. So now here I am.

Your accusation lacks depth and merit .

You also very clearly did not read any of my comments because not a single one of them is a trolling sort of comment. It looks pretty pathetic trying to “win” the way you are.

Drusas
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Also, I question how active you really are if you don’t recognize my username because I have been very active for over a year now. Too active because I have too much time on my hands. I have maintained the same username throughout four different instances.

Good Lord did you read that out loud before you posted it? I mean you have to know how that sounds right?

Drusas
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I recognize frequent posters, so I assume others do too, but I guess not.

that’s an interesting way to say “don’t you people know who I am”

Drusas
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Not at all what I was going for, but I can see you thinking that. I think recognizing frequent posters is kind of just a basic level of awareness thing, but it’s totally fair that plenty of people might not read usernames, might not be as chronically online as I am, or otherwise have a reason that they don’t recognize frequent posters.

I just thought it was ridiculous that this person tried to discount what I had to say simply by the fact that I am currently using a relatively new account.

Anyone can make an account on a new instance with that name and claim to be the original person, so “same name, difference instance” isn’t a way to tell who someone is. When you spin up a new account, it’s a new account.

That being said, I don’t think your post history is highly questionable.

Drusas
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That’s true, but I have to ever encounter anyone on any platform using this particular name. Which is nice. But yeah, anyone could try to pretend to be me.

@spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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removed by mod

Yeah, but you have to realise, we’re your hat. Whatever happens down there fucks us just as hard. Hell, that applies to a degree for the whole world. You can’t be “leader of the free world” and then complain people are paying attention to your leadership.

I mean, yeah duh? What, you think that conservative right-wing movement was fully homegrown? Some of them are flying the Confederate flag in Alberta! Hatred is America’s export now.

@anachronist@midwest.social
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Some of them are flying the Confederate flag in Alberta!

Historically Europe (and the British Empire) sided with the confederacy because they saw a united USA as a potential industrial rival, whereas the south was more of a resource colony. Interestingly there was a major class divide in Europe where the working classes were anti-slavery and therefore anti-confederate wheras the upper classes saw the confederate cause being in their interest. There’s a book about this called A Cause for All Nations by Don Doyle.

My understanding is that nowadays the confederate flag is used by people outside the USA who are on the fascist end of the spectrum for whom Nazi or fascist symbols are too extreme (or just illegal) in their countries.

To be fair its global (eg.US and Hungary). Fascism always has been (eg Germany and Japan)

That boat sailed with Murdoch buying out all the news companies and beaming his rags and “news” channels around the western world after he conquered Australia. He used his power to weaken laws that used to hedge against this kind of nonsense.

Adderbox76
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Like it or not, what happens in America ripples through the whole world. Doubly so in Canada because we share a very long border.

Our politicians especially tend to follow the trends that politicians down there set; to the point where we have our own little mini-DeSantis running for Prime Minister.

our own little mini-DeSantis

the one who wants to de-fund the CBC so that Canadians can consume even less Canadian news.

What’s the Canadian equivalent of Florida?

Adderbox76
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Unfortunately Saskatchewan (my province). Alberta next door is Texas, and Saskatchewan wants to be like them, but our government is far far dumber.

Our Mini-Desantis is Pierre Pollieve.

@ikidd@lemmy.world
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God, tell me about it. My mother watches Fox and gets her opinions of US politics from there with predictable results, and she’s even infected my dad with the idiocy, and he’s just a sweet guy that’s getting radicalized by that bullshit.

It’s scary to watch, I can’t imagine how people deal with this constant propaganda in the actual US.

Oh down here we mostly just cope however we can. Or get radicalized in whichever direction seems right

We cut off our families who watch Fox.

Decouple our economy and politics and then we’ll talk.

Nik282000
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Literally can not be done. Canada doesn’t manufacture enough to become self sufficient (thanks outsourcing).

Well, you don’t need total autarky. Just a way of running our major sectors over the ocean if we’re forced to.

Nik282000
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Is he afraid we are going to use it all up? If you don’t want the world watching then don’t be a godamned circus fire 24/7.

My mom was watching CNN in her bedroom to watch the trump Train wreck whenever she visited us. We cancelled our cable subscription to get rid of it and we just get OTA local news now.

Really no loss, if a big news event happens it’s still carried live here on Canadian stations.

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