In his own dreamland
Book review
Dreamland, by Roy Rempel
Breakout Educational Network, 180 pages
(Canscene) The curious reasoning of neo-cons is well exhibited in Roy Rempel’s book Dreamland, a runner-up in the recently held Donner Foundation annual book awards.
Its subtitle intrigued me: How Canada’s pretend foreign policy has undermined sovereignty. I requested a review copy.
The book claims we’re heading towards being a United States protectorate instead of a partner and pins the blame on both small and large L liberals for whom the author shows contempt He deplores Canada’s respect for the United Nations and targets the Axworthy brothers, Lloyd and Tom and pollster Ian Adams, whose surveys have shown a majority of Canadians favour Canadian sovereignty and independence, are prime targets.
Rempel makes his point curiously: if we do think more independently we’d see clearly that the best future for us is partnership with the U.S. But to him partnership seems to be pretty much a game of follow-the leader
Here’s his rationalization of the “wrong” decision by Prime Minister Jean Chretien to stay out of the Iraq invasion:
“A recent UN report suggests that states are entitled to take military action if a threatened attack is considered ‘imminent’. But again, who is to judge this? In the final analysis, the interpretation of what constitutes self-defense and what encompasses imminent threats remains in the hands of individual states. Thus in 2003, the United States was able to argue that in an age of weapons of mass destruction it couldn’t afford to take the risk that Iraq at least possessed such weapons The fact that no WMDs were not found is immaterial to he perception of threat.”
Carried to a conclusipon based on such logic this is like saying that all females are in danger of violation because males possess the necessary weaponry to commit rape.
Rempel also says it’s futile to seek trading partnerships with India and China while the bulk of our trade flows to the United States. Does he not consider these areas to be growth potential?
The book is appropriately titled Dreamland. It’s Rempel himself who inhabits some sort of dreamland. Of course, since it was published earier last year, he hadn’t taken into account the blows Bush’s Republican Party took in the November election. The American people themselves have begun to speak.
Rempel obviously feels that when we surrender completely to the US in spirit, word and deed, and subscribe to their own floundering foreign policy we can enjoy more independence than we have now.
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