Here’s a larger chunk of the Guardian article that ran this morning headed “Watching our neighbours,” and written by Jim Day:
The actual number of people residing in the province who are eligible to vote in Tuesday’s United States election is not known. About 600,000 U.S. expatriates living in Canada have registered in time to vote.
Peter Rukavina of Charlottetown is one of them.
Rukavina, who has dual Canada/U.S. citizenship, considers himself a citizen of the United States. Although he spent only the first four months of his life living in the States, the website developer is in the U.S. on business about six weeks a year.
“I consider it a duty to vote,” he said.
Rukavina said he has been following this U.S. election more closely than any in the past. He has cast his ballot by mail for Kerry, which, he said, is really more a vote against Bush.
He has concerns with Bush’s war in Iraq. He said the president seems arrogant and unwilling to listen to other opinions.
Rukavina said he has friends in the United States who say they would seriously consider moving to Canada if Bush is re-elected.
“I think they just don’t feel they can stay in a country that Bush represents,” he said.
As a result of this excerpt, Catherine received four angry telephone calls this morning from Guardian readers while I was out at the market with Oliver.
In general, I was accused by the callers — all of whom somehow assumed that venting to Catherine was reasonable in lieu of me — of being some combination of anti-God, anti-family, a draft-dodger, a university professor, or naive about the war.
While everyone is entitled to their opinion, it does seem a little much to make unsoliticed Saturday morning calls, to my partner, about political disagreements. Send me a letter. Write me an email. Disparage me on your weblog. Rent a billboard.
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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Comments
I bet you shun regular
I bet you shun regular mustard as well.
Orange is better than black.
OK, that’s kind of creepy. I
OK, that’s kind of creepy. I started writing a reply but it got a bit long-ish so I posted it to my own blog, but I’ll quote it here too:
“It’s a funny thing, because politics can be pretty heated here on PEI. We’ve not historically had any sports teams to follow so we’ve turned politics into the island passtime. But I’d not heard of someone receiving 4 angry phone calls in one morning because of their support for eiter the Liberal or Conservative parties, despite people describing themselves as life-long members of one single party. Yet the level of emotion people have invested in the American political system, with teh stark two-party divide representing two nearly-separate cultures, is so strongly-entrenched in people that it results in incidents like the one described above.
Perhaps I’m just very isolated the other way. I can’t say I’ve ever met someone who’s said they support George W. Bush. (Kayla says her parents are big into the war on ‘those people over there’ but I’ve never talked to her otherwise hilarious mom about such things.)
When someone says
Did you notice that the Bush
Did you notice that the Bush supporter owes two hundred and fifty thousand dollars (American?) in loans for his college degree. He says: “I
Is zealotry a real word?I can
Is zealotry a real word?
I can’t think of any reasons for people to vote for bush other than conviction usually reserved for religions or a simple lack of critical thinking.
I can’t figure out why he
I can’t figure out why he thinks the economy will be better after four more years of Bush. Their deficit is huge and unless they can get others to help them foot the bill for these invasions… sigh.
I’m a dual PEI/US citizen.
I’m a dual PEI/US citizen. Because of my work, I’ve not been able to vote by fax from Canada, or stay put anywhere in the US long enough to register and vote. I’ve been in New Jersey the last two weeks. I would have voted for Kerry, and my vote would have been counted in Louisiana if I hadn’t hit the road.
Bush is bankrupting the Federal government, giving the wealthy a pass on taxes. Corporate lobbyists already control every regulatory agency in the Federal Government. Now the balance of power tilts even more to the boardrooms of America. You the people are fired.
I think such behaviour
I think such behaviour outlined above by some Islanders or Island residents (presumably)is deplorable and stupid. Deplorable is readily evident, but stupid because the authors record in such things has, in the past, been less then stellar, and his support of Kerry in the election should really be celebrated by the Bush camp. Anybody remember Howard Dean? No? Yahoooooooooo-oooooo!
I hope to not be eating crow tomorrow…which I will openly admit to having done, if the unthinkable happens.
Wayne - you’re awful hard on
Wayne - you’re awful hard on Islanders sometimes.
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