This is how I feel about America all the time

[blackruzsa]

Some Hark! A Vagrant, which is really close to home. Even if I know nothing about the War of 1812.

"I want to force you to feel bad about the war..."





I know how you feel, Canadian guy. I do.

Comments

[seisachtheia]

The war of 1812 was just weird. I think that's why it's ignored. Why was it being fought? Who was fighting in it? Who won? All of those questions seem to all have multiple and sometimes seemingly unrelated answers and so then you end up with the US, the UK, and Canada all trying to explain it with narratives that focus on such different aspects of it that one could be forgiven for thinking it was actually three different wars.

[q99]

Yea. It's sort of- "We lost, but to countries we (hundreds of years later) like. And it seems to have worked out well in the end."

[sinesofinsanity]

Wait, the UK remembers the war of 1812? That's a victory in and of itself!

Personally, my favourite descriptor of the War of 1812 is from TVTropes (of all places...) which states that it was glossed over because a bigger, more expensive, and ultimately more important war was being fought between the world powers of the time in Europe. The war of 1812 was technically an offshoot of the Napoleanic wars really.

I suppose most countries use a war as a defining point of their history. Canadians didn't have a war of indepedence, save for a few small scale uprisings, so we used 1812.

[flidgetjerome]

I sort of got the feeling from when the anniversary rolled around this year that the UK now considers itself to be politely remembering the War of 1812 as a Canadian thing that Britain was only tangentially involved with.

. . . Though partially I think that attitude is because Britain likes to remember the Napoleonic Wars as one long string of glorious victories and the War of 1812 sort of jars that narrative for us.

[biod]

TvTropes has some alarmingly good history pages.

[cleome45]

We already feel bad about, Kate. If you'd conquered us, my family wouldn't be shelling out 10K+ a month year for health insurance now.

There's never a damn TARDIS around when a person needs one.

[pout]

[lieut_kettch]

I'm guessing you're frustrated about how you wish more Americans knew about the Philippine-American War?

Well... the Canadians (who were fighting on behalf of the British) kinda-sorta won the War of 1812. Well, not so much win as "not lose."

We (the Philippines), on the other hand, after helping the Americans against the Spanish back in 1898, and declaring our independence from Spain "having as witness to the rectitude of our intentions the Supreme Judge of the Universe, and under the protection of the Powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United States of America," found ourselves not independent, but merely with a different set of white guys lording it over us. The equivalent of finding the French guns at Yorktown suddenly trained on the Continental Army after Washington's victory.

[blackruzsa]

Even more annoying was the fact that Spain handed us over for a large sum of money because they were losing, and would rather hand us over to another big white guy country than be shamed by natives winning over them :/

[glprime]

"The equivalent of finding the French guns at Yorktown suddenly trained on the Continental Army after Washington's victory."

Analogy win high-five ^5.

[lieut_kettch]

In my head it would go like this:

Lafayette (to Washington): Ah ahm desolate, mon ami, but Louisiana, she is looking so lonely wizhout any friends. Ah ahm theenking, maybe she could use thirteen of zem!

[glprime]

Love Kate Beaton. The accompanying drawings make this so great. "NO YOU DID NOT WIN" face is spectacular, that perfect use of her inner-child she keeps on speed dial.

Wrapping up the John Adams biography by McCullough, I was really stretching my mind to place the Quasi-War he kept referencing. "Does he mean a lead up name to the 1812 conflict? No, Adams wasn't president then. So what the hell...? Damn you, reductive public school textbooks!"

[flidgetjerome]

This doesn't actually bug me that much except when an American friend tries to get me to understand that Teddy Roosevelt is Awesome and I have to explain that his Daring Gentleman Adventurer persona isn't so great when you're on the side that got cast as the Native Savages.

It made me think about SCA

[lakrids404]

Most of us have our own blind spots

Re: It made me think about SCA

[blackruzsa]

I love the look of worry on America's face.
Admitting your blindness is one step closer to improvement, buddy.

Re: It made me think about SCA

[moetushie]

Eh, what's Denmark done for us recently?

[kazeno]

I've always been puzzled by the way people latch on to the burning of Washington. The actual deed was done by a force of British sailors and Royal Marines that landed in Maryland after sailing from England. The new feelings of Canadian national pride came from the repelling of American invasions of Ontario, which was incredibly awesome on the part of the Canadians and yet I rarely see them referenced.

Also, I think that the War of 1812 isn't as important to Americans (speaking as an American) because it hasn't come down to us as something very traumatic. DC hadn't been the capital for very long, and few people had any significant feelings about a city that was barely two decades old and even fewer had actually been to. And the burning of the White House tends to get overlooked in favor of the Battle of New Orleans, which was considered a "second revolution" by Americans of the time.

[blackruzsa]

I guess the people remember symbols more than anything, plus people are kind of dumb enough to think defending and repelling isn't as "awesome."

[halloweenjack]

Americans are taught from birth that Canada won no victory over America until William Shatner came to Hollywood. Also, it's funny-odd that Beaton chooses to represent her own country with a garden gnome.

[lascoden]

I think he's supposed to be a lumberjack, or something.

[lieut_kettch]

And he's OK.

[blackruzsa]

And he sleeps all night.

[donnblake]

Also, his phone is two tin cans tied together with string.

How does that even?

[moetushie]

Aw, I love Kate Beaton's bilingual Lumberjack. He's so nice ... Unless he gets fucked up on hockey, that is.