US Invades Canada

July 12th, 2007

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The Announcement

After Monica put the pie down, she went off to hang out with some of her cousins, and Andrea wandered over to the soft drinks. The reporter caught up with her and offered her one. “Thanks,” she said. “I hope this assignment hasn't been too boring for you.”
“Let's just say I'm glad you haven't thrown any punches at me,” he said, smiling a perfect smile with perfect teeth. The slight afternoon breeze didn't so much as stir one hair on the helmet of his coiffure. “I've been through a lot worse assignments. Very few people I've covered have invited me to a 4th of July cookout.”
“Well, we're neighborly folks.” She sipped at her soda and looked him over. In spite of how much attention he obviously paid to his looks, he wasn't supernaturally handsome, but he was OK. She thought he might be more attractive if he didn't use so much hairspray; of course, the hair might be a wig. She caught herself staring a little too hard at it and said, “You know, I'm really not going to do anything very newsworthy until the actual committee meeting on Monday. If you want to go tell your bosses that, you might be able to get somebody a little more worth your time.”
“I think you're very much worth my time,” the reporter said, flashing that smile again. Boy, is he full of himself, she thought, mentally rolling her eyes. “You're working on something that's the most historic event in human history. Historians are going to want to know what you were doing every minute before the probe was brought in. And right now, you're my exclusive.”
She shrugged. “OK. Just remember that I told you you could get a better assignment.” She turned to look at her Aunt Hettie, who walked over and smiled at the two of them.
“Is this your new young man, Andi?” Aunt Hettie extended a hand out to the reporter. “Hettie Lowery. I'm Andi's aunt, on her mother's side.”
The reporter shook her hand and introduced himself. “Gary Lance. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lowery, but I'm actually covering Doctor Ross for the news.”
“Oh, really?” Aunt Hettie adjusted her hair and hat to make herself more presentable. “Is there a camera around?”
“I believe my cameraman is over there with the food right now,” Lance said, pointing at the table with the largest crowd of people. “But, we'll probably need some shots of Doctor Ross's family later on.” He leaned over and whispered, “We'll let you know.”
“You do that,” she said, smiling broadly and waving her hand at him. She kissed Andrea on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “He's all right, for a white boy. Better-looking than Monica's father.”
“Aunt Hettie,” Andrea said reproachfully, even though she had to agree. Vince had been possessed of a lot of good qualities, but dashing good looks weren't among them. Not that the reporter was Brad Pitt, but...
“Well, I'm going off to see Millie and them,” Aunt Hettie said. “Pleased to meet you, Gary.” She extended her hand again, and Lance shook it gently.
As Aunt Hettie walked off, Lance asked, “So, do you have a 'new young man', as she said?” His smile turned a little smirky. “I hate to be all gossipy, but I'm sure the historians will want to know.”
Andrea looked ruefully after her aunt. “Hettie is the kind of relative who's always trying to matchmake. But, no, I don't have a 'young man' at the moment. My daughter's father and I divorced about three years ago, and I don't really have the time to date much.” She thought she detected a little glimmer of something in his eye when she said that, but didn't think about it too much.
“That's too bad. You're an attractive woman; obviously highly intelligent; not to mention very polite. You're a real catch.” He grinned at her over his soda. “And that's not even adding in the whole discovering-alien-probe thing.”
“I didn't discover it,” she said, almost automatically. She'd been saying that quite a few times the last few weeks. “I just led the team that confirmed it.”
“Modest, too.”
“I don't like to take credit that rightfully belongs to others. There's plenty to go around here.”

In 2009, TV networks ran episode three of So What If?. The Russian sailor's mutiny at Kronstadt spreads like wildfire to the German, British and French bases at Heligoland Bight, Scapa Flow and Mers El-Kebir. Years later, Trotsky confesses that Socialism in One Country would never have succeeded. Bolshevik High Command was committed to World Communism, and as Karl Marx had foreseen, Capitalism would destroy itself from within.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

"It is only a beginning, always. The young must know it; the old must know it. It must always sustain us,...
Nixon	".. because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. " ~ Final televised Address to the Nation from the Oval Office on January 17, 1977.
President

Rationalising his narrow escape from censure over the Watergate Scandal during the critical period July – November 1973. On July 13, 1973, Donald Sanders, the Assistant Minority Counsel, asked Alexander Butterfield (Deputy Assistant to the President) if there were any type of recording systems in the White House. Butterfield answered falsely that there was no system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office. The shocking revelation that there was such as system emerged during the Carter Presidency and radically transformed the historical view of the crisis – but by then, it was too late with the tapes long since removed from the White House. Public reaction was still hostile with protestors standing along the sidewalks outside the White House holding signs saying "HONK TO IMPEACH," and hundreds of cars driving by honking their horns. Allegations of wrongdoing prompted Nixon famously to state "I am not a crook" in front of 400 startled Associated Press managing editors at Walt Disney World in Florida on November 17, 1973. Much like the famous Chequers Speech of twenty years before, Nixon succeeded in cauterising the wound with a direct appeal based upon his personal integrity. Ultimately, the American public's respect for the Presidency was again exploited by Trick Dicky to pull off yet another incredible escape. A transcript of Nixon's speech is described at the History Place

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 2010, the Skip Zone dissipates around the HARC II site in Alaska's White Mountains. Operatives have already terminated the powerful beam of high-frequency electro-magnetic energy entering the ionosphere and the episode is over. From the highest peak in North America, the “high ones” of Mount Denali reflect on their most necessary of interventions. The Anglos had caused trouble before, unquestionably, and naming the Mountain after McKinley being particularly disrespectful. But threatening to destroy the Turtle Island was a new escalation. Incredibly, General Ben Crewe was being congratulated for the counter-intuitive achievement of personal sacrifice in order to save lives. Perhaps this event was, finally, the episode that required direct intervention by the “high ones”.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

"Max" Aitken	In 1942, the catastrophic State Visit to the Irish Isles ended to the great relief of Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and many others. As he boarded a plane back to the United States, the 32nd American President Winston S. Churchill managed to fit one further gaffe in. Questioned about his personal commitment to the statement “Something ..
.. has to be done”, reporter William Maxwell "Max" Aitken noted Churchill's' response “The Americans will always do the right thing...after they've exhausted all the alternatives.”.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1973, a fire destroyed the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States. The arsonists were E. Howard Hunt, John Paisley inter alia members of the White House Special Investigations Unit known simply as the Plumbers. Of course not all the records were destroyed, the Plumbers made ..	National Archiv..
.. off with a number of sensitive documents which were successfully used by Richard M Nixon to blackmail the establishment and forestall moves to impeach him. Most powerful of all, an inventory report from Japanese General Otozoo Yamada's Bacteriological weapons research in Unit 731 of experimental substances handed to General Douglas MacArthur in 1945. On page three was listed the young Chinese known simply as X, a carrier of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Jewish Ghetto i..	In 2006, Haganah initiates Operation True Promise. Katyusha rockets and mortars were fired at Palestinian military positions and border villages, diverting attention from another Haganah unit that crossed the border, kidnapping two Palestinian soldiers and killing ..
.. three others. President Abbas was forced to send the Palestinian Defense Force in Southern Lebanon, to eliminate the Jewish terrorists and the Christian militias who were their accomplices. As Jewish Ghettos were destroyed in Beirut, Zionist opinion starts to turn against Haganah and the leadership of brothers Benjamin and Yonatan Netanyahu.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1812, the United States invaded Canada at Windsor, Ontario in collusion with Napoleonic forces which struck simultaneously from New France. The expulsion of Great Britain from North America was, it seemed, at hand. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington was of a different mind. The field marshal was headed towards the ..	Arthur Wellesle..
.. Americas to set the clock back to 1776 and he meant business. Today, south of the Potomac River lies the capital of the North American Union. That most English of Cities, Wellington was built from the ruins of Washington DC after August 24, 1814 when British forces burned the capital. That tragedy occurred during the most notable raid of the War of 1812 in retaliation for the sacking and burning of York (modern-day Toronto). You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, was the orthodox wisdom for this act of wanton violence by Wellesley which still besmirched his name in some sections of American society.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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