BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)

Subject: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 05:47 PM

This relates to but does not strictly apply to Brexit. This article from Prospect Magazine was very interesting to me because it treats the issues going on in the UK of this moment as more self-generated than relational to Europe.
The writer is from the Netherlands and is returning there not because of Brexit but nevertheless with a severe attitude adjustment due to the bitter internal politics which are extremely class linked.

My reaction was that not having the class linkage in my American upbringing I recall it a little bit because of my long ago experience in the U.K. Also from witnessing a bit of it in these threads.

I am likewise concerned because of elements in the UK experience which I see being taken up by the United States of here and now.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 06:26 PM

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me.....

yes the middle classes won't let this one go. We're all fools or villains.

after two years, it is actually calming down a bit.

in the uk, we're weird. things that upset us are difficult for foreigners to understand, and I imagine we would have the same difficulty in a strange land.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Apr 19 - 09:50 PM

If I had the money I'd leave...

Problem is, I don't know which country I'd prefere to move to...???

Being a multi-millionaire nomad sounds appealing..
except my IBS and sciatica doen't travel well...

That's probably why I'm not a rock star...???

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 05:33 AM

this place is probably all right if you're a rock star.

interesting that the wtiter said that his parents generation liked us. My dad who was in the fighting in the low countries said the Dutch people were very warm and welcoming.

Anyway now he hates us. Can't stand it that a working class was rude and triumphalistic to broken hearted middle class people, tearstained and bereft of their beloved EU.

What can you say?
If you weren't there when Tebbit was lying that NO miners would lose their job if they went back to work. That the unenemployed were just workshy who needed to get on their bikes. When the conference hall errupted with hilarity at the tory party conference as Peter Lillie sang a parody of Gilbert and Sullivan about disabled scroungers.

Well I guess if you weren't there or have forgotten. You won't have seen real triumphalism. Triumphalism that didn't even need a triumph, as Thatch got re-elected with about 34% of the vote, time after time - and then subjected the country to the most radical right wing reforms imaginable.

Carry on loathing. All your freedoms and economic matiness with Germany was bought with English blood.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 11:46 AM

The form of classism in the US is directly related to being above or below the 10 million dollar line that divides Vassels from minor Kings. The lower dividing line are home owners, or homeless.

It is said that the truley wealthy must personally control over 50 million. Of course the ruling class are billionaires.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 12:04 PM

I'm working class by family and childhood environment..
Pseudo middle class by education,
and lowclass by social status and income...

I'd prefer to remain in Europe,
but if we must leave,
certainly don't want an exit dictated on the terms of tory right wing zealots..

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 12:45 PM

"If I had the money I'd leave..."
If I had the money I wouldn't go back - getting old has too many problems as it is
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Iains
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 12:59 PM

The UK is obviously far better off without such a negative emigre. Was it masochism drove him to Britain in the first place?

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 01:01 PM

I'm working class too. Worked for nearly 50 years. Started in the building trade and fell into computing via working shifts in a data centre. I have pulled 48 hour shifts, worked in Europe when there was little work here and spent weeks away from home living in dodgy digs to earn enough to pay for a roof over our heads and food on the table. I, and many like me, are very pro EU because we know that is the best way forward in What is becoming a fat more global economy. Nothing to do with class. Just common sense. What Al (performer, songwriter and teacher of guitar) is on about, I have no idea.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 03:15 PM


What can you say?

You could say that Leave voters were on average considerably wealthier than pro-Europeans, as well as considerably older. Xenophobes have more money to shield thenselves from the consequences of Little-Englandism as well as less years left to suffer them.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 05:09 PM

Surprised at @robomatic's idea that America doesn't have a class system. Indeed it does, and it's the most sexist place I've been (in my fairly limited travel).

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 06:26 PM

Yes Thompson I totally concur- America. certainly does have a class system, and it's become more entrenched over the years. And the opportunities to aspire to or to maintain being middle class are shrinking. When I was young, I believe that most people in the U S were middle class. There were far less poor - certainly far less homelees - and the super rich weren't t quite so rich.

As a mature adult, it seems more and more of us have the fear off being poverty stricken nipping at our heels. Years of inadequate health care and a non living wage are bruising this country. Why could a man work 40 hours 40 years ago and support a house, car,a wife and three children and a liesurely annual vacation? Why can't even two people work full time now - without needing 3 credit cards just to make ends meet?

No the class system and the impoverished are not new to America or to Europe. After all the song Streets of London was written many decades ago.

But now we seem - US and Britain- to be bound in a battle of wills between those who want to curtail and those who want to expand the open arm policy.

I wish there was a better way to communicate between this warring factions and find a common ground. Don't we really all want the same things at the end of the day?

I often feel it's hopeless - the binds grow more constructiing and the loud angry voices more vicious.

And yet I choose to believe , at least for today, that all our countries and the many good kind honest people within them will someday discover a more enlightened road to travel. This kind of progress comes slow. Civil rights, woman's rights, freedom to honor your faith or to have no faith, human rights, and the rights of our very own planet to breathe -
-is the direction we need strive towards. So much has been attained. So much more can be.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Apr 19 - 08:41 PM

I'll defend my OP in that when I was a-growin' there were less distinctions obviously drawn in the U.S. between the super-rich, the rich, the middle class,etc. There have always been 'dollar' divisions in a Capitalist environment. What the English had that we Yanks thought we were free of was 'blood' class distinctions. What I think is happening is that the dollar divisions are now great enough, what with the elimination of such things as estate taxes and the acceptance of very very high executive to worker salary rations that we have effectively instituted a locked in class system of opportunity. So now there are limited educational opportunities, the 'digital' divide, and limited access estates, not to mention private islands. And of course the current college application scandal. I think items mentioned in the essay about England are distinctly applicable to the USA. Not to mention our inequalities in access to the criminal justice system, the punishment apparatus, the healing apparatus, etc.

I think those who take personal issue with the author of the article are not being fair. I happened to be bicyling in Holland when all at once church bells began ringing out all over and overlong. Turned out it was the anniversary of liberation. The man who wrote what he wrote saw and heard what he did and wanted to show us a unique outsider's viewpoint. What he sees in the UK is among other things a culture of 'grievance' that is obstructing improvement for all and creating barriers between natural allies; it is quite the thing over here in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 03:13 AM

Its strange - how much less politically acceptable it would be to start a thread entitled

how i learned to loathe ... (virtually anywhere except England and the USA).

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 03:31 AM

'Carry on loathing. All your freedoms and economic matiness with Germany was bought with English blood.'

Not quite all of the blood was English, surely?

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 04:08 AM

No indeed. My father was in the Irish guards. the armoured division driving an Sherman tank called McGillicuddy Reeks, suplied by the much despised Americans.

Because they had become an English Tommy (another term which raises a sneer) The Irish lads were in danger when they went home on furlough.

Though of course much of that Celtic and traveller culture would have ended up in a gas chamber, if those brave Irish men had not put their own lives on the line, and in many cases lost their lives to fight for our freedom.

As you say, many people of all nations made that sacrifice to fight Hitler and wrest the control of Europe away from him.

I think that's what make the controversy of of Trump's visit so shameful. He's here in his office to honour the sacred dead. The fact that he's a total fuckwit should be irrelevant for one day. the rest of his visit - go get him!

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 04:36 AM

I love England, but i prefer to live in Ireland.Ido not like multi national capitalism whether it is english or european or american.
whoever makes a statement How I Learnt to Loathe England is as narrow minged as someone who says, How I Learnt to Loathe Germany,a xenophobic racist idiot   ,

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 06:13 AM

no one likes a narrow minge...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 10:21 AM

Speak for yourself...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 11:18 AM

The very idea that a small-minded, racist, misogynistic, lying bigot should be invited here to sit at our top table at our expense is thoroughly disgusting. And it's hubris-driven leaders like him who cause those sacred war dead to be dead in the first place, Al. Lest we forget.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 12:36 PM

okay - all the other days you devote to Trump. that one day, make it about those guys who gave us everything we have.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Iains
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 12:46 PM

There are a lot of small minded people posting on this thread. Trump represents the US. Without their help we would be part of the third Reich or having a hammer and sickle flying over our heads. Perhaps a stretch too far for the lefties!

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Mossback
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 01:17 PM

What the English had that we Yanks thought we were free of was 'blood' class distinctions.

Well, the Yanks thought wrong.

Trump represents the US.

He represents infantile hubris, idiocy, racism, felony, obstruction of justice, organized crime, treason, misogyny, white supremacy, greed, immorality, mendacity and a host of other undesirable qualities.

The U.S., not so much

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 02:42 PM

Don't forget Trump represents god..

He is an angel sent down by the lord to save mankind...

.. gota love/fear USA religious nutters...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 09:44 PM

He's certainly a strange man. Do you remember when Hillary Clinton was making speeches and he was stalking round the stage behind her - pretending he was smouldering with rage, and looked about to attack her.

I have never seen anything like that outside a kids playground.

Some weird people in the Republican Party - voting for behaviour like that.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Apr 19 - 09:53 PM

I kept wishing she'd turn around fast. I think he reaction might've been entertaining. And as for being part of the Third Reich, It often seems like he's modeling his presidency on Hitler. White nationalism, inspiring fear, hatred, and continuously scapegoating people who call him out.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 09:01 AM

To get back to the OP, "How I learnt to loathe England," how can a person loathe an entire country?

As a geologist, I think it's ridiculous to say "England" when the author is actually referring to the humans who live in England. England is a land, with fields, cities, mountains, rivers and even occasional earthquakes. Humans are small features (usually no more than 2 meters high) who dot the surface.

But such as they are, those humans are numerous and multifarious. It's ridiculous to claim to loathe all of them.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 09:12 AM

So, presumably, the OP is OK with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland then?
Or is he/she one of those ignorant people who doesn’t understand that those parts of The United Kingdom aren’t ‘England’?

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 10:36 AM

"I think it's ridiculous to say "England" when the author is actually referring to the humans who live in England"
Started to say that earlie Leenia, but thought it would be lost on the people it was aimed at - like the feller who thinks that not to be successful is to be deficient and to be pitied
The British people have a lot to be proud of, not least their tolerance in putting up with those who are supposed to Govern them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 10:54 AM

"It's ridiculous to claim to loathe all of them."

we all agree, folks who make such sweeping generalisations are all a bunch of idiots...

.. oh.. errrrrrmm...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 11:34 AM

i remember a teacher once saying to me , this school would be alright if it weren't for the kids.

England would be great without the English.

you've got to admit, there's a certain logic....

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 11:41 AM

Perhaps the main reason the English are so anti immigration
is because people from other parts of the world tend to be more attractive
than the flabby blotchy pasty faced indiginous population...

Bloody foreigners coming over here being better looking than us...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 12:13 PM

i think, considering we're supposed to anti -immigrant - we seem to have had a lot more immigrants than all those wonderfully enlightened places.

in fact, i'd say the absorption of people from other countries is a fairly ingrained part of our culture.

we used to be very dismissive and judgemental about Germany's gastarbeiter status of immigrants. This was aperiod whe we had a very open door to immigrants from Commonwealth countries.

theres a lot of countries who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk when it comes to this.

i live near a small port and the arrival of illegal immigrants in small boats is a fairly open secret. never discussed at at national level, and presumably going on at every small port, particularly where government cutbacks have closed the harbourmaster and customs office.

Still the subject won't be debated sensibly. The ones who like to think of themselves as left wing see no problem, because acknowledging a problem would require a response other than abuse, and the wealthy right wingers want cheap labour, and their lives aere not impacted in any way.

a bit like the snotty bastard who wrote that article.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 12:31 PM

Drinkers in my local cider social club were openly anti Polish years before it became trendy..

They seemed to work out for themeslves
that if they transfered their traditional skin colour based prejudice
to a a white substitute,
they could get away with it more freely in public
and avoid being called racists..

Of course they still didn't like black/brown people, but they learnt to keep that to a hush...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 12:45 PM

well actually....keeping your gob shut and not being rude is a significant move in the right direction.

its a start.

and as Joey says in The Commitments - I believe in starts!

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 01:01 PM

Al - Small first steps in the right direction.......

..even if initially for the wrong reasons..

Any progress is better than none.. life will never be perfect.....


atm.. I'm getting my hands dirty talking to right wingers in comments on youtube..
Am I getting anywhere with 'em.. not really..
but at least they are cutting down on the insults and being more civil with me...

On line I'm not at risk of getting glassed, or my head cracked against a pub urinal..

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 08:19 PM

Sometimes you gotta go with the symbol you got.

President Kennedy initiated the U.S. Moon landing project, which culminated in 1969 with the famous landing where the astronauts got to talk publicly with President...Richard Nixon. I wasn't crazy about it, but it was the way it was, and represented if nothing else, continuity.

I take Al's comment that for the duration of the commemorations, the Current Occupant (Trump) represents an ally over generations. The rest of the time our currently failing and bemused and confused democracies can do as they wilt,,,which of course is watch "Game of Thrones."

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Apr 19 - 08:21 PM

PFR Holy Hounddog 'head cracked against a pub urinal'??????

You guys play rough!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Allan Conn
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 02:29 AM

"So, presumably, the OP is OK with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland then?
Or is he/she one of those ignorant people who doesn’t understand that those parts of The United Kingdom aren’t ‘England’?"

The writer says at the start that only England was being talked about - and not the other parts of the UK - because the only experience was living in England and not the other parts of the UK. Not that I'm defending the actual article itself but that is the explanation for using England rather than UK or GB.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Stanron
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 02:58 AM

It's not that long since 'England' was synonymous with 'The UK'. Since the rise of Scottish Nationalism the distinction between the two names has become significant. My guess is that as the OP lived here recently he/she would have been aware of the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 03:09 AM

Yanks thought we were free of was 'blood' class distinctions

Hmmmm. Bushes? Hollywood royalty? Just look at the actors/directors/etc - the percentage of progeny in the profession.   Money talks, and it favours the sons and daughters.

And look at the hero worship of the likes of Michael Jackson ie. It baffles those inured in the British class system, (both of which which are about accumulated wealth and how it enables future generations).

Don't forget Trump represents god..

REPRESENTS? REPRESENTS? Are you going to break the bad news to the orange deity or shall I?

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 03:30 AM

Careful, Mr Red - I have it on good authority that Trump was “Aa-a-ww-dained baa-a-ahh Ga-a-ad” to be the POTUS! He’s “Ga-a-ad’s personal representative on Earth” (allegedly)!

Yep, said by a big, fat, red-faced American direct to me through my TV. It must be true!

The mind boggles...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 04:56 AM

England is a fine country. Its just a pity that it is full of the English.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Jos
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 07:32 AM

"England would be great without the English." "England is a fine country. Its just a pity that it is full of the English."

I've often heard these comments before, but always about France and the French. Usually from people who go to France because they enjoy the food - produced by those French people they would be happy to banish. Do they believe that France is still rightfully part of England (and should belong to the English crown and be full of the people of England, who are so disliked by some posters to this thread)?

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 07:54 AM

I thought the French were just a dismal bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys who can't cook vegetables and who are so jealous of the Brits that they never vote for us in the Eurovision Song Contest...

(Please can we have a thread dedicated to expressions of sheer naked prejudice...?)

I'll get me coat...

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 08:09 AM

An Englishman, An Englishman, An Englishman, went into a pub...

because they don't let in foreigners...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: peteglasgow
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 11:33 AM

an englishman, an irishman and a scot went into an auberge. they all had to leave though because the englishman wanted to.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 19 - 01:40 AM

'an englishman, an irishman and a scot went into an auberge. they all had to leave though because the englishman wanted to.'

yes out of common courtesy, the guy paying the bill chooses the venue.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 30 Apr 19 - 02:45 AM

That would be the guy from the City of London. Who doesn't want to leave.

Subject: RE: BS: How I Learnt to Loathe England (article)
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 30 Apr 19 - 03:12 AM

And the Scot and the Irishman may decide to go find their own accommodations.