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| British Aristocrats - Why Do They Hate Us? |
| 2004-05-06 |
| EFL - (simple registration required) The Singular Life - Petronella Wyatt ... But most of our notions about the South come from old romances and films such as The Virginian. We deplore the fact that plantation owners kept slaves and sometimes abused them, but in general we have forgiven. As Disraeli rather flippantly remarked when questioned about the outcome of the civil war, âThe South will win because it has better manners.â I was inclined to agree with such assessments until I went to live in Virginia. During the four months I spent there, I found it an alien and sometimes frightening place. Middle-class whites remain polite if insular. There is always the feeling that they still long for the good old days of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. But working-class whites, those who used to be called âwhite trashâ, constitute some of the most terrifying creatures on this planet. Lynndie England and her fellow soldiers come from poor redneck backgrounds. In my limited experience, rednecks seem to live on hate. They are dirty, overweight, rude, drunken and drive (recklessly) big trucks with the Confederate flag on the bonnet. They are brought up on a deeply racist gun culture. There are probably more gun shops in Virginia than in the rest of the US put together. And in their hearts, most rednecks would like to point them at a coloured person. They still blame freedom of the slaves for their impoverished lives. Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to the average Virginian would be for their daughters to take up with people they still call niggers. This is the world Lynndie England has lived in all her life. Iraqis are regarded as no better than blacks, their ancient traditions dismissed as savagery. Whenever I argued for more understanding with regard to the âpeaceâ, I was met with stares usually reserved for child-killers. There is no respect for foreign cultures in rural Virginia. No one would bother to read about them anyway. If any literature is perused, it is the local gun manual. This cocktail of disrespect, violence and ignorance is a lethal one for Iraq. Obviously, the US army has to take what it can, but, if anyone had asked recruits like Miss England for their opinions of Iraqis, they might have thought twice about sending them overseas. Actually, I feel sorry for Lynndie England. She stood no chance in a Middle Eastern war zone. The fault lies not with her but with her world. Her world of stolen pigs and turkeys roasted on the roadside, of callous beliefs and revanchism. Very few young women in present-day Virginia grow up to be Southern belles; they grow up to be harridans who, given the opportunity, take their grievances out on helpless people with dark skins. The South once had a veneer of glamour and civilisation. Sadly, it has it no longer. Why do I have the impression that Ms. Wyatt recently received a âDear Petâ letter from a fat, dirty, fast-drivinâ, pig-stealinâ, turkey-roastinâ Virginian? |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #56 Lynndie England is from West Virginia, not Virginia. It is not matter of distancing oneself from the woman since 2 of the people implicated in the abuses were from Virginia. This is a matter of accuracy. If Ms.Wyatt could not get this one fact of England's ancestry correct, then it calls into question the other 'facts' in her article. After all, Ms. Wyatt herself said she lived in Virginia for 4 months -- don't you think she could have learned a little geography? That shouldn't have been too hard for a 1989 graduate of UCL with a history degree. Ms. Wyatt apparently enjoys belittling people for a living. I imagine she doesn't have fan clubs in Cornwall or Hartlepool either since she dumped on them too. At least she hates people on both sides of the Atlantic. Needless to say, I am a Virginian from birth with ancestors living here beginning in 1741. I guess Ms. Wyatt would also hold that against me since she probably still regards me as an uncouth colonist. 'Stolen pigs and turkeys roasted on the roadside' are not, to my knowledge, Virginia traditions. It seems that commentators of the chatty elite on both sides of the Atlantic enjoy painting with a broad brush. It is the 'in' thing to unfairly stereotype people, and it pays the bills too. I was tempted to respond to Ms. Wyatt's comments regarding Virginia women and harridans, but that would have been way too easy. To borrow from Disraeli, being a Virginian, and a Southerner, I have better manners. |
| Posted by: Dave 2004-05-10 11:02:14 AM |
| #55 I mispelled Shakespeare - so much for my credibility. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-07 2:35:20 AM |
| #54 Bulldog, I have been an outsider looking in many different cultural situations. For three and a half years I lived in rural Eastern North Carolina where it took me six months or so before I could understand what several of my employees were saying on the first listen. I lived another year in rural Kentucky where one of my neighbors tried to convince me for a half an hour that the folks on the other side of the river in Ohio were somehow different and inferior to "Briars." I imagine that there are skinheads and Klansmen of one kind or another in most cultures on the face of the earth. In my experience social ignorance seems to evaporate where humans are challenged by being thrown in social situations where they are the outsider or where all are the outsider. It is an uncommon person that can make it through boot camp with internal racism unchallenged. This woman soldier is totally responsible for her own actions and the damage she did to the team that is the United States Military through her own immature depravity. Military service itself provides the type of challenge and discipline that should have made the actions of these morons unlikely. Strong leadership from junior officers and senior enlisted should have prevented this revolting behavior from becoming more than a stupid idea in some bozo's head. If the writer of this article truly lived where she did and missed the honor, caring, friendship, generosity and work ethic that you find in rural or industrial America that is strictly her problem. She certainly would have had a similar experience with blue-collar folks in Manchester, Santiago, Alexandria or Lima. If this condescending person remains convinced that this woman should get a free pass because she is culturally deprived than why would this type of disgusting display of inhuman behavior not be the norm in rural America. I would think that many Jordies(sp?) would feel quite a local North Carolina bar watching NASCAR- that is not where the problem lies. The problem is that the writer of this article would feel all to comfortable in a group of our homegrown Tranzi's as they belittled honest blue-collar folk from either country as the group of snobs snootily ate a chicken dinner with the correct utensils. respectfullly, Super Hose - Andover graduate Dorito eater Fan of William Shakespear and the Cleveland Browns |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-07 2:33:39 AM |
| #53 Lucky, The words you are looking for are "prats" and "wankers". |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-05-07 1:38:53 AM |
| #52 I know it's late but I've read the thread with much amusement. And all I can say is your all a bunch of evil monsters. There I said it, all total jerks and masterbaters. Just kidding. What another great day at Rantburg. I have nothing but great respect for our UK bros. They are us, they just arn't us. Like Canadiens, who are cool just jerks and masterbaters, nope, take that back, my bad. I've had the opportunity to see all aspects of UK folk. There was Ms Bush who lived next door to me in Felixstowe, a vet of the London bombings too my mates on the church basketball team (bunch of ball hogging chumps) to Lord Tollemache who opened his 1000 year old house to my mom, dad and myself (place had a drawbridge that Lord Tolly said had been raised every night since the time of conquest). But as to the remark about our southron bros. Please! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-05-07 12:43:44 AM |
| #51 Of course, Alistair Cooke became an American, which shows great taste. Wasn't Mel Gibson's first big movie Gallipoli? He's always been anti-English. As an old joke goes, âThe acute Angles went north, and the obtuse Angles went south.â One English television series that this situation reminds me of was the 1980 short series, An Englishman's Castle, an alternate history story. If anyone knows where I can find a tape or DVD, please let me know. Mark Steyn in a recent column reminds us that while the English have forgotten everything they learned about their experiences in Iraq and the Middle East, common US soldiers have been studying their history. Ms. Wyatt is a blind prig. I just hope she isn't too influential. Still, I hope Lynndie England and her fellow soldiers get hammered, and that the publicity does not derail their trials. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2004-05-07 12:21:27 AM |
| #50 A society which can produce men such as Alistaire Cooke cannot be all bad, heh. This is a family spat, which is why it got so testy, instigated by an outsider with pretentions of grandeur. Petronella should be ridden out of town on a rail for trying to stir up trouble amongst the cousins. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-05-06 11:33:37 PM |
| #49 Zhang--well said! Ike never made a bigger mistake and we're still paying for it. If Nasser had done an Allende in 1956 the West would have had a LOT fewer problems from Arab terrorists. It was Suez followed by De Gaulle's capitulation in Algeria that got them thinking they could play with the big boys. Back on topic: Petronella Wyatt is not British aristocracy: she's an import of Hungarian manufacture. |
| Posted by: mac 2004-05-06 11:20:04 PM |
| #48 Let me state for the record that I am no Anglophobe - where I used to think "inside every Canadian is an American struggling to get out", I now think this of the average Briton. I also think that Eisenhower's betrayal of France, Israel and the UK during the Suez crisis was one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes* of the modern era. That single act led to France and Britain pulling back from their colonial possessions all over the world, necessitating American involvement to fill the power vacuum. It was nothing short of a disaster - Eisenhower should have left the petty alliance squabbles of WWII behind and supported that joint effort. * Another instance of punishing your friends and rewarding your enemies. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 11:06:00 PM |
| #47 Alan Rickman was a great villian by no longer. By Grapthars Hammer, by the sons of Mog... |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-05-06 8:32:01 PM |
| #46 Bulldog-- Maybe you never got to see the episode of "Saturday Night Live" over there when Jeremy Irons guested. There was a skit that kind of mocked Americans' fascination with upper-class British accents. A group of women cornered him and made him say things like "I am not good enough for you." Y'know, the usual things guys say when they are breaking up with a woman. The whole joke was that it wasn't any more believable coming from him, it just sounded better with that accent. What can I say.....hearing Alan Rickman spout off about an evil plan just sounds so much more, well, cool/sexy/dangerous than hearing any American actor say the exact same thing to this Yank. Take it as a compliment! |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-05-06 8:20:18 PM |
| #45 Gibson was only using dramatic license to emphasize the difference between the good and the bad guys. (And the English really did draw and quarter William Wallace - a process in which he was hanged, and while alive, emasculated, his guts removed through his anus and his heart removed while still beating and the whole mess burned before him.) That was the zakat in those days, treason doth never prosper etc... I doubt William Wallace treated suspected traitors any more humanely, certainly Robert de Bruce didn't (hmmmm, a certain incident in Greyfriars Abbey in Drunfries does spring to mind.) Edward was a vicious but effective mediaeval politician, as were Wallace & de Bruce, and do you realy think they were fighting for 'the people'? AFAIK a lot of the Scotish Aristos sided with Edward cos they prefered the idea of a distant king king in London to a nearby king in Edinburgh. |
| Posted by: Dave (UK) 2004-05-06 7:05:37 PM |
| #44 Bulldog: You mean American cinema audiences are really sniggering behind their popcorn every time Rickman , Irons etc. strike their sinister poses and sneer menacingly at the camera?! They'd be devastated if they knew. You got that right - these guys are like the neo-Nazi villains in the Sum of All Fears - politically-correct stand-ins for really dangerous people. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 7:05:20 PM |
| #43 ZF, Columbine: that's "documentary" with full scare quotes, if you please. Both contain elements of propaganda, it's just that Gibson's is less overtly political. Did you know that many people credited Braveheart, at the time, with precipitating demands for Scottish devolution and a separate Scottish parliament?! That's arguably a bigger real-world influence than the overt political tub-thumping of Michael Moore has yet achieved. No American thinks of Brits as villains You mean American cinema audiences are really sniggering behind their popcorn every time Rickman , Irons etc. strike their sinister poses and sneer menacingly at the camera?! They'd be devastated if they knew. Cthulhu Akbar, Sir, with such impeccable manners must be a Southern gent... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 7:00:00 PM |
| #42 BigEd: Mel Gibson's portrayal of Robert Brus, future King of Scotland, in Braveheart makes him wishy-washy too. Dramatic license - the whole point of Braveheart was that the Scottish nobility were too cowardly / greedy to fight. The reality is that they had no problem fighting - under Robert the Bruce's banner. But when you're making a film about William Wallace as the hero, it wouldn't do to have Robert the Bruce upstaging him. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 6:54:21 PM |
| #41 Our friends in Britain should keep in mind that many Americans (including my humble self) regard Hollywood as a hive of scum and villainy rivalled only by Madison Avenue, Berkeley, and Paris on the global scale of depravity. Witness, for example, the prominence of various Hollywood |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-06 6:54:17 PM |
| #40 Mel Gibson's portrayal of Robert Brus, future King of Scotland, in Braveheart makes him wishy-washy too. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-06 6:40:33 PM |
| #39 Mel Gibson does seem to have it in for the English. Not sure why, but I do know that his crazy father moved the family to Oz because he interpreted the assassination of South Vietnam's Catholic President, Ngo Dinh Diem, as proof that the US was waging an anti-Catholic war in Vietnam. The old fool said that he didn't want his sons to fight in a war against Catholicism. The problem of course is that the enemy in Vietnam were also Diem's enemies and he was disposed of for corruption and incompetence, not for being on the other side. It is also worth noting that Australia was heavily involved in Vietnam at the time of the Diem assassination and, like the US, it eventually sent draftees to fight there. Conclusion: Mel's dad is, and has always been, as crazy as a march hare and some of this may have rubbed off on Mel himself. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-06 6:40:18 PM |
| #38 Bulldog: Michael Moore uses dramatic licence to paint the good guys and the bad guys with buckets of black and white paint. Mel Gibson was doing a historical romance. Michael Moore was filming a documentary. There's a difference. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 6:40:03 PM |
| #37 Bulldog: And why are so many of the Hollywood bad guy characters Brits, huh? Alan Rickman gets the dollars, the rest of us get the bum rap. Because Brits are good sports, great actors (in English, no less) and don't take offense. Above all, Hollywood is politically-correct and focused on the bottom line. If Brits were to start making death threats, periodically delivered upon, and the British government decided to deny access to Hollywood films featuring villains with British accents, Hollywood would stop doing this. No American thinks of Brits as villains - these are roles that could be played by anyone else, but are portrayed with the most dash and style by British actors. On top of this, Britain is a nation of good sports, unlike Koreans, for example - recall the ruckus over every facet of the Bond film. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 6:38:55 PM |
| #36 Gibson was only using dramatic license to emphasize the difference between the good and the bad guys Yeah, in precisely the same way that Michael Moore uses dramatic licence to paint the good guys and the bad guys with buckets of black and white paint. Do you think that sort of punishment was an exclusively English thing at that time? Of course not! Gibson's Braveheart is woefully inaccurate anti-English propaganda. I can't comment on Patriot as I haven't seen it. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 6:35:44 PM |
| #35 And why are so many of the Hollywood bad guy characters Brits, huh? Alan Rickman gets the dollars, the rest of us get the bum rap. 'cuz we like our evil masterminds to be cool, intelligent, and refined. A British accent is a Hollywood shortcut for refinement. Hell, take the dumbest British guy you can find, and a lot of Americans will think he knows stuff just because of the accent. |
| Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar 2004-05-06 6:34:27 PM |
| #34 Anny E. - See may remarks in #4 |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-06 6:29:55 PM |
| #33 One of my secret pleasures is to enjoy a good laugh everytime I hear an self-proclaimed enlightened person tell me how they look down on "Southerners", "conservatives" or "Christians" or "Republicans" because they are all bigots and ignorant fools. Anyone who condemns large swaths of "theys" is condemning themselves as a bigot and ignorant fool - they are just to foolish to realise it. |
| Posted by: Anny Emous 2004-05-06 6:26:10 PM |
| #32 Okay, so I'm a shill for Masterpiece Theater. |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-05-06 6:25:20 PM |
| #31 Jen, sounds like good times. I had a friend at Christchurch College a few years ago, finishing medicine. I don't live a million miles from Oxford at the moment, but I used to go and visit him quite frequently. Still go occasionally for a punt on the Isis or a few pints in the town. ...We know your film industry doesn't (think Braveheart.) Indeed. The number of people who take that ahistorical abomination seriously is amazing. Do you think we think Michael Moore exemplifies how America looks at itself? And why are so many of the Hollywood bad guy characters Brits, huh? Alan Rickman gets the dollars, the rest of us get the bum rap. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 6:24:51 PM |
| #30 Bulldog, squabbling aside, I highly recommend both the book and the TV version of "Piece of Cake". It was done in the late 80's (?), and is superbly written and superbly adapted to the screen. In fact, I think I may just go online and order the video... Thanks for bringing that up, Zhang ! PS. One of the main characters is a Yank who brings practical experience from the Spanish Civil War and teaches the Brits how really to fight the Luftwaffe -- but don't let that put you off ! |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-05-06 6:22:41 PM |
| #29 Dave (UK): We know your film industry doesn't (think Braveheart.) Mel Gibson is a special case - he's got a thing about Brits*, and he's not really American, anyway - being brought up in Australia has done things to him. * With Patriot and Braveheart, Gibson was only using dramatic license to emphasize the difference between the good and the bad guys. (And the English really did draw and quarter William Wallace - a process in which he was hanged, and while alive, emasculated, his guts removed through his anus and his heart removed while still beating and the whole mess burned before him. A straight-up hanging was a big improvement, from a human rights standpoint, upon these draconian measures). I can't really believe the average American would believe that British forces actually burned American churches with civilians inside them, any more than the average Brit would believe that an American can walk into a bank and walk out with a gun (Bowling for Columbine). |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 6:15:17 PM |
| #28 Bulldog, I lived in Oxford at Queen's College during the summer of 1978--ah, what a magical time! My bestest friends were my scout, who loaned me her radio and a teakettle (this is like a dorm housekeeper to Americans) and my English love Kevin, who worked in the college buttery. Best. Lover. Ever. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-06 6:00:19 PM |
| #27 Beyond that, The Spectator is a narrow circulation pub (about 60k paid readers)with limited relevance to British political and cultural life. You'd get a more realistic appraisal of the Brits from browsing Roger's Profanisaurus. Exactly, this is one individual writing in one magazine with limited circulation. Does every single newspaper & magazine in the USA present a consistently positive & upbeat portrayal of the Brits? We know your film industry doesn't (think Braveheart.) Sheesh, Petronella's just an arsehole letting off steam, she doesn't deserve this much attention. |
| Posted by: Dave (UK) 2004-05-06 5:58:58 PM |
| #26 ZF: It sounds to me as though the 'type' you've dealt with are the old school boys. Ex-pats? LOL Yep, I can see where the chocks away! and back in time for elevenses! impressions come from. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 5:55:36 PM |
| #25 Bulldog: Forget the plot for a moment - ask yourself a question: was it fact, or fiction? Dude, you're missing the point. I know who the Brits I've dealt with are like. For those who don't encounter Brits in their day-to-day lives, I'm pointing to "Piece of Cake" as an example of the kind of things they get up to. (It's actually a dramatization of a book by Derek Robinson, for those who are interested). They're perfectly nice people, but there's that chip on their collective shoulders - call it loss of empire, loss of prestige, whatever - the whole attitude is that they always did it better than those boorish Americans, who are lucky more than anything else. Wyatt's polemic is just an extended rant on that theme. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 5:39:39 PM |
| #24 ZF: I can tell you my own experience of the day that Air France Concorde went down was that the number of people who found the crash and loss of life anything less than tragic, was zero. I find it impossible to believe that an entire trading floor burst out into spontaneous hysterical laughter upon hearing that news. I'm inclined to believe your friend was exaggerating for effect, or not telling the whole story. Perhaps the first gallows humour jokes were doing the rounds. Maybe that's not an American custom? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 5:39:03 PM |
| #23 In my experience, I have found most Brits not only as common as dirt but dirtier than dirt. Good grief! All nations have their good and bad sides. It looks like you guys have simply run into (oddly enough, just) the bad side. Iâve seen both. E.g., as a young lad, I was severely traumatized by a classmate who mercilessly tormented me that I couldnât spell simple words like colour (which I had the misfortune of spelling as I was taught, c-o-l-o-r). She was quite insistent, which hurt my feelings terribly. OTOH, some of my best memories are of another British, âAuntâ Burry, who plainly told me the girl was just being âplain silly.â |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-05-06 5:36:39 PM |
| #22 Bulldog, I've always assumed BlackAdder Goes Forth to be a nice peak into British culture. ;^) |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-05-06 5:28:34 PM |
| #21 Jen - Strawberry blonde! I'm glad you enjoyed your times in England! Sorry to hear you had to live in Oxford for a while - was that recently? It's really gone downhill in the last decade or three. ZF: Forget the plot for a moment - ask yourself a question: was it fact, or fiction? Deb: Thanks for sharing your wisdom. ZF and Deb: I suspect you might find the truth about British character is that most of us are actually somewhere in between Masterpiece Theatre (whatever that is) and Piece of Cake. Hard to imagine, I know, but I'm sure it's true. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 5:26:15 PM |
| #20 Bulldog: The trading floor bust out into hysterical laughter? Do you really believe that happened? Bullshit. True story. My best buddy (from Noo Joisey) attests to it - he was there. Maybe they were laughing out of relief that no Brits were killed, but he'd been working there long enough - 5 years - to recognize it for what it was. OK - you can't tar an entire nation with the bloodymindedness of a few, but I have encountered enough Wyatt clones to conclude that her personality type is not uncommon in the UK. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 5:21:41 PM |
| #19 No need to get all wrapped round the axle folks. Petronella Wyatt is a notorious lightweight. She makes Maureen Dowd seem like a journalistic giant by comparison. The Spectator has got a reasonable history. But it has taken a sickening swerve to the left under Boris Johnson and Miss Wyatt. The only consistently good things left are Theodore Dalrymple and Mark Steyn. Expect a stinging slap down from Steyn in short order--though he may need to publish it on his own blog. Beyond that, The Spectator is a narrow circulation pub (about 60k paid readers)with limited relevance to British political and cultural life. You'd get a more realistic appraisal of the Brits from browsing Roger's Profanisaurus. |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2004-05-06 5:18:16 PM |
| #18 Zhang Fei is correct - Brits in no way resemble what you see on Masterpiece Theatre. In my experience, I have found most Brits not only as common as dirt but dirtier than dirt. |
| Posted by: Deb 2004-05-06 5:14:22 PM |
| #17 Bulldog: Um, I don't remember that particular (apparently factually challenged) TV series, but I'm guessing it was some Second World War drama involving moustaches, lots of evil snarling huns and swooning strawberry-blondes in flowery summer dresses. Actually - no. They spent most of their time shooting each other down (in words and in the air), and being ambushed by other British squadrons and German units alike. Which may have been what happened. But I thought it was anachronistic because it may have overdone the class warfare angle. A people at war can't possibly have the energy to spend all their time sniping at each other. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 5:14:21 PM |
| #16 "Um, I don't remember that particular (apparently factually challenged) TV series, but I'm guessing it was some Second World War drama involving moustaches, lots of evil snarling huns and swooning strawberry-blondes in flowery summer dresses. Strikes me as the perfect sort of material with which to aquaint yourself with a national character and counter crude national stereotypes! Just the ticket, by jingo!" Loved this! Can a ginger-haired Yank-ette play, Bulldog? Having lived in England twice, once in Oxford where the UC types are pretty thick (wink, wink) on the ground, I've found that Brits from all classes can be pretty terrific to know! 'Course I'm from Texas and even though we're from one of the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing states, they don't hold it against us! (The show Dallas helped a lot, as did the rep of the Dallas Cowboy football team. That and the fact that Maggie Thatcher's son married a common, but rich Texas girl and lived here in Dallas. I even saw Maggie and Dennis once when they were here visiting. Y'all come!) But I found most British people, even the Upper Class ones, absolutely charming! |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-06 5:09:27 PM |
| #15 ZF: Glad you got that out of your system. Chips on shoulders, eh?! Taking things personally? LOL If you want to see what Brits are really like, check out the (anachronistic) WWII TV series about a group of RAF fighter pilots entitled "Piece of Cake" Um, I don't remember that particular (apparently factually challenged) TV series, but I'm guessing it was some Second World War drama involving moustaches, lots of evil snarling huns and swooning strawberry-blondes in flowery summer dresses. Strikes me as the perfect sort of material with which to aquaint yourself with a national character and counter crude national stereotypes! Just the ticket, by jingo! A friend of mine who works in London mentioned this little incident - when word of the Concorde crash of several years ago first spread, the mood on the trading floor was glum - until it was discovered that the airline was French and the passengers were German - whereupon the crowd broke out into hysterical laughter. The trading floor bust out into hysterical laughter? Do you really believe that happened? Bullshit. When was the last time British football hooligans were news in the states? How many Brits have you come across who actually were soccer hooligans? You can't really object to a foreign journalists's caricature-painting nonsense when your own opinions are pretty similarly bigoted. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-05-06 4:58:28 PM |
| #14 Ms. Wyatt is being deliberately disingenuous. She writes for the Spectator and one of her columns last year described a situation in which she was mugged and nearly raped by some street thugs in London. She's throwing mud at us but she has good personal reason to know her home-grown louts are much worse. She's just toadying to the new management at the Speccie. Coward. |
| Posted by: mac 2004-05-06 4:54:35 PM |
| #13 Authoritarian clairvoyance run amok. Note the number of times this person projects the thoughts and feelings of others and generalizes about large groups. This is naked bigotry and hate speech. Inasmuch as it serves the interest of those who openly advocate the killing of all and any Americans, and the destruction of American society, it is an incitement to genocide and should be judged as such. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-06 4:39:42 PM |
| #12 I've met some good Englishters and some bad Englishters but I hates em all. We's Irish so therefore we hates em. Avtually, it's amazing to me how someone could live in the South for any length of time and come away with her perception of Southerners. I lived in Woburn, Massachusetts for 2 years and found the people there to be pretty much like the people where I grew up in Alabama. They just talked funny. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2004-05-06 4:35:22 PM |
| #11 I once had a pet pig named Petronella, until someone stole her and BBQ'ed her on the side of the road. So I know how Mr. Wyatt feels. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-05-06 4:21:31 PM |
| #10 British Aristocrats - Why Do They Hate Us? I think "hate" is too strong a word - it's more a questions why Wyatt is so contemptuous, given that British soccer thugs present a much bigger menace than any number of Southern belles. But the fact is that English soccer thugs and Southern belles, no matter how you caricature them, do not hold a candle to the Muslim fighter who shoots women and children in the head from several yards away, or mutilates enemy civilians and hangs them from bridges. I think it is for us to be contemptuous of her conspicuous inability to take things in proportion - an inability that springs from a lack of intellectual and moral rigor that continues to infest and bring discredit to the world of hack reporters. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 4:19:37 PM |
| #9 One word: Incest. |
| Posted by: Evert V. in NL 2004-05-06 4:17:47 PM |
| #8 Sorry for that -- it really should be "What a bigoted bitch". |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-05-06 4:05:33 PM |
| #7 What a racist bitch. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-05-06 4:05:04 PM |
| #6 Ah, yes, another episode of "I had this stupid romantic notion and if it's wrong, it's the fault of the people who showed me it was wrong, and not my fault for being an ignoramus in the first place." Not to mention the fact that Cinderella here would probably shake her head sadly at anyone who was so gauche as to fail to distinguish a Sunni from a Shia, an Arab from a Kurd, a Marsh Arab from one of your more dusty Arabs. And yet here she has conflated about four layers of Southern society. (Not to mention that your WV mountain folk should not be confused with your Georgia plantation society---an absolutely laughable blunder, which she has also committed.) |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-05-06 4:03:55 PM |
| #5 As someone who has worked with a few dozen Brits for the better part of a decade, let me assure you that Brits are not the people you see on Masterpiece Theater. If you want to see what Brits are really like, check out the (anachronistic) WWII TV series about a group of RAF fighter pilots entitled "Piece of Cake". A friend of mine who works in London mentioned this little incident - when word of the Concorde crash of several years ago first spread, the mood on the trading floor was glum - until it was discovered that the airline was French and the passengers were German - whereupon the crowd broke out into hysterical laughter. Many of the Brits I've met seem to either have chips on their shoulders the size of cinder blocks, or just enjoy sniping for the sake of sniping. Maybe this is why supposedly individualistic Americans work so much better in teams - they don't squabble as much or take things quite so personally. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-05-06 3:57:56 PM |
| #4 Excuse me whilst I make a comment for my rural Tennesee relatives. As they would probably say it. There's this English snooty woman. She has a strange notion of how we folks conduct our lives. I think it is a might presumptous of her to say we're all nothing but a bunch of Confederate Flag waving, gun toteing intolerant, ignorants. She is very concerned about manners, but I think she's a might short on them herself. She ought to keep her mouth shut and be concerned what's going on in her own country. I see in the paper, and yes miss fancy britches, we do read, where these Moslem folks are yapping about blowing up stuff, and you're afraid to do anything about it. So I will end here, and pass Miss Wyatt's yapping off as ignorance and racism. I don't want to think it is anything personal, yet I think it might be. If she was truly sure of herself, she wouldn't be putting down folks she didn't understand. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-06 3:54:31 PM |
| #3 The fault lies not with her but with her world. Um ... no. It is precisely this sort of drivel that has fomented so much of the modern world's malaise. I can only compare it to the almost congenital inablilty of Arab cultures to take responsibility for their acts and poverty. We all have a personal responsibility to found our beliefs upon rational and coherent reason. Removing even one iota of this obligation is an appeasement of incompetence. This is what has helped to breed up terrorism, Nazism, communism and the worst sort of crimes against humanity. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-06 3:54:07 PM |
| #2 Words bloody fail me! |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2004-05-06 3:48:04 PM |
| #1 WTF?!? This is surreal, how did Citronella Wyatt research this POS? Renting Deliverance? |
| Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar 2004-05-06 3:46:54 PM |