Let us cleave these plucky little Americans to our bosom

The Observer ^ | June 20, 2004 | Euan Ferguson

[ijcr]

The Americans now see us, apparently, as 'introverted, arrogant bores who whip children and live in perpetual rain'

All generalisations are dangerous, even this one. But the worst kind, it's often seemed, are those about nationalities.

The French as dogbreathy bed-hoppers; the Italians as pretty cowards; the Aussies as irritatingly upbeat simpletons whose definition of 'cultured' is someone who gets out the bath to have a pee; the Bulgarians as torn-faced miserly cut-throat scum who would sooner slice open their neighbour's first-born than pick up a bar of soap; the Swedes as a kindlier, sexier yet strangely more suicidal version of the Germans... lazy generalisations, pat and trite and unhelpful, unless of course you're ever planning to go, quite unaccountably, to Bulgaria.

The Americans now see us, apparently, as 'introverted, arrogant bores who whip children and live in perpetual rain'. Not just any Americans, not even Americans with a bizarre academic interest in extrapolating national characteristics from the study of 1956 postcards of Weston-super-Mare? No, these respondents, we are told by a new British Council study, are America's young 'high achievers', the coming royalty of commerce. They think David Beckham plays 'hockey', and fewer than 5 per cent of them will ever want to visit us.

This, then, is the special relationship. US ambassador William S Farish was going on about it again yesterday, in a valedictory piece after three short years in Britain. His impressions, he told us, were that normal Britons see George W Bush not as a caricature but 'as a plain-spoken man of principle who says what he believes', which shows Farish as a man not above actionably deluded poppycock in the same way the ocean is not above the sky.

He went on again, fairly cynically, about the special relationship. They throw this phrase at us so cheaply, like dropped popcorn; it means as much as an empty promise to a mistress. No, not a mistress, a 'stalker'; we are the ones who know, obsessively, their tastes, their plans, their favourite films, and they are the ones with a dim recollection of poking us once in a cabbagey attic and an even hazier recollection of our name.

There is, though, one forgotten group of all-American heroes, and it is time for them to be feted. Not the high-achievers, with their ignorance of a country they never intend to visit, the trim wunderkinds with their buttoned-down God, and the naked whumping greed they call ambition, and their deeply unsavoury attitudes towards such human delights as alcohol and laziness and failure. Time, instead, to cheer the real American heroes: their tourists.

For decades, we've smirked. Tittered at their gaudy stomachs, their mispronunciations, their soft, keen, strangely sad faces. Grinned to ourselves, and not that quietly, at their kindness, and their interest. We should have been cheering them. At least they came. At least they wanted to find out 'something' else, about 'somebody' else, and if they took a slightly skewed vision and 4,000 shots of blurred fat thumbs back to Rumpshuck, Ohio, then no real matter.

Every couple on every cloistered flatulent coach trip, every vapid trotted tourist cliche, every dismal teacake in the rain, has been, we can now see, a proud and determined little blow against ignorance: and this summer we must talk to them, or at least stop sneering quite so openly; and see them as one last hope for a better American future, and bless their little polyester socks.

[Viking2002]

I didn't understand a word he said..........

[7.62 x 51mm]

What D-I-D he say? I haven't a clue, either.

[LibKill]

I write better than than when I'm dead drunk.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The Americans now see us, apparently, as 'introverted, arrogant bores

Not all of you, I just have one name on my list of introverted, arrogant Scottish bores.

Euan Ferguson

What a coincidence!

[Leisler]

This is the reason I never drive into Canada. First Quebec, and then...what's it's name. No thanks.

[LiberalBassTurds]

LMAO. I refuse to be baited. He is right on one part..." The French as dogbreathy bed-hoppers..."

LBT

-=-=-

[boris]

"No, not a mistress, a 'stalker'; we are the ones who know, obsessively, their tastes, their plans, their favourite films, and they are the ones with a dim recollection of poking us once in a cabbagey attic and an even hazier recollection of our name."

And saved their bacon in innumerable ways when Hitler had other plans for them.

--Boris

[teletech]

“The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans.
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate the Yugoslavs.
South Africans hate the Dutch—
And I don’t like anybody very much.”

"The Merry Minuet"......The Kingston Trio.

[Thumper1960]

the Bulgarians European Arabs/Muslims as torn-faced miserly cut-throat scum who would sooner slice open their neighbour's first-born than pick up a bar of soap

Oh, but a wee error in Euan Ferguson's screed.

Methinks the good Sir has confusion upon his noggin. Most have fondness for the 'old sod'. We know quite a bit more about the "motherlands" than Fergie claims.

Slow news day in the hilly north?

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: " and fewer than 5 per cent of them will ever want to visit us."

Ommm. excuse me sir could you move me from the 5% who want to visit column to the 95+% who do not wish to visit such pompous asinine blowhards column. There is a fowl stench sitting here.

[sarasmom]

Quite a few of us, have in fact "visited" Europe, along with gasp, the entire rest of the world.

Were we supposed to be impressed?

[Snuffington]

It is wonderful to be appreciated by a Scottish POS

A fairly Anglo-centric Scot, I'd say.

In my experience traveling to the U. K., the Scots were warm and friendly to Americans. So were about half the English - the other half seeming to loathe us much like to chap in the column above. The Welsh seemed not terribly interested one way or the other.

[AlbionGirl]

I see the Brits as the authors of the Magna Carta, first cousins, and perhaps a dying Nation.

If the author wishes to be comforted, he can rest in the knowledge that the America that existed, and elected Reagan, is dead as well. What she is replaced with hasn't yet been determined.

[boris]

"National Brotherhood Week" by Tom Lehrer.

National Brotherhood Week Lyrics
Artist(Band):Tom Lehrer

National Brotherhood Week Lyrics

One week of every year is designated National Brotherhood Week. This is just one of many such weeks honoring various worthy causes. One of my favorites is National Make-fun-of-the-handicapped Week which Frank Fontaine and Jerry Lewis are in charge of as you know. During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood. This year, for example, on the first day of the week Malcolm X was killed which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is. I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that. Here's a song about National Brotherhood Week.

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek. It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise,
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic. Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can't stand.
You can tolerate him if you try.

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week. Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

[marron]

The study cited is a survey of young people who have no reason to know anything about Britain. They were educated in public schools by leftist professors and are as ignorant as the day is long. Their only knowledge of life outside the US is from TV and Hollywood, which are also the private preserve of leftist mental midgets. They have not yet launched themselves out into the real world.

But that will change as soon as they go to work.

I would posit that average Americans know more in practical terms about life outside the US than do most of our international counterparts. Most US bases are outside the US, so everyone who has ever served has traveled, and has interacted with his foreign military counterparts.

In the petroleum business, much of the work is overseas, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the welder next door has done a tour of duty in the middle east, or South America. The driller down the street spent years in the Gulf of Thailand and the North Sea. The engineers in the neighborhood work with mostly foreign colleagues, and many of them have done their time overseas.

And I am surprised at the numbers of average folks around town who have gone overseas on missionary trips, or nursing charity trips, it seems every other church in town is sponsoring such trips.

You can go to the remotest Andean village and you will find American adventure tourists, American preachers, American Peace Corps types, American geologists and oilmen, American bankers, just doing what they do. That is one of the big complaints from leftists worried about "cultural imperialism", that there is no where left in the world you can go to escape Americans. Thats because we and our businesses and our products are everywhere.

We aren't ignorant from lack of international exposure, we are the most international people in the world. We are "ignorant" because we don't subscribe to this writer's prejudices about the world. And we don't.

[bereanway]

I'm with you. I didn't know whether to cheer or bust him in the chops. But, I was leaning to the latter.

BTW, do all Euros have such a sunny disposition?

[Dutchgirl]

The deadliest weapon of mass destruction in history is a Leftist with a word processor

Re: your tag line- I was reading a well researched novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, written by Georgette Heyer, "A Civil Contract," published in 1961.

Apparently the British public believed that Wellington's exploits in the Peninsular War were over-rated. There was great debate in the House of Lords about whether to spend the money to keep up the Army after Napoleon went to Elba.

Many in the "nobility" lost their fortunes by selling cheaply out of their government "funds" when news started to come through about the carnage at Waterloo. Because they had speculated on losing the war, there were many in government who were furious with Wellington and called Waterloo a defeat for several year afterwards.

I thought that kind of historical revisionism was a product of our times, but apparently not.

[TalBlack]

"The Americans now see us, apparently, as 'introverted, arrogant bores".

Uh, dude, most Americans don't give one small damn about you. I would be surprised if very many of them had ANY opinion AT ALL.

[boris]

But did you like the tag? I made it up all by myself but am told that similar things have been said by others.

I like inventing aphorisms but I can rarely produce a good and original one:

Education is always painful;
Pain is always educational.

Radical egalitarians want to make everyone equal--
By making everyone equally poor.

I can try some others if you like.

--Boris

[hosepipe]

Well Euan one things sure.. That thought is as pretty as a processed bowl of Hagis.. not that Hagis is too tempting to start with..