Posted on 09/11/2002 9:28:45 AM PDT by Gumlegs
Pubs, ladies fashion stores, restaurants, banks, cafes, mobile phone stores, boutiques, gift shops...
If you are looking for the real England, you will not find it in the pages of the Guardian, but rather on the high streets and in the shop windows.
I have just got back from lunch and what I saw on the King's Road in Chelsea, here in London, amazed me. There is no law requiring it, no government departments 'encouraging' it loudly, yet shop after shop are displaying signs saying words to the effects of "At 1:46 pm to day, we will be observing two minutes silence in remembrance of the atrocities on September 11th of last year in the United States." Others are expressing memorial sentiments, still others just displaying small American flags. No doubt these signs will all be gone by this evening, but they are there now.
Some signs are hand written by shop managers, others were clearly printed by a head office... but the signs are there and they come not from above, passed down from the salons of the chattering classes, but from below, from the true heart of England.
There is indeed an Anglosphere and it is very, very real.
Thanks for posting this, ZULU !
...a poll released earlier this week, from the German Marshall Fund, on European attitudes toward US foreign policy. In a survey of 6,001 Europeans from Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and the Netherlands, the GMF found that only 25% of respondents are flatly opposed to an invasion of Iraq. By contrast, 60% favored war, provided the US secure acquiescence from allies and the United Nations, while 65% believe that international terrorism is the greatest threat to their national interests.
"Despite recent press reports of rising anti-Americanism in Europe and an impending trans-Atlantic split," wrote the poll's authors, "at the public level, Europeans are in broad agreement when it comes to the war on terrorism, Iraq, and a host of other international issues."
BTW: Saw a few visiting Bobbies at Ground Zero today. Judging from all of the Yanks requesting their picture, they were quite popular.
But there are PLENTY of enemies, not only among the media there in Brit-land, but among the intelligentsia.
Folks like Germaine Greer have been just nauseating since 9/11/01.
Of course we have our own lot over here--including some of our political class, who have done all they can to hamstring our efforts with an eye toward knocking Bush down in the polls.
Seems they'd rather have power than help our President destroy our enemies.
Then, they can sit down at interminable "Kumbaya" sessions with our darling Euros and some of our favorite UN freaks, and make sure we NEVER fire another weapon in anger again--unless it's to cover up criminal misconduct by Democrats.
I am awed and glad others around the world stood and remembered and prayed with us at that very holy moment.
I'm reminded of an anecdote I read years ago concerning then General Eisenhower soon after the fighting ended in Europe. He was standing by a gang plank on the docks in a French port watching a company of British soldiers boarding a ship to return to Britain. As the Tommies walked up the gangplank, hot and sweating profusely in their woolen full uniforms and loaded down with gear, someone remarked how foolish it was for them to be wearing wool in summer. Eisenhower nodded and said something like, "Yeah, but when the chips are down and the going gets tough there are no other men in the world I would rather have on our side." That still holds true. If we have to fight I want the Tommies on our side.
Seems they'd rather have power than help our President destroy our enemies.
Yep ! Here are a couple of those that you're talking about......
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