Many people speak of the "Special Relationship", the supposed closeness of Great Britain and the United States politically and militarily, two countries which are supposed to share the same values.
But, when it comes to the actual people of Great Britain and the United States, there exists, deep down, a sense of hatred and contempt of the other nation which has existed since the two countries were enemies two hundred years ago.
But Americans seem to be the worst. There are many Hollywood movies where the bad guy is, for some reason, an Englishman, and movies such as The Patriot, about the US War of Independence, which unjustifiably portrayed the British Redcoats as on a par with the Waffen SS.
But, within the UK, it is usually the English who are the focus of most American hatred, probably as a result of England being by far the biggest and most dominant of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Most Americans have never heard of Wales, many think they have Irish ancestry (without having any proof) and Scotland gets an easy ride thanks to many Americans thinking that Braveheart, like The Patriot, is somehow historically accurate.
Even politically, the US and UK aren't, in many ways, that close, and have almost come to blows many times since the War of 1812, such as the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 forcing Great Britain out of the first rank of naval powers which led to Great Britain's defeat to Japan (which was also America's enemy) at Singapore in 1942.
This innate hatred has all come to a boil in recent weeks with the sickening anti-Britishness emanating from the United States, even from its joke of a President, as a result of the oil slick. Americans are even calling BP "British Petroleum", depite the fact that it is NOT called that, just because the Yanks want to blame foreigners over the disaster. Americans overlook the inconvenient truth that there are 24,000 American employees in BP, and just 10,000 British employees, and that ownership of BP is split almost evenly between British (40%) and American (39%) shareholders.
Special relationship? America's still itching to bash us in the snoot
By Peter Hitchens
13th June 2010
Daily Mail
Special Relationship? In fact, there is a mutual feeling of loathing between Great Britain and the United States beneath the surface.
The USA is my favourite foreign country – but I never forget that it is foreign, and has often been our enemy and our rival. So I am rather pleased that President Barack Obama has openly shown hostility to this country over the BP oil spill, unlike several of his forerunners, who smiled at us while doing us down.
It may help us all grow up and stop fawning on Washington. Far too many people – many of them academics, many politicians – continue to jabber about a supposed ‘special relationship’ between our two countries.
I used to think that no such thing existed. Recently, I have become convinced that it does, and that it is in fact a Specially Bad Relationship.
'Specially Bad Relationship': President Obama has disgraced himself and his office in recent days with his personal anti-British attacks.
Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding ‘like Princess Di’) but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.
And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish.
Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots’ anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions of Americans who get their history off the TV.
Words such as ‘arrogant’ and ‘snobbish’ occur – and the ceaseless use of English actors in Hollywood movies to portray haughty, cruel villains is not accidental.
Sometimes it bursts out into the open. Mel Gibson’s atrocious anti-British propaganda film The Patriot pretty much equated the Redcoats with the Nazi SS.
Mel Gibson's historically inaccurate The Patriot was full of atrocious anti-British racism, equating British Redcoats with the Nazi SS.
And it played to full and enthusiastic houses.
Some of this is deep-buried. The American national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, is a description of a British naval bombardment of Baltimore. It refers to the presence of British troops on American soil as ‘their foul footsteps’ pollution’.
There’s always been a rough, republican anti-English spirit, well expressed by the Mayor of Chicago, Big Bill Thompson, who threatened to punch King George V ‘in the snoot’ if he ever came that way. His Majesty didn’t.
Apart from the war of 1812 to 1814, the two countries have almost come to blows many times. It was American pressure that forced us out of the first rank of naval powers in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which led to our defeat at Singapore 20 years later.
The last physical clash was in 1956 when the US Sixth Fleet harassed the Royal Navy on its way to Suez, deliberately steering destroyers dangerously close to our battle line.
But by then Washington had learned money spoke louder than guns, and Dwight Eisenhower forced us to abort the operation by threatening to bankrupt us.
During an assignment in Washington I watched Bill Clinton fawn over the grisly IRA apologist Gerry Adams.
I learned that White House officials regarded us as on a level with, say, Yugoslavia – an annoying, backward European nation to be ordered about and forbidden to control its internal affairs.
That’s how it really stands. I would like a British Government to behave as if it understood this, instead of mouthing outdated and meaningless fake Churchillian ‘Finest Hour’ rubbish.
dailymail.co.uk
But, when it comes to the actual people of Great Britain and the United States, there exists, deep down, a sense of hatred and contempt of the other nation which has existed since the two countries were enemies two hundred years ago.
But Americans seem to be the worst. There are many Hollywood movies where the bad guy is, for some reason, an Englishman, and movies such as The Patriot, about the US War of Independence, which unjustifiably portrayed the British Redcoats as on a par with the Waffen SS.
But, within the UK, it is usually the English who are the focus of most American hatred, probably as a result of England being by far the biggest and most dominant of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Most Americans have never heard of Wales, many think they have Irish ancestry (without having any proof) and Scotland gets an easy ride thanks to many Americans thinking that Braveheart, like The Patriot, is somehow historically accurate.
Even politically, the US and UK aren't, in many ways, that close, and have almost come to blows many times since the War of 1812, such as the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 forcing Great Britain out of the first rank of naval powers which led to Great Britain's defeat to Japan (which was also America's enemy) at Singapore in 1942.
This innate hatred has all come to a boil in recent weeks with the sickening anti-Britishness emanating from the United States, even from its joke of a President, as a result of the oil slick. Americans are even calling BP "British Petroleum", depite the fact that it is NOT called that, just because the Yanks want to blame foreigners over the disaster. Americans overlook the inconvenient truth that there are 24,000 American employees in BP, and just 10,000 British employees, and that ownership of BP is split almost evenly between British (40%) and American (39%) shareholders.
Special relationship? America's still itching to bash us in the snoot
By Peter Hitchens
13th June 2010
Daily Mail
Special Relationship? In fact, there is a mutual feeling of loathing between Great Britain and the United States beneath the surface.
The USA is my favourite foreign country – but I never forget that it is foreign, and has often been our enemy and our rival. So I am rather pleased that President Barack Obama has openly shown hostility to this country over the BP oil spill, unlike several of his forerunners, who smiled at us while doing us down.
It may help us all grow up and stop fawning on Washington. Far too many people – many of them academics, many politicians – continue to jabber about a supposed ‘special relationship’ between our two countries.
I used to think that no such thing existed. Recently, I have become convinced that it does, and that it is in fact a Specially Bad Relationship.
'Specially Bad Relationship': President Obama has disgraced himself and his office in recent days with his personal anti-British attacks.
Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding ‘like Princess Di’) but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.
And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish.
Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots’ anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions of Americans who get their history off the TV.
Words such as ‘arrogant’ and ‘snobbish’ occur – and the ceaseless use of English actors in Hollywood movies to portray haughty, cruel villains is not accidental.
Sometimes it bursts out into the open. Mel Gibson’s atrocious anti-British propaganda film The Patriot pretty much equated the Redcoats with the Nazi SS.
Mel Gibson's historically inaccurate The Patriot was full of atrocious anti-British racism, equating British Redcoats with the Nazi SS.
And it played to full and enthusiastic houses.
Some of this is deep-buried. The American national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, is a description of a British naval bombardment of Baltimore. It refers to the presence of British troops on American soil as ‘their foul footsteps’ pollution’.
There’s always been a rough, republican anti-English spirit, well expressed by the Mayor of Chicago, Big Bill Thompson, who threatened to punch King George V ‘in the snoot’ if he ever came that way. His Majesty didn’t.
Apart from the war of 1812 to 1814, the two countries have almost come to blows many times. It was American pressure that forced us out of the first rank of naval powers in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which led to our defeat at Singapore 20 years later.
The last physical clash was in 1956 when the US Sixth Fleet harassed the Royal Navy on its way to Suez, deliberately steering destroyers dangerously close to our battle line.
But by then Washington had learned money spoke louder than guns, and Dwight Eisenhower forced us to abort the operation by threatening to bankrupt us.
During an assignment in Washington I watched Bill Clinton fawn over the grisly IRA apologist Gerry Adams.
I learned that White House officials regarded us as on a level with, say, Yugoslavia – an annoying, backward European nation to be ordered about and forbidden to control its internal affairs.
That’s how it really stands. I would like a British Government to behave as if it understood this, instead of mouthing outdated and meaningless fake Churchillian ‘Finest Hour’ rubbish.
dailymail.co.uk
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