I had the dumb idea to look on Twitter yesterday to see what Musk’s algo was saying about Belfast. Holy shit, it was depressing. Dirtbag Tommy Robinson, sure, he’s posting up a storm. But the number of clips of racist, violence-glorifying street fights from all over the UK was mind numbing. And I don’t need to tell you guys what the comments were like. And all the while, Musk is gleefully stoking the flames. God help us if that’s what’s in store for us.
Our federal vigilantes have some tattered rules they must play by. The Limey hooligans have none. They are what our militia guys would be if they weren't so obsessed with playing GI Joe.
Not to ever minimize the import of hate crimes in this country, or how easily a terrorist or two can amass a large body count. But I can't help thinking that currently, the most likely thing comparable to an organized lynch mob comes from the official apparatus. These days, it feels like the types who'd join the mob are busy with the outlets they've already been offered (owning libs on social media and voting R).
For these guys "Free Speech" is getting to say the N-word. Like the good old days. In my youth that word was merely descriptive of the race of the person.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (dba "Tommy Robinson") is someone I'd keep an eye on. I believe for the last two summers running he's worked up mobs over immigration issues to burning houses and hotels. He's the secret sauce, I think, in why it's so bad in the UK. Of course, having assholes like Farage in the government doesn't help. I really need to sit down and read some of the Byline Times stuff I've been getting, because they're keeping very close track on this bullshit.
Tommy Robinson is another reason we're better off than them. His equivalent here would be someone like Laura Loomer and she is nowhere near as popular (or even tolerated) as Tommy Rob.
BTW I feel like Mr. Yaxley-Lennon is much the same case as the $1.776 billion slush fund - we should be repeating the ACTUAL name because it shows what a total douchebag he is. "Tommy Robinson" my ASS.
Trump is like the Dementors from the old Harry Potter books -- he's an enormous sucker of joy and hope from any environment he oozes his way into -- he nearly whammied the Knicks the other night with his mere odious presence. People were burning sage outside the Garden.
Yeah, we're not England and I don't think many of our worst Dems are as feckless as Starmer. Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless. And I'm trying to tune out the noise and just enjoy the 4th on its own merits, but not gonna lie, that is challenging.
Yeah, Ian Dunt’s column here last week on the UK was throughly depressing. I’m almost afraid of the next one. It’s mostly Brexit’s fault. Trash the economy, then rile up the rubes. Tubby seems to be trying the same strategy here.
National mythology doesn't help. "This sceptered isle", etc. I know we've got our own, but somewhere still hanging around is the notion that if you have the gumption to get here, you're American. That old "melting pot" and "nation of immigrants" stuff still has some potency, I wish we'd tap into it more.
I saw the sub-headline and thought advise was coming because, you know, really what is there to celebrate? A level of freedom we abuse instead of use? Dunno that we've more freedom than our peers beyond the freedom to act like some variant of asshole. Freedom to abused by employers, I suppose... Freedom to elect completely unfit pieces of shit... Freedom for gentiles to worship a rank perversion of their god's teachings and be rewarded for it by being the politically influential groups... Oh, freedom to hate and have policies implemented based on that.
If one's that kind of POS, dunno that this 4th is different from any other, or matters more than any other. Or that this year, the 4th matters in a way that the 3rd or 5th doesn't except for the day off thing.
Anyway, relevantly: Me, I ❤️ Britain for all the schadenfreude it provides: Another relatively or once great English-speaking nation at least as fucked up as we. I'm always happy to be reminded we're not the only one in decline, maybe collapse.
But more importantly, thank you, NY Knicks for proving with your game 4 performance that the loss in game 3 was a deliberate refusal to win in front of Trump whether or not he was awake.
Yesterday, there was a possibility of you convincing me. But not after last night’s win. That’s a team that absolutely could have won Monday but chose not to.
I'm a "Trudeau" Liberal who used to respect Canadian Conservatives (I disagreed but understood their reasoning). Carney is the right guy right now (for dealing with Trump), but I'm uneasy about where he ultimately wants to go, or where it will lead.
I was cheered by the illustration. When I first went to London, I expected Bobbies dancing and Ministers of Funny Walks. I was SO out of it. It's the city of Cold Shoulders, "you stupid burger eating Yankee prat.*" It's a bad place and has been bad for centuries. I committed faux pas I can still shudder at recalling.
My best friend there was Viz comics. Seeing the little characters on the march--poor beaten Biffa Bacon, the Fat Slags, drunk and disorderly 8 Ace--actually sort of made my morning.
Most recent visit, last year, the place had improved and I'd credit the immigrants, who are a buffer zone between tourists and the rich. They were great, and they loved talking and pointing out the features of the city.
I think it was Len Deighton who wrote “The Beatles are not English.” Irishoid Liverpudlians. If you believe Lemmy from Motörhead, Ringo grew up in a REALLY rough neighborhood, and the other three were respectable-street dwellers. Point is that they stood out because they were exotics.
But they were northerners, and similarly the Viz gang’s “Fulchester” is actually Newcastle. Next time I go, I’m going north.
Ah, now we're getting somewheres. My cunning plan is to catch the Leeds train from Edinboro on match day, attend the game, and train back same evening. Problems may abound:
• Is Leeds at home that weekend?
• Can I cadge a ticket?
Details:
• the Premier League season will not be announced til June 19.
• I likely will be forced to join the Leeds Fan Club just for the chance of getting a ticket
• We're talkin' 3 hours by train each way, plus cabs and suchlike. Making in all a 10 or 11-hour day.
June 19th looks to be a pretty intense day of frantic phonecalls.
liked it much more this trip. Love the Tate Modern, the wokest art museum on the planet, and what a cafe! I was wearing this t shirt I made before the ‘24 election that said “Fascism won’t lower the price of strawberries,” and this really nice lady said, “Oh, that’s brilliant…isn’t it terrible that we have to start wearing slogans again?”
In a Oaxaca Airbnb last year, I roomed next-door to a rail-thin, thirtyish, chain-smoking, day-drinking, trust-fund cokehead from Brighton whose mother apparently paid him to travel the world because no one could tolerate him at home. The absolute caricature of a certain kind of Brit I’ve read about. Loud, aggressive, manic. Only time I’ve ever heard “Innit!?” in the wild. Anti-vaxxer, too. Never stopped moving in our little space from about 7 in the morning. Smoking was rooftop patio only, so it was clack, clack, clack up the metal stairs, clomp, clomp, clomp down again about 50 times a day. Into the kitchen for another drink, over to his room, then back up the to the roof. Made life miserable for the rest of us.
Not sure where I’m going with this. There’s a lot more to tell but if would take another hour, so I’ll just leave it there. Guess I was triggered a little by all these Bad Britain stories. I’m still haunted.
A Mike Leigh "Innit" heard in the wild is something you'll remember forever. Heard mine at Camden Lock. Oh, another great thing in London--arriving and seeing the posters that Life is Sweet was about to open at the Leicester Square Odeon, forever renowned as the theater where Goldfinger premiered. I was there for the first noon show, front and center. Do not eat at the Regrette Rien!
If you want to indulge some Michael Bolton Schadenfreude (and, y'know, who doesn't?), google "Pat Metheny" "Michael Bolton" and make sure you're sitting down. (Sorry for being off-topic but sometimes I need the lulz)
I remember that song. I had it on a mixtape (from vinyl) that I played for one of my best friends back then. I just thought it was a good tune. I later found out it earned me trust.
You say we have it better here than in the UK? (And we do.). That's because we're a country whose national identity is founded on creed rather than blood and soil, despite numerous attempts over the years to pretend otherwise. We're not just a colonial outpost of Anglo-Saxon culture, despite what right-wingers would have you believe. We can take immigrants at a higher rate than the European countries; we've been taking them for decades now without the republic collapsing, despite objections, whereas in the UK and elsewhere a few postcolonial migrants are enough to destabilize entire governments because you'd think they'd never had migrants before. When I consider that blood-and-soil politics leads to in countries like the UK and Israel/Palestine, I become more and more patriotic in a way I've never been before, despite the fact my patriotism is for a country that ever since 1980 has been determinedly fleeing that what was best about itself and nowadays hardly exists even in the public imagination.
As Marge once said to Lisa: "We can't afford to shop at a store that has a philosophy." Likewise, I couldn't stand to live in a country that has a National Identity.
We've had all who came, "on different ships," as MLK had it And a history to show us movements can be shut down, but aspiration to democracy can't. In living memory, martyrs who died for the right to vote. And more recently, martyrs who died trying to protect their immigrant neighbors.
Corny as this may sound, I think the enervating thing about the USA is *potential*. Whether your ancestors came here on the Mayflower, a slave ship, swam the Rio Grande, got off a jet plane in Middle America or somewhere in between, once they got here (or were freed) it was, "OK, how can I make life better for me, my children and grandchildren?"
Which is why at least to me, what conservatives are doing with Project 2025 is anti-USA. They want to lock people in place and take away their *potential*,
A little of column A, a little of column B. The upper crust is penetrable over there. Here, once these assholes lock in all that wealth? Sorry, Charlie.
And yes, many respectable studies. I believe it. Merit still works over there.
I remember that for a while in the late 80s-early 90s, if you had cable tv in Nova Scotia, you got LOCAL versions of the major TV networks. We got Detroit where I lived. For a few years half of Nova Scotia could tell you what was up or down in Detroit! Anyway...
I'm starting to get some (still) slight negative feelings about the current government here in Japan. Flexing the military a bit: I get it (China/Taiwan/history, etc.). Rise in anti-foreign sentiment: As a white guy from Canada, I'm pretty much immune from this kinda shit (for now!). Hell, I guess I could say, as white guy from Canada, I'm immune to a busload of shit all over the world (try to tell that to the white guys around you these days that, and they won't believe you!). But I digress...
Why will you NEVER hear a Canadian say "I'm going to America next week"? Why don't we call the USA "America" (unless we're stuck teaching English in Japan, where it's in the fucking textbook we're obliged to teach)? Is it our alleged hatred of the USA? No. Is it because the 4th of July is more famous than the 1st of July? (1st comes before 4th, any moron knows that!) Is it because we're better at geography and naming conventions. Maybe a little. The fact is, "America" as the USA is just not in our vocabulary. Never has been. It sounds weird to us. The US, or USA, yeah. The whole title if you must, OK. Where I'm from, it's "the States."
My best friend is from the States. He likes doing American shit on special days. And so do I.
OMG Viz? Lol, I thought you were an Anglophile but that is next level. To be fair Viz is the deeply hidden crown jewel of all British comedy. In its prime, it surpassed everything. IMO.
How can you not love a magazine featuring the adventures of Spoilt Bastard?
Sadly, the illo is taken from a typical Spiked bleat, wherein the wanker cries that Viz has gone woke: "The left-wing characters have all departed the stage, as has Tranny Magnet (no loss)." Twat.
It's been 27 years since I was in England, and it's still floors me that the country that sent explorers and colonized worldwide has decided they want to keep everybody out. 😂
And kill off 90% of the native inhabitants. Smallpox. The US Calvary sold flea-infested blankets to the Native Americans, just to be sure. That is biological warfare. If somebody says "Americans never did that", please feel free to slap the coon-dog shit of them.
Oh, it shouldn't be. The Puritans escaped the Church Of England, because they would not let Puritans be cruel ENOUGH to their flock. Religious freedom, indeed.
Ah, the sorrows of empire! The British lost their colonies and gained refugees. We decided to dominate the Western hemisphere and got the same. The refugees from the first empire now hate the refugees coming to the second. It’s what comes around.
I had the dumb idea to look on Twitter yesterday to see what Musk’s algo was saying about Belfast. Holy shit, it was depressing. Dirtbag Tommy Robinson, sure, he’s posting up a storm. But the number of clips of racist, violence-glorifying street fights from all over the UK was mind numbing. And I don’t need to tell you guys what the comments were like. And all the while, Musk is gleefully stoking the flames. God help us if that’s what’s in store for us.
Pray for American exceptionalism!!
Oh, we're exceptional all right, But which way?
Not that we don't have vigilantes, but now they are Federal forces, just made $70B richer.
Our federal vigilantes have some tattered rules they must play by. The Limey hooligans have none. They are what our militia guys would be if they weren't so obsessed with playing GI Joe.
Not to ever minimize the import of hate crimes in this country, or how easily a terrorist or two can amass a large body count. But I can't help thinking that currently, the most likely thing comparable to an organized lynch mob comes from the official apparatus. These days, it feels like the types who'd join the mob are busy with the outlets they've already been offered (owning libs on social media and voting R).
For these guys "Free Speech" is getting to say the N-word. Like the good old days. In my youth that word was merely descriptive of the race of the person.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (dba "Tommy Robinson") is someone I'd keep an eye on. I believe for the last two summers running he's worked up mobs over immigration issues to burning houses and hotels. He's the secret sauce, I think, in why it's so bad in the UK. Of course, having assholes like Farage in the government doesn't help. I really need to sit down and read some of the Byline Times stuff I've been getting, because they're keeping very close track on this bullshit.
Tommy Robinson is another reason we're better off than them. His equivalent here would be someone like Laura Loomer and she is nowhere near as popular (or even tolerated) as Tommy Rob.
BTW I feel like Mr. Yaxley-Lennon is much the same case as the $1.776 billion slush fund - we should be repeating the ACTUAL name because it shows what a total douchebag he is. "Tommy Robinson" my ASS.
Sack-a-de-Yax!
OK, that's funny right there, I don't care who are. Well played.
Boots Randolph smiles from above.
Barbara Baxley could take Mr. Yaxley
Yeah, this is Sir Roderick Spode 100 years later with a podcast (Spodecast) and all expenses paid by Stalin/Putin.
We had a vicious famous sheriff here in Arkansas with that name. Throws me every time.
Trump is like the Dementors from the old Harry Potter books -- he's an enormous sucker of joy and hope from any environment he oozes his way into -- he nearly whammied the Knicks the other night with his mere odious presence. People were burning sage outside the Garden.
Yeah, we're not England and I don't think many of our worst Dems are as feckless as Starmer. Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless. And I'm trying to tune out the noise and just enjoy the 4th on its own merits, but not gonna lie, that is challenging.
"old Harry Potter books" Ain't that cute!
You're right, and I should know, and you might know from my memoir "I Married A Dementor'.
Tom T. Hall sang about it all so very long ago.
https://youtu.be/J-MjaZUG6_A?si=c5jdn2HmXPTUmfQK
First time hearing that. Thanks!
I do love me some Tom T.!
As a lifelong Arkansan, I really can't imagine such a thing. Oh yeah, the man is good.
Yeah, Ian Dunt’s column here last week on the UK was throughly depressing. I’m almost afraid of the next one. It’s mostly Brexit’s fault. Trash the economy, then rile up the rubes. Tubby seems to be trying the same strategy here.
National mythology doesn't help. "This sceptered isle", etc. I know we've got our own, but somewhere still hanging around is the notion that if you have the gumption to get here, you're American. That old "melting pot" and "nation of immigrants" stuff still has some potency, I wish we'd tap into it more.
And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green?
I never understood that lyric. Is it supposed to be referring to Jesus? If so, then no, next question.
Yes, Jesus and Joseph of Aramathia went to England.
Excuse me , Ian who?
Oh, right- never mind.
No, no, no, you're thinking of Jeremy Hunt.
And you know damn well they voted for Brexit as a fuck-you. Thought they were unique. Whoopsie!
Bummer.
I saw the sub-headline and thought advise was coming because, you know, really what is there to celebrate? A level of freedom we abuse instead of use? Dunno that we've more freedom than our peers beyond the freedom to act like some variant of asshole. Freedom to abused by employers, I suppose... Freedom to elect completely unfit pieces of shit... Freedom for gentiles to worship a rank perversion of their god's teachings and be rewarded for it by being the politically influential groups... Oh, freedom to hate and have policies implemented based on that.
If one's that kind of POS, dunno that this 4th is different from any other, or matters more than any other. Or that this year, the 4th matters in a way that the 3rd or 5th doesn't except for the day off thing.
Anyway, relevantly: Me, I ❤️ Britain for all the schadenfreude it provides: Another relatively or once great English-speaking nation at least as fucked up as we. I'm always happy to be reminded we're not the only one in decline, maybe collapse.
But more importantly, thank you, NY Knicks for proving with your game 4 performance that the loss in game 3 was a deliberate refusal to win in front of Trump whether or not he was awake.
Game 3 was no deliberate loss. When Tubby shows up, nothing can withstand the miasma of doom.
Yesterday, there was a possibility of you convincing me. But not after last night’s win. That’s a team that absolutely could have won Monday but chose not to.
Everything Trump watches dies
Feels like there should be a Shakespearean quote. On the order of, "He doth blast and wither the five senses..."
When Burnin' Wood doth ignite Marge-a-Large-o
One fears even considering what could be brought by a Berning Wood <shiver>
What's Berning would no man abide
What's that Berning?!
When Burnin' Wood doth ignite, 'tis woe for California. Then Marge-a-Large-o doth decree: "Those losers didn't water the forest floor."
The smudge stick worked!
"Fascism as an international movement"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democracy_Union
Currently chaired by dead-eyed former Canadian PM Stephen Harper, because these people Never. Just. Leave. when you vote them out.
Cue Roderick Spode*. If we're gonna laugh at 'em, let's have a good enough reason.
*Stephen Harper reminds me of Spode. Don't know what his side hustle is, tho.
Noticing now that the redoubter done outflanked me above re: Spode.
Two Spodes devolved in a fellow hood
And I punched the one less distant by
And that has made all indifference
I'm a "Trudeau" Liberal who used to respect Canadian Conservatives (I disagreed but understood their reasoning). Carney is the right guy right now (for dealing with Trump), but I'm uneasy about where he ultimately wants to go, or where it will lead.
The Canadian Churchill. Win the war then kick him out.
Per the link:
“Headquartered in Munich”
How apt. Not hiding it, are they?
Huh. The word "Democracy" in the name threw me off: "Are these the guys that're gonna save us?" Then I went and read the Wiki. Not savin' nobody.
I was cheered by the illustration. When I first went to London, I expected Bobbies dancing and Ministers of Funny Walks. I was SO out of it. It's the city of Cold Shoulders, "you stupid burger eating Yankee prat.*" It's a bad place and has been bad for centuries. I committed faux pas I can still shudder at recalling.
My best friend there was Viz comics. Seeing the little characters on the march--poor beaten Biffa Bacon, the Fat Slags, drunk and disorderly 8 Ace--actually sort of made my morning.
*actual quote
Most recent visit, last year, the place had improved and I'd credit the immigrants, who are a buffer zone between tourists and the rich. They were great, and they loved talking and pointing out the features of the city.
Love Viz. and shit, I love London, notwithstanding.
I think it was Len Deighton who wrote “The Beatles are not English.” Irishoid Liverpudlians. If you believe Lemmy from Motörhead, Ringo grew up in a REALLY rough neighborhood, and the other three were respectable-street dwellers. Point is that they stood out because they were exotics.
But they were northerners, and similarly the Viz gang’s “Fulchester” is actually Newcastle. Next time I go, I’m going north.
Ah, now we're getting somewheres. My cunning plan is to catch the Leeds train from Edinboro on match day, attend the game, and train back same evening. Problems may abound:
• Is Leeds at home that weekend?
• Can I cadge a ticket?
Details:
• the Premier League season will not be announced til June 19.
• I likely will be forced to join the Leeds Fan Club just for the chance of getting a ticket
• We're talkin' 3 hours by train each way, plus cabs and suchlike. Making in all a 10 or 11-hour day.
June 19th looks to be a pretty intense day of frantic phonecalls.
If Lemmy said it, I believe it.
I dunno, everybody was very nice to me. I took a tumble getting off the escalator on the underground and was surrounded by genuine solicitousness.
liked it much more this trip. Love the Tate Modern, the wokest art museum on the planet, and what a cafe! I was wearing this t shirt I made before the ‘24 election that said “Fascism won’t lower the price of strawberries,” and this really nice lady said, “Oh, that’s brilliant…isn’t it terrible that we have to start wearing slogans again?”
MAWSA: Make Americans Wear Slogans Again
In a Oaxaca Airbnb last year, I roomed next-door to a rail-thin, thirtyish, chain-smoking, day-drinking, trust-fund cokehead from Brighton whose mother apparently paid him to travel the world because no one could tolerate him at home. The absolute caricature of a certain kind of Brit I’ve read about. Loud, aggressive, manic. Only time I’ve ever heard “Innit!?” in the wild. Anti-vaxxer, too. Never stopped moving in our little space from about 7 in the morning. Smoking was rooftop patio only, so it was clack, clack, clack up the metal stairs, clomp, clomp, clomp down again about 50 times a day. Into the kitchen for another drink, over to his room, then back up the to the roof. Made life miserable for the rest of us.
Not sure where I’m going with this. There’s a lot more to tell but if would take another hour, so I’ll just leave it there. Guess I was triggered a little by all these Bad Britain stories. I’m still haunted.
"A trust-fund cokehead from Brighton" is the first line of a limerick I can't complete, and it's gonna nag at me all day. A little help here?
Uhh…
“Head full of demons he was fightin”
Dozens of fags he was lightin'
A trust-funded cokehead from Brighton
Broke wind with such force it would frighten
When one fellow guest
Called him out as a pest
He emitted ten more just to spite him
Bravo!
A trust-funded cokehead from Brighton'd
Shown all that he'd oughta be smitened
His asinine ways
Enraged us for days
We agreed that his tie needed tightened
The stairways was clankin'
And no one was thankin'
The sound of his Goddamn Doc Martens
Was bizarre and could certainly frighten
A Mike Leigh "Innit" heard in the wild is something you'll remember forever. Heard mine at Camden Lock. Oh, another great thing in London--arriving and seeing the posters that Life is Sweet was about to open at the Leicester Square Odeon, forever renowned as the theater where Goldfinger premiered. I was there for the first noon show, front and center. Do not eat at the Regrette Rien!
Oui, je regrette beaucoup
If you want to indulge some Michael Bolton Schadenfreude (and, y'know, who doesn't?), google "Pat Metheny" "Michael Bolton" and make sure you're sitting down. (Sorry for being off-topic but sometimes I need the lulz)
I googled, but all I got was Kenny G. And boy, does Metheny not like HIM.
I mean!... Metheny's not even rude, just technical. (Metheny seems a very nice guy.) "ALL his notes are flat" stays with me
Now, now, those two names do not belong in the same sentence.
I'm starting to think this internet isn't a very good idea. Neither are billionaires.
Edroso/Luigi 28
OK, OK, but how do you feel about TRILLIONAIRES?
Sautéd or fricasseed?
Just toss 'em into the MixMaster and push the button for frappé.
I am so on board with that Presidential ticket.
The Dawn of a New Age
A Golden Age
An Age of Reason
Shine on, you crazy diamond!
Tom Robinson (of the Tom Robinson Band, e.g. "Glad to Be Gay") must feel like that Bolton kid, only a lot angrier
I remember that song. I had it on a mixtape (from vinyl) that I played for one of my best friends back then. I just thought it was a good tune. I later found out it earned me trust.
I think I still have their first LP
Hey now, I had nothing to do with it!
You say we have it better here than in the UK? (And we do.). That's because we're a country whose national identity is founded on creed rather than blood and soil, despite numerous attempts over the years to pretend otherwise. We're not just a colonial outpost of Anglo-Saxon culture, despite what right-wingers would have you believe. We can take immigrants at a higher rate than the European countries; we've been taking them for decades now without the republic collapsing, despite objections, whereas in the UK and elsewhere a few postcolonial migrants are enough to destabilize entire governments because you'd think they'd never had migrants before. When I consider that blood-and-soil politics leads to in countries like the UK and Israel/Palestine, I become more and more patriotic in a way I've never been before, despite the fact my patriotism is for a country that ever since 1980 has been determinedly fleeing that what was best about itself and nowadays hardly exists even in the public imagination.
Oh, I’ve got patriotism, I’m a smug Northern Californian!
The Smug Capital of the Universe!
ANd deservedly so, boast brag!
Not my idea – I was born there and simply accreted.
He is the very model of a Northern Californian
While lazing in his hot tub he gets a little horny, n'
He has his Alice Waters to tell which veggies are most roastable
While boring you to death about garbage bags compostable
hear, hear
As Marge once said to Lisa: "We can't afford to shop at a store that has a philosophy." Likewise, I couldn't stand to live in a country that has a National Identity.
I would never be a member of a club that would have me as a member.
I think there's a club for people like that. Oh, wait...
Mashie, or niblick?
Canadian
Like those boring Mensa cats. Although these days I hear they drink like fishes. I may have to revisit them.
Thanks for saying this so beautifully.
We've had all who came, "on different ships," as MLK had it And a history to show us movements can be shut down, but aspiration to democracy can't. In living memory, martyrs who died for the right to vote. And more recently, martyrs who died trying to protect their immigrant neighbors.
This.
Corny as this may sound, I think the enervating thing about the USA is *potential*. Whether your ancestors came here on the Mayflower, a slave ship, swam the Rio Grande, got off a jet plane in Middle America or somewhere in between, once they got here (or were freed) it was, "OK, how can I make life better for me, my children and grandchildren?"
Which is why at least to me, what conservatives are doing with Project 2025 is anti-USA. They want to lock people in place and take away their *potential*,
And/or just watch them die and scrub the SSI offa the balance sheet.
I believe the term for a place like England is "class-ridden." And it infuriates me to see this place being turned (even more) into that.
The British have more upward mobility than we do. So I'd refrain....
Do they? Have they gotten better or have we gotten worse?
A little of column A, a little of column B. The upper crust is penetrable over there. Here, once these assholes lock in all that wealth? Sorry, Charlie.
And yes, many respectable studies. I believe it. Merit still works over there.
You are precisely right, my brother.
I remember that for a while in the late 80s-early 90s, if you had cable tv in Nova Scotia, you got LOCAL versions of the major TV networks. We got Detroit where I lived. For a few years half of Nova Scotia could tell you what was up or down in Detroit! Anyway...
I'm starting to get some (still) slight negative feelings about the current government here in Japan. Flexing the military a bit: I get it (China/Taiwan/history, etc.). Rise in anti-foreign sentiment: As a white guy from Canada, I'm pretty much immune from this kinda shit (for now!). Hell, I guess I could say, as white guy from Canada, I'm immune to a busload of shit all over the world (try to tell that to the white guys around you these days that, and they won't believe you!). But I digress...
Why will you NEVER hear a Canadian say "I'm going to America next week"? Why don't we call the USA "America" (unless we're stuck teaching English in Japan, where it's in the fucking textbook we're obliged to teach)? Is it our alleged hatred of the USA? No. Is it because the 4th of July is more famous than the 1st of July? (1st comes before 4th, any moron knows that!) Is it because we're better at geography and naming conventions. Maybe a little. The fact is, "America" as the USA is just not in our vocabulary. Never has been. It sounds weird to us. The US, or USA, yeah. The whole title if you must, OK. Where I'm from, it's "the States."
My best friend is from the States. He likes doing American shit on special days. And so do I.
OMG Viz? Lol, I thought you were an Anglophile but that is next level. To be fair Viz is the deeply hidden crown jewel of all British comedy. In its prime, it surpassed everything. IMO.
How can you not love a magazine featuring the adventures of Spoilt Bastard?
Sadly, the illo is taken from a typical Spiked bleat, wherein the wanker cries that Viz has gone woke: "The left-wing characters have all departed the stage, as has Tranny Magnet (no loss)." Twat.
It's been 27 years since I was in England, and it's still floors me that the country that sent explorers and colonized worldwide has decided they want to keep everybody out. 😂
"We're gonna come in and take your shit, and force you to speak our language, but you'd better not try to come to us."
"Why, if you did, it would be an INVASION"
And kill off 90% of the native inhabitants. Smallpox. The US Calvary sold flea-infested blankets to the Native Americans, just to be sure. That is biological warfare. If somebody says "Americans never did that", please feel free to slap the coon-dog shit of them.
Oh, it shouldn't be. The Puritans escaped the Church Of England, because they would not let Puritans be cruel ENOUGH to their flock. Religious freedom, indeed.
Ah, the sorrows of empire! The British lost their colonies and gained refugees. We decided to dominate the Western hemisphere and got the same. The refugees from the first empire now hate the refugees coming to the second. It’s what comes around.
Frenchman, in Paris: "Where did all these Black people come from?"
French women, on the other hand....
You got that right, Boss. It bugs me. But I know enough to know "Bollocks To Everything" kinda gives the plot away.