No, Candice, it's not a matter of looking to the United States as a 'Great
Alibi', the point is that, in the terms of the world economic and political
situation, the US is the fulcrum and most influential factor. With power
comes responsibility, and the US needs to _truly_ face up to its
responsibilities, not merely throw dollars at them. The American cultural
myth of national innocence seems to be its problem, the bad things belonged
in the Old World, not the New. Whereas the reality is far from the case. And
I'm afraid 'everybody's looking for somebody to blame' sounds like an excuse
for cutting Social Security, as it were.
Racial hatred, class distinction, sheer vile nastiness have long been
endemic here, as elsewhere, what I am saying is that the swing to the right,
and surely you're not going to deny the US has swung right, through its
media propagation, is starting to legitimise such attitudes, people are
starting to say things that previously they kept quiet about. And when that
happens fascism is but a step around the corner.
I'm sorry if I sound angry about this but I AM angry, I see what little
liberal humanity we have in our culture being stripped away. In the name of
cheap oil for US drivers.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 12:50 AM
Subject: Re: opinion
> What "swing," Dave? Has Britain no history of race riots, no tradition of
> editorializing about "mogs," "wogs," and so forth?
>
> Nor has there been any new rightwing U.S. swing as far as I can see, just
> the same old, same old shined up by warmongering in the guise of
patriotism,
> which is bad enough. And "Hollywood" is a sufficiently globalized
enterprise
> by now, in theory and practice, as to render its U.S. origins moot.
>
> Case in point (and one that goes to the prejudicial core rather
amusingly):
> Liam Neeson was given a special award by the Dublin Film Institute for his
> mega-bucky film _Braveheart_ (as "Hollywood" as they come) because he'd
> employed so many Irish actors and extras for the battle scenes that it had
> revitalized that country's resource-starved film industry. But the kicker
is
> the reason he gave for not having employed great numbers of SCOTS actors
or
> extras for _Braveheart_--he said he didn't think it would be possible to
> find enough who were capable of "spontaneity."
>
> Your mention of urban myths in the Leicester context also has globalized
> implications, it seems to me, because there are global myths now too, and
a
> prevailing one casts the United States as the Great Alibi. "Everybody's
> looking for somebody to blame," whether on the micro- or the macro-level,
> and I think the lure of alibis must be scrupulously avoided if we're to
> avoid falling into the trap of falling for our own myths.
>
> Opinionatedly,
>
> Candice
>
>
> > Nope, Candice
> >
> > the implication is that the swing to the _open_ expression of right-wing
and
> > racist opinions has been sanctioned by the swing to the right in the US,
> > aided and abetted that by the pusillanimity of the majority of its
writers,
> > a quality that is equalled in Britain, and the constant bombardment of
> > mindless violence as a desideratum that objects such as Hollywood pump
out.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > David Bircumshaw
> >
> > Leicester, England
> >
> > Home Page
> >
> > A Chide's Alphabet
> >
> > Painting Without Numbers
> >
> > www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
> >
> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 10:27 PM
> > Subject: Re: opinion
> >
> >
> >> "Everybody's looking for somebody to blame..." (Tom Waits).
> >>
> >> If the implication here is that Leicester anti-Somalianism is down to
US
> > and
> >> not a by-product of venerable-traditional Brit prejudice against
anything
> >> and everything non-WASP, then this yUKy post must derive from the same
> >> tradition (shame on you, Dave!).
> >>
> >> Candice
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> here detention without trial is being legalised, as is interception of
> > all
> >>> private e-mail, while the tv (just) was showing a programme that
> > portrayed
> >>> Britain (of all places) as being beset by armed criminals. For this
> > reason,
> >>> the show opined, soon we will have to become like America, with the
> > police
> >>> routinely armed. People I talk to, day to day, are swinging further
and
> >>> further to the right. It's all the immigrants' fault, they think
(people
> > in
> >>> Leicester are apt to go on strange diatribes against Somalis, as urban
> > myth
> >>> has established hereabouts that armies of Somalians are being pampered
> > by
> >>> the state, they get free tv's, cookers, suites, carpets, I'm told)
> > Myself
> >>> I've never seen a Leicester Somali, but the tale is peddled.
> >>>
> >>> But I think the key-point is the US, a country that supposedly prides
> > itself
> >>> on its democratic traditions but in reality is totally corrupt, in its
> > arts
> >>> and letters as well as its social organisation, it is poisoned and it
> > wants
> >>> its poison everywhere else too, by the standards of some of the
> > right-wing
> >>> rhetoric that comes out the States (which rhetoric has some very
strange
> >>> bedfellows) even the social critiques of The Simpsons would be a
> > subversive
> >>> act if committed in poetry.
> >>>
> >>> Best
> >>>
> >>> Dave
>
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