Frankly, I’m not a great one for spectacle. At the tender age of six I found Queen Liz II’s coronation a total bore – mind, it was in black and white on a nine inch screen and our living room crowded with neighbours. We had the only set in the street!
Apart from America always needing to do everything bigger and (no, not necessarily better) than anyone else, I fail to see why it has to be such a long, drawn-out, bit of theatre. After all, no other country in the western world makes such a fuss whenever it’s government changes. Let’s be honest, in Britain it’s one out and one in, and all over. Even Mrs Thatcher only managed half a saintly ode before being whisked into No 10 and the door closed firmly behind her.
I suppose it’s all about stirring the patriotic fervour. Get ’em all going with a good rendering of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” a few hefty speeches on how the ‘Shining City on a Hill’ rules the world and is hellbent on spreading freedom and democracy, then they can go back to bombing the shit out of us all knowing the citizenry aren’t going to complain too much because now they’ve had the affirmation that it’s their God-given right.
Trump, Clinton, whoever…they’ll only cause more trouble and strife in the world. Obama, Bush Jnr, Clinton, Bush Snr, Reagan, Carter – have any of them managed four years without bombing some country to bits? That’s okay, you can take your time…
Let’s be honest, they’re all wannabe dictators. The only difference between the previous and the new is that this latest addition doesn’t care who knows it.
With only days to go to the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, it’s now painfully obvious the man is severely flawed in his thinking, and the objectives he’s stated for his presidency.
This shouldn’t come as any great shock. What is shocking is the manner in which British politicians, including the Prime Minister, are rushing to lick his boots and tell him how wonderful he is. When images such as this…
…get flashed around the world’s media it shows British politicians for the mindless idiots they truly are. Just why the gormless twit Gove – no longer even a member of the British government – feels it necessary to embarrass his country by cavorting with America’s apology for a successful businessman isn’t clear, but perhaps it’s time Theresa May used a little of her authority to bring him and certain other members of her party into line.
There’s no doubt that Trump aims to do his best to break up the European Union. As the Guardian today reported:
Angela Merkel and François Hollande have responded curtly but defiantly after Donald Trump cast further doubt on his commitment to Nato and gave strong hints that he would not support EU cohesion once in office.
“We Europeans have our fate in our own hands,” the German chancellor said after the publication of the US president-elect’s interviews with the Times and German tabloid Bild. “He has presented his positions once more. They have been known for a while. My positions are also known.”
In the Times interview, Trump complained that Nato had become “obsolete” because it “hadn’t taken care of terror” – a comment later welcomed by the Kremlin. He suggested that other European countries would follow in Britain’s footsteps and leave the EU.
Hollande, the French president, retorted by saying Europe did not need to be told what to do by outsiders.
“Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will based on its interests and values,” Hollande said on Monday. “It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the criticism of Nato had caused concern in the political and military alliance. “I’ve spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but Nato foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there’s been no easing of tensions,” he said. [1]
It’s a known fact that for many years now NATO has been used by the U.S. as a cover for its own military actions both in the Middle East, Bosnia, and latterly, Africa. In all theatres the American military has been in the forefront of the action; other NATO countries utilized only to make it look more respectable as a combined effort. No surprise then that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is always an American general.
Unlike presidents before him, Trump may not be bothered by the idea of U.S. unilateral military action whenever and wherever the mood might take him. Acting alone though, may prove even more embarrassing given that the U.S. military hasn’t managed to win anything since WWII. Sure, they eventually ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991, but only after they’d assembled a military force on the Arabian Peninsula equaling the number of U.S. troops serving in Vietnam when that war was at its height – over 533,000. Truly a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The comments of Germany’s deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, were in stark contrast to the fawning rhetoric and Trump boot-licking of the British government:
Responding to Trump’s comments that Merkel had made an “utterly catastrophic mistake by letting all these illegals into the country”, the deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, said the increase in the number of people fleeing the Middle East to seek asylum in Europe had partially been a result of US-led wars destabilising the region.
“There is a link between America’s flawed interventionist policy, especially the Iraq war, and the refugee crisis; that’s why my advice would be that we shouldn’t tell each other what we have done right or wrong, but that we look into establishing peace in that region and do everything to make sure people can find a home there again,” Gabriel said.
“In that area, Germany and Europe are already making enormous achievements – and that’s why I also thought it wasn’t right to talk about defence spending, where Mr Trump says we are spending too little to finance Nato. We are making gigantic financial contributions to refugee shelters in the region, and these are also the results of US interventionist policy.” [1]
I would disagree with Sigmar Gabriel on only one issue. The refugee crisis that has hit Europe was not partly due to US-led wars, it was ENTIRELY due to the catastrophic, interventionist, policies of the United States in the Middle East since the 1980s, culminating in the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 that birthed ISIS and blew apart Iraq and Syria.
America failed utterly in its responsibilities to the innocent victims of this crazed, bully-boy, militarism, leaving Europe to pick up the pieces. Trump is now not only threatening to prevent any Muslims from entering the U.S., but may well expel large numbers already there.
Having voted by a tiny margin to leave the E.U. the British people are finding themselves about to be cast adrift on an empty ocean, the only lifeboat in sight commanded by a bigoted, racist bully with delusions of grandeur. Theresa May and her cronies seem quite happy to be taken in tow by this narcissistic retard and follow wherever he chooses to lead them.
My own view is good riddance Britain. You pulled the plug; it’s nobody’s fault but your own if it sinks you. Americans have made their choice and now it seems you’re going to join them on the Donald Trump switchback ride.
I just hope the true Europeans have a little more sense and back those leaders prepared to stand up to Trump’s new America, keeping Europe strong and united. The E.U. has a population of over 500,000,000, that’s 174,000,000 more than the United States. It’s an awful lot of people power – but only if they make the right decisions at election time.
The British still live in the days of empire. They’d rather be British than European. Margaret Thatcher appealed to their imperial nature. She won her second term after the unnecessary Falklands War in 1982, seizing back a British possession that should never have belonged to the U.K. in the first place. Theresa May is intent on emulating her.
On January 20th Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States of America. We should all, not just Americans, be asking how this once great nation could have sunk so low. There are lessons to be learned. It would appear the British government is not prepared to learn them.
One can only hope that Europeans are not so stupid.
I’ve just finished breakfast. I enjoy breakfast. All that lovely tea, and toast dripping with butter. Well, it’s actually margarine but today’s chemicals can really make it taste butter-like.
I always feel a bit disappointed that it’s over for another day. The last swallow of tea washing down that final crumb of toast leaves one wishing there might just be one more mouthful. But there never is.
I suppose dying is a bit like that: a sense of disappointment in those moments before the final snuff-out, a desire for just a few moments longer before the eternal darkness, or Heaven, or Hell, reaches out and grabs one. It all depends on one’s beliefs, of course. Well, actually, it doesn’t. Belief has nothing to do with it. What will be, will be. My brother-in-law lives with eternal disappointment. He’s an ardent Christian but is permanently sad that his sister and I (equally ardent non-Christians) won’t be allowed into the family party in Heaven, consigned as we will be in his belief to the Eternal Fiery Lake.
Frankly, I can’t resist a slight sense of relief. While the Eternal Fiery Lake has its drawbacks it just may be preferable to eternity in the company of my brother-in-law and his family. Not that I consider Hell an option. These days I’m firmly of the opinion that when you’re gone, that’s it. And while I know I’ll likely feel a momentary sense of disappointment that my life’s all over, it’ll at least be my final sense of disappointment and hopefully brief.
The same cannot be said of breakfast. I wonder if I might sneak another slice of toast?
