Klarinet Archive - Posting 000750.txt from 2003/04

From: "Matthew Lloyd" <Matthew@-----.uk>
Subj: [kl] Losing America
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:41:26 -0400

"I didn't consider Tony Pay's scatological remarks about Americans a few
months back to be an appropriate rejoinder to some commentary going on
at the time, but I have since learned that the English, despite their
charm, still resent losing America to Mel Gibson. We had quite the
set-to about that one." - Bill Semple

I don't resent losing America. Not one iota. Indeed it never crosses my
mind as something the English lost as I don't see it as part of England
at all. An early colony and little more in terms of English history. And
I don't think I am remotely untypical. The English I know feel that
America is a very insular country with little appreciation of how the
world works. I wouldn't disagree. I know that this does not describe all
Americans - there are of course many cultured and sensitive Americans
(just as there are many English yobs) but as a country this is how you
come across to me. Your President appears to the English as a warmonger
and congenital idiot. I don't suppose that is the way that he is seen in
America, but you are in the minority - you should wonder why this is. I
agree that our Prime Minister is not someone I want to represent our
country with his dreadfully right wing ways, and seeming inability to
avoid simpering at Bush.

America is in many ways a beautiful country, and when I visited it last
summer I was made very welcome by a very friendly people. Americans need
to look at how they are viewed by the rest of the world and see why that
is, and how they are going to change it. And stop thinking that there
are two ways of doing something - the American Way and the wrong way.

Matthew Lloyd
England.

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