Special relationship UK & US (a myth?)
- Thread starter Nyotarules
- Start date
Yeah, I was being a contentious ass although there is a historical element to this game of nations. The propaganda of the British Empire, especially in the 18th century, promoted it as God's favoured nation to spread the word of the New Testament, while the real motive was greed, of course. The Americans took on that mantle, starting with grabbing bits of the failing Spanish Empire, and then accelerating their domination after dismantling the British and French Empires. The motive is still to accumulate as much wealth as possible, while crippling the main commercial rivals (currently the Europeans and Chinese). Like their British predecessors, the current US elite, being self-entitled bullies, don't like a level playing field.I should have clarified "in modern times"
In ten years time once the generation that fought in WW2 go to their eternal rest I think there will be even less talk of the special relationship. Actually those of us born and brought up in the cold war era once we are gone I suspect it will be dead in the water, so that is another 50 years to go!
Sadly it might need such an experience for when the 'average white American male' suffers in a big way and realises they have been deceived then the penny might drop. It took WW2 for the Germans to realise the path they went down was destructive for everyone, including themselves.
I'm not a Corbyn supporter but its tempting to put Labour in power just to stop the political leg humping, sadly he might just go hump somewhere else. The far Left can be as politically blinkered as the far Right.
It was first coined by Sir Winston Churchill after the war.
Consumers are hypocrites, we want cheap products and we don't care where it comes from until our own jobs are on the line, due to overseas cheap products. Gotta love lassez faire capitalism!
Mother England taught them well. The former student is now miles better than the teacher.
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The worrying thing is this isn't hyperbole....
Why would some use so many materials (oil-based plastics, helium, etc) for just that? Imagine if a group of Right-wingers did that for any Left-wing politician.
(Edited, minor clarification)
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Exactly. We have no consensus on that.
With only few exceptions (see below), we haven't had much consensus on the definition of American values ever, and certainly not in my lifetime. However, there have been periods in my life when there was relative unity: November 1984, January 1991, and September 2001 come to mind. At those moments, the US was pitted against or was pitting itself against an external evil, or a perceived external evil if you like, and Americans considered themselves in aggregate united against it.
Of course, today, any unity of purpose and any aggregate belief among Americans that the War on Terror is a righteous cause worth undertaking have long since evaporated, in no small part because in multiple ways the means of prosecuting that war have been found, both at home and abroad, to be contrary to the values that many Americans hold and because the theaters in which the war has been fought with great expense in blood and treasure haven't all been relevant to the end of protecting the homeland from terrorist attack.
I think it's unlikely that anyone can speak with authority as to what shared American values are. The almighty dollar? Maybe (and therefore also maybe not). But for every potential value I can think of, there are significant counterexamples supporting the idea that it's not.
What about the Bill of Rights? Freedom of speech? Maybe, but it's not very well respected. For example, we have a sitting President who encouraged people to rough up a protester at one of his political rallies. The right to bear arms? Well, the idea that there's unity of vision on that is a non-starter. What about the right to due process? People all over the place don't respect that; many hold the bizarre position that respecting the rights of criminal defendants is in conflict with national security. Freedom of religion? That's really a poorly understood and poorly respected right, as to many people it seems to bring the expectation that essentially their religion should convert everyone.
It's really hard to have shared American values when Americans just don't respect other Americans.
Sad, really.
Given all the effigies of President Obama that were created just for the purpose of hanging or burning, or both, we really don't have to imagine.
Good point; I hadn't remembered that at the time. I was also thinking literally, not laterally as well.
Still, how lateral we want to get only means that GWB, Clinton, and arguably farther back will all have had something nasty made as effigy. And is there such a thing as an audible effigy as opposed to visual? Verbal accosting. It never seems to end, does it?
I am an American with close family in England, Ireland and the Middle East. We often talk about the USA's role on the world stage.
From the American perspective, pre-Trump, the UK was our strongest ally. Post-Trump, this viewpoint seems to be divided along political lines. Many on the right feel that countries that have been seen as long term allies have been taking advantage of us because that is the narrative that is being spun on the right.
As for the belief in a special bond, I think it is largely due to the common language, more than any shared values or history. Americans,as a whole, view the English language as the language everyone should know. Since English is spoken in the UK, we must be family. The UK has always been seen as kind of the mature older brother to our rowdy little brother.
From what I have taken from conversation with family abroad, they do not reciprocate the same warm fuzzies for the US, that many of us have for the UK, particularly under the current administration. To quote a cousin that was born in Turkey, but has lived in London for decades "the US is woefully behind in most of the things that count". I agree with this sentiment, for the most part, but do feel that there are wonderful things about the USA and Americans, though I understand that it is very hard for the rest of the world to see it at the moment.
From the American perspective, pre-Trump, the UK was our strongest ally. Post-Trump, this viewpoint seems to be divided along political lines. Many on the right feel that countries that have been seen as long term allies have been taking advantage of us because that is the narrative that is being spun on the right.
As for the belief in a special bond, I think it is largely due to the common language, more than any shared values or history. Americans,as a whole, view the English language as the language everyone should know. Since English is spoken in the UK, we must be family. The UK has always been seen as kind of the mature older brother to our rowdy little brother.
From what I have taken from conversation with family abroad, they do not reciprocate the same warm fuzzies for the US, that many of us have for the UK, particularly under the current administration. To quote a cousin that was born in Turkey, but has lived in London for decades "the US is woefully behind in most of the things that count". I agree with this sentiment, for the most part, but do feel that there are wonderful things about the USA and Americans, though I understand that it is very hard for the rest of the world to see it at the moment.
We've never (in my memory) had such an intensely negative opinion of any serving U.S president, left or right. Even GWB was seen with a more balanced perspective, but there seems to be no reason whatsoever to give Trump the respect ordinarily due a head of state.
The O.P asked for perspectives on the special relationship, I think you'll find on this side of the pond my opinion is remarkably commonplace and I'm far from being at the extreme end.
Terrorism in Great Britain: the statistics
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7613/CBP-7613.pdf
The majority of people arrested for terrorism related offences in Great Britain since 11 September 2001 have been British nationals: 58% of people declared they were a British national at the time of their arrest. On an annual basis the proportion of those arrested for terrorism offences who are British nationals has increased.
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7613/CBP-7613.pdf
The majority of people arrested for terrorism related offences in Great Britain since 11 September 2001 have been British nationals: 58% of people declared they were a British national at the time of their arrest. On an annual basis the proportion of those arrested for terrorism offences who are British nationals has increased.
What does this have to do with the relationship between the US and the UK? Unless, you forgot to quote someone?
From your link:
Which is what I said.....
The IRA were far more deadly than Muslim extremism and were significantly armed and funded from within the U.S, specifically from Republican sources.
Yes. And you're quite right about staying on topic. I know I will make a concerted effort to do so ...
The IRA were Catholic extremists and yet no one supported the banning of Catholics to the USA, from what I understand the USA was a safe haven. However the IRA had the good grace to look less brown than the average Muslim terrorists. Smart choice Padraig!
I would not say that the special relationship is a myth exactly, but I don't think it is very healthy, either. I think we have drifted apart socially in the 21st Century quite significantly, and politically since the end of the Blair/Bush alliance. Britain trended more liberal than the US socially since the 90s ended, and now viewpoints once fairly common in the UK like climate change denial and traditionalist views on marriage, the death penalty and abortion are greeted by most with a wry smile of ridicule or at best a wistful longing for a bygone era when 'common sense prevailed'. We further restricted private firearms, made the police more accountable and Investigations more fair, introduced swathes of legislation aimed at protecting victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault and slavery, and openly acknowledged institutional racism even if we haven't quite cracked how to tackle it. The UK has ever diminishing patience for public displays of religion, especially in the political arena, and views the deepening influence of the religious right in the US with a sense of suspicious incredulity.
Strangely though, we arguably trended more conservative economically during the Obama era, and Cameron's government pulled away from the relationship in part because Obama wasn't playing along with the European austerity agenda, and his success at economic stimulation was making the dour speeches about belt tightening and neverending hard times happening in Whitehall seem faintly absurd.
Wars have always tested our relationship and while the joint enterprise of WWII bonded us together, recent conflicts viewed (unfairly, I would argue) by the UK public as primarily American mistakes have forced a wedge between us. The special relationship became a bad joke, with Blair portrayed as Bush's faithful lapdog, hanging out with the biggest bully on the block. That caricature only got worse when Theresa May was seen fawning all over Trump and refusing to condemn his worst excesses, in return for the unreliable promise of a trade deal.
Now as we move toward the close of this second decade of the century, America seems to be taking active steps to alienate its former friends, and the special relationship seems to be heading for a messy breakup. Maybe we are two nations that, for a brief period of 40 or 50 years occupied roughly the same socioeconomic ground, but are now on different trajectories destined to widen our differences. I personally think it is still salvageable; but it's going to need some urgent couples counseling.
Strangely though, we arguably trended more conservative economically during the Obama era, and Cameron's government pulled away from the relationship in part because Obama wasn't playing along with the European austerity agenda, and his success at economic stimulation was making the dour speeches about belt tightening and neverending hard times happening in Whitehall seem faintly absurd.
Wars have always tested our relationship and while the joint enterprise of WWII bonded us together, recent conflicts viewed (unfairly, I would argue) by the UK public as primarily American mistakes have forced a wedge between us. The special relationship became a bad joke, with Blair portrayed as Bush's faithful lapdog, hanging out with the biggest bully on the block. That caricature only got worse when Theresa May was seen fawning all over Trump and refusing to condemn his worst excesses, in return for the unreliable promise of a trade deal.
Now as we move toward the close of this second decade of the century, America seems to be taking active steps to alienate its former friends, and the special relationship seems to be heading for a messy breakup. Maybe we are two nations that, for a brief period of 40 or 50 years occupied roughly the same socioeconomic ground, but are now on different trajectories destined to widen our differences. I personally think it is still salvageable; but it's going to need some urgent couples counseling.
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One has to wonder what Trump's Spitting Image puppet would be if the show was still in production.
And Thereason May, Corbyn, Farage, Boris, Abbot, Farron, Mogg, and everyone else.
After the U.S. entry into World War II, the running Brit joke about Americans was, "They're over paid, over sexed, and over here!" 
???
Support for the IRA from within the United States came not from any political party, but from groups of Irish Americans, most of whom tended to be more left-of-center and vote Democrat, not Republican. Even as recently as this past election, surveys of Irish Americans showed they voted Democrat almost 2:1.