Yesterday I considered sending no more Comments to the Blog, indeed closing it, because I felt I was repeatedly covering old ground, as one does at my age. For example, there was a piece on BBC TV News offering the fact that young people, selected for a questionnaire, considered they were at least 5% better of and happier with their lot than those canvassed at some time in the past, This therefore showed that old idiots like me were mistaken when they constantly barracked against and were sorry for the life young people were experiencing today, compared with what we had when we were young, and by implication, the piece was promoting that the differential has not been downward and detrimental. I think it is a government propaganda ploy to stop young people feeling depressed. We were fitter, not under pressure, mostly part of a family with only one wage earner, had a future, not sparkling, few possibilities that would be better than our forebears had, our financial expectations were secure and crime was rare in general. As we knew nothing else, we were not resigned, we were content. When people carry out surveys, where the results differ by a small margin, taking into account a safety percentage for error, it reduces the outcome to a point where the survey is pointless. This subject has been examined before ad nauseam, by me and greater minds than mine, and yet no one seems to heed, or be able to stem the downward spiral. Affluence is not necessarily a gauge of happiness.
I have been persuaded to think again. I shall not be contributing in the volume I used to, and I shall take note of my stats (statistics of readers), they tell the story. When I’m yesterday’s news, I shall stop.
06,11.07, Comments, Our Special Relationship?
Special relationships are not always amicable. Take that between prisoner and warder, it is certainly special, because of the circumstances, but unlikely to be a friendship as is the usual interpretation. What I’m really referring to is our alleged and vaunted relationship with the USA, which is possibly pure fiction. I remember how difficult it was at the beginning of WW2 to get the Americans to help us in our hour of need. It seemed impossible for Churchill initially to convince them that we were in a parlous state and if we were overcome, they could well be next.
It is my conviction that politicians, especially at election time, in order to cosy up to the electorate, actually make statements that shadow the views of the majority of the electorate, rather than the situation as it really is. They know in doing so they are not only using a fillip to the ego of the electorate by acknowledging they were right all along, there is a feel good factor in there as well. From my experiences with the Yanks in WW2, not only do I doubt that the average American doesn’t care one way or the other, there is a large body who, on principle, hate Britain for historical reasons. I believe the natural wealth, which incidentally they have been squandering by greed and bad management, has induced a sense of insularity, and they only stir when their financial or material interests are in jeopardy. What started this tirade by me were two things. The first was that whether we like it or not, the colossal internal debt in America is being, to some extent, repaid by the solvent sector of this country, because banking is no longer an in-house facility. Banking is now a global cartel and takeovers in banking are regular. We, in our ignorance, are more at risk than we realise as a result, in a lot of cases, of rushed, electronically controlled, preordained reaction to conditions, rather than a slower, more considered cerebral one,. The second cause of me sounding off was a piece in the press last week quoting Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential contender, and one time Governor of Tennessee, clearly a true conservative of the Deep South.
He is reported to have said America was at the crossroads of history, and implied he was worried America would go the way of Europe and become a second-tier military and second-tier nation. He further extolled the virtue of America strengthening every aspect to ‘remain the most powerful nation on earth. A world without America as the leader is a very frightening place.’ he said. I beg to differ; on the contrary! That sort of mindless rhetoric is a clear indicator that there is no special relationship, and if Romney feels he is echoing the responses of the majority of the electorate, there never was.