Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted April 23, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted April 23, 2008 I am curious about the notion of the left "taking back" patriotism from the right. Just what is meant by that? Having grown up in the Vietnam era, the left has never seemed to have much use for patriotism. As a matter of fact, most of the hard lefties that I know pretty much hate the US. The taking back part is what confuses me. When did they have it? Not so much the left taking back stuff but decent everyday people taking back symbols that have been used by extreme right wingers. I f you don't know Britain, you won't know. I suppose it goes back in part to people like Oswald Mosely, and is closley tied into right wing pseudo politics, football, the Irish situation, Catholics v Protestants...all kinds of stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geeter Posted April 23, 2008 Members Share Posted April 23, 2008 I know enough about Britain to know that ignorant yanks like me should not offer opinions on UK politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 23, 2008 Members Share Posted April 23, 2008 To cite another Orwell line -- My Country Right Or Left. I don't love my country (and I'd NEVER wear a flag as part of my clothing, or fly one outside my house), but I AM fond of certain aspects of it. I would defend it from attack (yeah, right, like we're in so much danger that we'd need an unhealthy blues guitarist/pundit of almost pensionable age), though I would (and did) argue, to the best of my ability, against my country involving itself in an attack, based on VERY questionable information and worse rhetoric, on a country that hasn't attacked or attempted to invade us. Here's the thing. Like not a few others, I'm sick of right-wingers claiming a monopoly on the symbols of the particular patch of dirt in which I was born and where I live and attempt to minimise my taxes. I'm sure as hell no nationalist. Most of the time I'm not even a patriot. But I be damn if I'm going to let fascists, or even Tories (let alone New frickin Labour) claim that they're the only ones who aren't traitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 23, 2008 Members Share Posted April 23, 2008 I know enough about Britain to know that ignorant yanks like me should not offer opinions on UK politics. No, man, go 'head on. You can't know significantly less about it than some of the {censored}wits who actually LIVE here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonPhillips Posted April 23, 2008 Members Share Posted April 23, 2008 No, man, go 'head on. You can't know significantly less about it than some of the {censored}wits who actually LIVE here. I hear you brother, you speak the truth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted April 24, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted April 24, 2008 I know enough about Britain to know that ignorant yanks like me should not offer opinions on UK politics. Sorry Geeter, I didn't mean it like that;)Look up Combat 18 and you'll get a flavour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 looking at csm's sig i saw a referral about the walk through fire, which inculded jj,csm,rc, minitruth, and mhuk. did something happen to metalhead?????? Marc put up a thread in my and Sean's defence which, as MHUK himself put it, 'pissed a few people off.' It was speedily orwelled before Sean or I ever saw it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members caffiend Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 Happy St Georges from Ozzie and welcome back! I have been away and missed the madness it seems... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geeter Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 Sorry Geeter, I didn't mean it like that;) Look up Combat 18 and you'll get a flavour No worrys. I looked up Combat 18. My sainted Grandma who lost most all of her family to the Holocaust said until the day she died in 1995 that it could happen here and it could happen now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 2deaconblues Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 I don't love my country (and I'd NEVER wear a flag as part of my clothing, or fly one outside my house), but I AM fond of certain aspects of it. Fascinating. Speakng as an American liberal, or more to the point a left-wing-radical-pinko-red-yellow-bellied-subversive-kneejerk-bleeding-heart-Democratic, (to my friends), I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Krashpad Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 The only kind I've ever had any time for, good Orwellian as what I am.Nice you reference Mr Bragg, but I thought y'all in your contree had Bruce Springsteen to do that stuff for you. We do as well. But the more the merrier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Krashpad Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 Only stocks of kinky Donkey Buggery Weekly for the Judges.A most popular monthly broadsheet. OK. For the record, don't tell me how you know that. Kthks bye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 32-20-Blues Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 To cite another Orwell line -- My Country Right Or Left.I don't love my country (and I'd NEVER wear a flag as part of my clothing, or fly one outside my house), but I AM fond of certain aspects of it. I would defend it from attack (yeah, right, like we're in so much danger that we'd need an unhealthy blues guitarist/pundit of almost pensionable age), though I would (and did) argue, to the best of my ability, against my country involving itself in an attack, based on VERY questionable information and worse rhetoric, on a country that hasn't attacked or attempted to invade us.Here's the thing. Like not a few others, I'm sick of right-wingers claiming a monopoly on the symbols of the particular patch of dirt in which I was born and where I live and attempt to minimise my taxes.I'm sure as hell no nationalist. Most of the time I'm not even a patriot. But I be damn if I'm going to let fascists, or even Tories (let alone New frickin Labour) claim that they're the only ones who aren't traitors. In England, there is perhaps little need to declare yourself a Nationalist. After all, your political and cultural independence hasn't been siginificantly threatened in recent history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonPhillips Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 In England, there is perhaps little need to declare yourself a Nationalist. After all, your political and cultural independence hasn't been siginificantly threatened in recent history.Depends on your definition of recent history. In an historical context, 70 years is pretty recent and as you're probably aware, around that time our political and cultural independence was fairly seriously threatened.Plus we've always got the Taffys and Jocks moaning on about something or the other... (Jokes lads, just jokes...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Splashproof Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 OK. For the record, don't tell me how you know that.Kthks bye. It was a dark moment in my life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frets99 Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 And apparently, the ol bloke makes guitars too!!http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/brand/St.+George Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 2deaconblues -- You raise some interesting points. To provide a fully adequate answer would require a thesis-length essay (which -- *sighs of relief all round* -- I wouldn't attempt here even if I had the time), but here's one key point. The USA was formally founded and created as a nation. England just sort of GREW, 'acquiring', along the way, Scotland, Wales and the chunk of Ireland we still sort-of-run, in order to form the entity of 'Great Britain' aka 'United Kingdom.' We made it all up as we went along, rather than designing it from (so to speak) the ground up. A coupla frinstances: y'all have a formal written constitution, while we have an accumulation of centuries' worth of case law and Acts Of Parliament. Y'all's great cities were designed and laid out to be great cities from the git-go, while ours -- once again -- just GREW out of blobby little villages which gradually expanded until they linked into towns, and then cities. You only have to look at the neat gridwork of New York vs the narrow, twisty, almost haphazard layouts of so many urban and suburban neighbourhoods in my contree to see the contrast between these two fundamentally different historical processes. How could we 'save' England -- or, for that matter, 'Britain'? My only suggestion: a return to the basic principles of the 1945 post-war Labour Government, which founded, among other things, the National Health Service. (Many Americans wonder why the British electorate rejected Winston Churchill, who many consider to have won the UK end of World War II virtually singlehanded. Answer: he was a great and inspiring war leader, but not to be trusted in peacetime to heal and rebuild a shattered and bleeding nation.) Which means: reversing the process begun by Margaret Thatcher under Tory colours and enthusiastically furthered by Tony Blair's New Labour, in which the values of business and commerce infected every aspect of our national life. Still: that's a much longer and more complex argument. The bottom line is: you're right. We are very different countries, formed by very different histories, which have intersected over centuries in very different ways. What do we have in common? A language, a bunch of movies and TV shows, some literature, and -- here at least -- a strong mutual fondness for VERY LOUD GUITARS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Willyguitar Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 I almost entirely agree with CSM's post there - I think this kind of sentiment is probably quite common among musicos in the UK. I would add though that whereas the differences you point out are valid, it is nevertheless also the case that most 'nations' are invented ideas - ours and your included. What is it that makes us English? Language - important, but shared with other nations. Culture/traditions/histories? Maybe, but why do we select some traditions and histories over others? Aren't there competing traditions and histories in each nation? People? Can't be - even taking the ethnically 'white' population in the UK for example, there is huge genetic variation - race has no meaning beyond skin colour and the cultural politics attached to it. Land? Boundaries are also selected, drawn, sometime imagined. Without the means of communication to talk to each other of couse, we wouldn't have come up with the idea of the nation - national identity, nation formation is in this sense a modern phenomenon. Most of Europe's nations formed in the mid 19th Century (German Unification, Italian Unification, new states of Eastern Europe). Similarly, what we have here is the breaking down of old barriers with the internet... perhaps the nation will eventually disappear, or become increasingly insignficant? Sometimes it doesn't seem so on this forum. But I for one veer towards down grading national identity, but to use national territories and the state infrastructure for organising health and education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 ^^^^^^^^ All of which is perfectly true and makes complete sense. I mean --- uhhhhhhh. What he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 2deaconblues Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 After a night's sleep I think I could have boiled down my comments to this. What intrigued me most yesterday was the realization that there are such profound differences in what seems, sometimes, to be such similar cultures. I think it's natural to feel that, well, since my positions are so logical and well reasoned, others must feel the same way. Yet we often fail to take into account the unique differences and experiences that are specific to others. I, for one, am all for it. Viva la difference! Oh, damn. It's probably the wrong thread in which to speak French, sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 After a night's sleep I think I could have boiled down my comments to this. What intrigued me most yesterday was the realization that there are such profound differences in what seems, sometimes, to be such similar cultures. I think it's natural to feel that, well, since my positions are so logical and well reasoned, others must feel the same way. Yet we often fail to take into account the unique differences and experiences that are specific to others.I, for one, am all for it. Viva la difference! Oh, damn. It's probably the wrong thread in which to speak French, sorry. A pedant writes: That's 'VIVE', rather than 'VIVA', which is Espagnol. Ce n'est pas Francais. Mais nous n'avez pas une probleme avec ce langue ici ... Was it Churchill who said that Britain and the US are 'divided by a common language'? (For once it wasn't Orwell, Shakespeare, Wilde or the King James Bible.) An' yer TOADLY right: we do indeed have so much in common as nations and as cultures that it's easy to lapse into a state of false security and stumble over some of the things we DON'T have in common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 2deaconblues Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 That's 'VIVE', rather than 'VIVA', which is Espagnol. See, right there. We don't know {censored} about furin languages over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 See, right there. We don't know {censored} about furin languages over here. 'Course ya do. Guess where I first saw a T-shirt reading LEARN ENGLISH OR LEAVE? Clue: it wasn't in England. Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone wearing that shirt over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Willyguitar Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 the father of a girlfriend I had years ago used to say, 'I know half the languages of the world. There's English, then there's foreign, and I know English' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lucio Posted April 24, 2008 Members Share Posted April 24, 2008 Clue: it wasn't in England. Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone wearing that shirt over here.That's because if it were true a large proportion of the native population would be headed for distant shores Just kidding...Welcome back gents and a belated happy St George's day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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