Phyllis Chesler Interviews Carol Gould

carol gould

Join our email list for updates.

subscribe
unsubscribe


.

 

We hope that you'll feel our website is worthy enough to contribute a few pounds to the bandwidth bills.



 

 

Some Stunning Attacks on the USA
Last uploaded : Thursday 28th Oct 2010 at 08:44
Contributed by : Carol Gould

 

London

Whether or not the effects of the BP explosion and subsequent environmental disaster were overblown (the British media are saying it was) it is to me of importance to register the level of America-hatred that spewed forth at the height of the crisis. What is also astonishing is the lack of sympathy the British media have for the still-scarred folks who suffered losses in the Lockerbie air disaster over Scotland and who are yet to digest the reality of Pan Am 103 terrorist Abdelbaset al Megrahi being alive and free in his native Libya.

What many American expatriates found shocking throughout the summer crisis was the lack of compassion for the Louisiana and Gulf state fishermen and restaurateurs whilst fury abounded about the plunge in BP shares and its 'effect on British pensions.'

My British colleagues and friends remind me BP is an American company, so how, I ask, can it affect British pensions? Likewise a BBC reporter gushed in an end-of-July financial report that BP had been Britain‘s biggest company. But isn‘t it American? Doh?

An American expatriate friend tells me she went to see her chiropodist in London in late summer and his receptionist was unusually hostile. My friend asked, “You don’t seem to care about me, do you?” to which the receptionist replied “No, I don’t.” When it was time to see the chiropodist he launched into a tirade on this theme: “Your shitty President is ruining our pensions!”

Now let’s look at some of the doozies that have been coming out of the furious psyches of Anglo-journalism since April 20:

In a piece in the Sun - sadly, not available online - household name Jeremy Clarkson, the BBC television presenter of popular Top Gear, told British readers on June 12 to “fill up with BP.” He goes on to say the usual things that American expatriates hear on a weekly basis at social events, about America’s culpability in the Piper Alpha and Torrey Canyon oil rig disasters and at Bhopal. He delivers the usual reprimand to Obama about his returning the bust of Churchill. He says Obama is lying about his grandfather’s treatment by the British. (Even for those of you who loathe Obama Clarkson’s joke about “You pulled my granddad’s toenails out” is pretty sick.) He says America has killed more guillemots (sea birds) than the rest of the world combined, “and people for that matter.” (Excuse me, Jeremy, but how many people did Stalin and Hitler kill in the past century? Thirty million? More like forty million?)

Clarkson got my war-history-obsessed soul churning when he used his BP rant to accuse Americans of shirking in the two world wars. He ignores the context and whines that the United States spent most of World War I trying to decide whether to support Germany and only joined us in World War II because of Pearl Harbor. He says America screwed Britain in Suez and refused to help in the Falklands. Finally he suggests Britain should nurture a special relationship with Germany. There are millions who would give credence to his views but why this vitriol when the BP disaster caused such misery and resulted in so many suicides, not to mention the deaths on the rig?

It gets worse. Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Daily Mail starts off by saying “Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.” Like Clarkson he accuses Obama of fabricating the story in his memoir about “his father being tortured by the British in Kenya” (actually, it was his grandfather) and that the president referring to “British Petroleum” shows his disdain for the United Kingdom. He adds a swipe at John McCain, calling him “inept” because the senator said the two countries have been friends for two-hundred years. (Okay, McCain was off by maybe five years but was that any dumber than Prime Minister Cameron’s July pronouncement that Britain was America’s 1940 wartime “junior partner ?“ )

Wheatcroft even tells us that the British Army had to be stationed in Canada in the nineteenth century to protect it from the southern neighbors. He complains that America lost so few men in both wars. According to the official American Veterans Centre records 418,000 Americans died in World War II. I suggest Geoffrey Wheatcroft visit Omaha Beach and see the 9,600 grave markers, not to mention the plaque at Duxford commemorating the tens of thousands of American pilots who perished. I suggest he visit Madingley cemetery where a plaque commemorates 5,100 Americans lost; 3,000 airmen are buried there. He says Lend-Lease destroyed the British economy for decades to come. He repeats the mantra I hear every week about Obama giving Gordon Brown trashy DVDs.” Wheatcroft really detests America. Whether you hate or love the president the unbridled loathing of America this summer has made many feel they must support whoever sits in the White House, as left and right did after 9/11.

The heavyweight business writer for the Evening Standard, Anthony Hilton, claims “anti-British passions are never far below the surface in the US.” Has he ever watched the gushing when the Oscars, Tonys and Emmys are handed out? Would Piers Morgan be replacing Larry King if Americans hated Britons? Hilton warns his many readers in the business world that America is not a suitable partner and condemns the “shamelessly vilified” BP CEO Hayward. (If Americans hate Brits so much wouldn’t Tony-Got-His-Life-Back have been murdered by now?)

The oil crisis may be over but the senators seeking to investigate the Lockerbie-BP connection need to be warned that they are going to get a mighty dose of hellfire in return.




Read more Editorials    go >>

 

 


KD Web - Web Design
© Jewish Comment .com

All Rights reserved.
No copying of any text or images allowed in any form digitally or otherwise,
without the prior written consent of the copyright holders.