America and the Brits

Sometimes in Skypeland you can catch a glimpse of national character and mood if you listen closely. Recently a friend came across an article analyzing why foreigners seem to hate America. What I find interesting about this is that if you asked the average American what country was their best friend, almost every American would answer, "The United Kingdom".

However, from my visits to Skypeland, I find that is not particularly true among the people I talk to from the UK. Of the 10 or so Brits in Skypeland I can think of off the top of my head:

*one is fairly positive about the US

*one is sort of ambivalent about the US but still feels incredibly superior because he engages in foxhunting and plays polo and speaks with "received pronunciation" (previously called "BBC English") and this makes him think that the US and all Americans are beneath him because these are not major cultural activities in the US and the US is a mix of "inferior" cultures and accents. Interestingly, although he claims he as a college degree in physics, he is unable to answer the simplest questions about the subject. I guess he was too busy playing polo to do much studying.

*the other 8 are openly angry about the US, and hostile to all Americans, as well as feeling vastly superior in every way, shape and form to the US. They have no qualms about telling Americans over and over how stupid they are and awful they are in every possible way and telling them they are "pieces of shit". This makes many Brits extremely susceptible to the "inside job" nonsense some lunatics like to spread.

I notice that although there was a small "inside job" industry that welled up around 7/7, most of these Brits now dismiss it or are even unaware of it. It is just not as interesting when the conspiracy theories are about the UK to most Brits; they would rather focus on that big evil giant across the pond, the USA.

However, many Brits in Skypeland just prattle on like nincompoops about 911, presenting themselves as experts in building demolition, high rise construction, aircraft maintenance, thermite, DNA, metallurgy, physics, explosives, US Air Force procedures, the design of the Pentagon, and so on. This is true for many of these Brits, even if they never graduated from High School or visited the US. Their own country might be headed for the ash-heap of history and badly struggling, but they devote a huge amount of time and energy to studying the alleged failings of the US, and crowing about the purported deficiencies of America in almost indecipherable accents.

One room I frequent from time to time even has had to be programmed to "auto-mute" incoming visitors, partly because moderators were often coming in to find a nest of nattering Brits talking delightedly and gleefully about how much they hate the USA. Good lord, couldn't they find something more constructive to talk about?