[lbo-talk] "Brits" (as seen by Yanks)

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Mon Jul 11 10:07:55 PDT 2005


Gary? scoffs about the 'Brits' (yuck) 'stiff upper lip':

"and Nero fiddled while Rome burned, impressive isn't it.. That stiff upper lip is similar to American's patriotism, a diversion, no-one is asking why, no-one is taking Blair to task, they're too busy 'carrying on regardless' and being admired for it.. Bloody fools."

Peculiar metaphor. Nero was Emperor of Rome, the British people are only subjects. Of course people are interested in why: eveeryone is talking about it, the comment pages are full of it. But the difficulty is that the bombers' motivations are entirely opaque.

Blair should be taken to task for many things, some of them even more atrocious than the London bombing. But one thing we know for sure, is that he was not in London on the morning of 7 July, but in Gleneagles opening the G8 Summit.

Perhaps Gary? means that the bombings were payback for Iraq. But the targets were not the perpetrators of the Iraq war. They were ordinary men and women on their way to work, in a city that overwhelmingly opposed the war. I think it is a mistake to impune rational motives to the bombers. We still do not know who they are. But if they are of the same stripe as the Madrid bombers, all we know is that their motivations are delusional - unless you want to see the 14thC. Calipate restored, that is.

I do not read the stoical response as complancency. On the contrary, I am rather glad that London is not wallowing in self-pity.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list