Not Surprised, Just Disappointed

After leaving work early today with a strained back I was beavering away on the internet when I stumbled across the comments thread on a well considered post about the probable official/press lackey US reaction to comments made by State Department official Alberto Fernandez on Al Jazeera this past weekend. One of the first unofficial defenders of the Bushites was linked to in the post, a blog that featured this quote on it's masthead from the BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb:

"America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge. I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one."

Webb's quote comes from the transcript of a broadcast he made for BBC radio at the time of the Terri Schaivo case (the full transcript is here). Setting aside the fact that Webb was offering a mea culpa and explaining that the United States isn't always as simple as he tries to portray and is therefore being taken out of context, it was interesting to note that one of the commenters on the Fernandez post saw the Webb quote on the offending Bushie's blog and wrote:

"Justin Webb got the US right, methinks."

Sigh. There they go again.

Regular visitors here will know that I love my BBC. I have however long been pained by Justin Webb's reporting, not because it doesn't reflect aspects of the truth (there are religious nuts and all manner of kooks here in the States after all- American TV thrives on pointing out how mad many of its potential viewers are) but because he only covers a tiny portion of this country and presents it as the blanket truth. I'm a lefty who dispairs of religion and much of US foreign policy and it still drives me up the wall. I suppose it must be the amateurish smuggness of it all; the way Webb prefers to feed prejudices than tell an interesting and nuanced story without tidy villains dotted throughout.

But Webb isn't the cause; just a symptom. In what might be the longest example in history of having a chip on one's shoulder (unless the Greeks are still angry at the residents of Rome for eclipsing their moment of power) there is a sizable- and relatively educated yet intellectually lazy- segement of British society that revels in asserting its anti-American attitude before all the facts of a story are in. Encompassing everything from fast food (they don't seem to know that Burger King was owned by a British company until 2002) to religious fervour (ignoring the fact that the world's oldest organisation for evangelicals is the British Evangelical Alliance: keeping going for 160 years in an avowedly secular culture is quite impressive) all aspects of low brow culture are extrapolated to blanket this massive and hugely diverse country under a calumny of epic proportions.

It's obvious that I'm not going to change their minds. Like the American creationists they so abhor, these British happy generalisers prefer to think within their self-imposed intellectual strictures. They will never be comfortable admitting that their view of the United States is as infantile and useless a model as the one put about by the Daily Mail on asylum seekers. Therefore I have decided that if I can't beat them, I can at least play their game, and will attempt to use their framework for describing Great Britain:

London: 22nd October, 2006:
One of the first things that will strike a visitor to these shores is the overwhelming presence of the police. The main streets of not just the major population centers but even the smallest village are swarmed with police vans come 11pm (when the majority of the country's pubs shut) in order to deal with the vast armies of drunks spilling from their doors looking for a fight. Ordinary citizens are afraid to walk the streets after dark, lest they be targeted by roaming bands of boozers. Although Britain's booze culture is not the only cause for the deserted streets: a generalized fear of the young and vicious continues even when the bars are closed or the potential assailants are under age.

Yet despite the heavy presence of the law nowhere in Britain do people feel safe, as perverts and hoodlums lurk in every dark corner. Not even schools are free from the menace of stranger danger. And forget about having a pleasant commute; between the phantom train defecators and the happy slapping the chances of you arriving at work unmolested appear slim. Such is the danger Britain's citizens present to each other that wearing a hooded sweatshirt, such a common and unremarkable garment here in the United States, is regarded as such a threat to civil society that even Prime Minister Tony Blair thinks they should be banned in public.

But lest you get the impression that you would be immediately knifed upon arriving at Heathrow airport, I'd like to offer a few grains of reassurance. You are far more likely to be killed by a home grown muslim terrorist than by a hoodie wearing drunken happy slapper covered in poo. The feral youngsters who make Britain such a living hell are too fat to chase you, and in the unfortunate event that you do find yourself cornered by a terrorist, drunk, or young tearaway don't be afraid should they ask where you are from. Even with the endemic anti-Americanism rife in British society, many Britons are so thick that if you told them Minneapolis was just up the road from Windsor Castle they would have to take your word for it as they would lack the means to find out for themselves.

Now could you ask for a more fair and sourced picture of the United Kingdom?