I Hate Americans

I posted this on Friday, October 01, 2004. I probably didn't have any idea who Donald Trump was or who he would become then.  I would have had no idea of the political schisms and the economic crash that would happen to smash the American Dream.  Then I would have no idea that thirteen years later I would be living and working in China where some of my best friends are - Americans. 

Let me apologise right now. Friends this is my attempt at humour or just so you understand - humor. 


Of course the Americans are hating themselves now - so there is no need for me in 2017 to hate them. Half the country are hating the people that voted Trump in and those that voted Trump in are hating the Hillary supporters. It’s like a cult of personality there. Where celebrities seem to think they are important enough to preach to the rest of the country about who does what and the notion that politicians should have policies to help the country and the people seem to have gone out of the window.

I Hate Americans. 


Now I don’t really understand why I wrote that. It sort of just slipped out. I don’t really think that I do hate Americans. I mean how can I as the population is 294,410,526 as of today the 1st October -2004? If I only hated each person for say 10 seconds each I would have to spend the next 9 YEARs hating Americans. But between you and me I have better things to do with my life (But at the moment in 2017 - I still haven’t come up with a definitive list!). 


So I need to analyse my feelings just a little bit more. I mean I quite like the idea of America and thus should quite like the idea of Americans.

Look the country was set up as a refuge against religious persecution in Europe and a way for many English people to escape our mad kings. So the idea of the great melting pot that welcomes the shivering masses to its shores strikes a chord with me. I like that. And going back to the 294,410,526 I quite like Americans as individual people. By that I mean all the Americans I have met (with the exception of the immigration officials at JFK) I have quite liked too. We even visited a family in Portland Maine once! 




So why don’t I like Americans as a collective then? Well first off they are just obvious targets aren’t they. They are just so insular. What is that statistic about the number of passports per head of population? Blimey the Brits can’t wait to get out of there country – most of them buying houses in France, Spain (with no idea about the economic crashes to come, the weak pound decimating their pensions and of course BREXIT) and all points East and South and not getting on with their new neighbours if the TV is to be believed!

Another example is, I sell stuff on ebay, and I am happy to post around the world, provided the buyer pays the shipping (as the Yanks call it). But so many of them buy my stuff and then balk at the cost of the postage, they seem to assume that the UK is a few miles off California or somewhere close where the postage will only cost a few dollars. Never mind that it has to be put on an aeroplane and flown there! Perhaps they still have a pony express I don’t know (although I do get a childish thrill when I get payments from Wells Fargo!) 


Okay I am starting to warm to the subject now. For a country that was set up on the notions of freedom from persecution and so on, I really do not get their idea that they can be the world’s police. I mean, apart from sort of helping to end WW2, and this is only a marginal truth. I know for a fact that the Russian people seem to believe that it was their huge sacrifices that saw the end of that conflict. So what else have they managed to do successfully? Korea? Nah! Grenada? Nah!, That place in Africa with the helicopters? Nah! Vietnam – ah Vietnam, not a loss but a ‘tactical withdrawal’. Tactical withdrawal my arse or ass for my American readers! They lost! It’s their bravado then? Perhaps it’s that that I dislike? 


Or their contribution to world cuisine perhaps? The ubiquitous McD? KFC? And now why o why do we have to call Treats MnM’s and Marathons, Snickers? And this inevitably leads to big fat trailer trash women with HUGE bottoms and big Fat guys too. And now this cultural deficit, the ubiquitousness of fast food is impacting on our women too! 




Okay,  I’ll give you the film industry and some good actors, some marginally good TV programmes and yes I’ll give them some good, if not great Rock n Roll, Blues and some terrific writers - step forward James Lee Burke. 


But what’s all this red neck stuff up in the Ozark Mountains or wherever, what’s all this white Aryan nation stuff? All this gun ownership, the paranoia that someone’s out to get them. So lets waste them first before they waste us. Baloney! (more bad food!).

And since writing this we have seen the increase of cops killing black folks, white folks killing school kids and religious congregations, hell even going to the local restaurant is a dangerous pastime now - if the news out of America is to be believed. And another schism he Black Lives Matter issue. against the All Lives Matter movement anon one but no one dares say White lives matter too - thank you very much. 




And I’m not even going to mention their (mis)use of the English language. Like you know- whatever! 




Hating Americans is sort of complicated, it’s not like hating the cat or the next door neighbours. It’s like a general sense of uneasiness that they are out there waiting to come and get us. Like a damp fog across Dartmoor in winter, if you get my drift. I don’t really have time to hate Americans, not all of them anyway. So maybe like most people George W will have to do, unless you readers can come up with any more likely candidates? Whatever! 




You know what - I'm going to retract my statement about hating Americans. I don't hate you guys. In the main I pity you. I hope you can sort it out without resorting to war and gun play - you tried that once remember?