Posted by Andy Morley on 07/07/00 from 62.137.37.188 via proxy webcacheH06a.cache.pol.co.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Kiwis, Aussies and Merkins... posted by John Lambert on July 06, 2000 at 22:05:30:
> Fully agree on the hyper-sensitivity of Americans.
> They used to be a tough race - much like the
> Aussies - what has happened? This must be the SNAG
> syndrome in action (Sensitive New Age Guy).
I think this is all much older than 'New Age'. The myth of 'tough' Americans must date back to the '30s at least, when cowboy stories probably influenced Titty to say 'Howdy' to her parrot. (an expression which was quite done to death in Tarboard some while ago).
As far back as 1978, when I went on the Politics equivalent of the dreaded Geography Field Trip, I encountered it. We were all ushered into a big hall in Strasbourg - (or was it Brussells?), and told by a manic American official on the stage all about what a dreadful threat the Russians were. He was quite as bad as anyone religious.
When the time came for asking questions, I said that since America was a capitalist economy, and therefore more concerned about issues such as cost, they were more likely to instigate the use of nuclear weapons than the Russians didn't he think..? My rationale was that nuclear war is a cheaper way to kill lots of people. The Communists appeared to be less concerned about the costs of maintaining large standing armies which they would use when they wanted to throw their weight about, as later proved true in Afganistan.
However I hardly had time to make my point before he went first completely apoplectic and purple before almost collapsing into tears at the ingratitude of us Europeans who just did not appreciate all that the kind Americans were doing in terms of protecting us from the Bolsheviks. At one stage I thought that I was going to be escorted away by military police.
I wonder what Ransome really thought about the Russian State during the 1930s as Stalinism unfolded..? I get the feeling that no-one really knows...
Cheers,
Andy Morley