Re: Bombers v. terrorists

Matthew Huntbach wrote:
Maria Conlon wrote:
Matthew Huntbach wrote: 

It's still the case that in the UK we don't feel "really" part of
Europe. So international news is as likely to cover countries we
feel are culturally close to us as geographically. So the USA,
Canada and Australia will get at least as detailed coverage as
other western European countries.


And Eastern Europe? Asia? Africa? South and Central America? I really
had the impression that you (or maybe others) were saying that the UK
media covered the world.


As I said, news from the USA tends to be given greater coverage than
the same sort of news from countries which are less close culturally
to the UK.
So new from Asia, Africa, South and Central America may be less
detailed than news from the USA or western Europe.

However, I'm not the only one to note (and some Americans have noted
it here as well) that in many parts of the USA it seems quite
difficult to get news from outside the USA.

Are there no "backwaters" in the UK? I fear that you (and possibly some others) are comparing London and other larger towns to the entire USA. Compare London to New York, if you like, but don't compare it to, say, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. (OK, that's a wider difference than is likely, but I think you get the idea.)

In some ways, comparing the UK and the US is going to be apples and oranges no matter what. There are often differing circumstances.

[...] 
Frankly, I don't remember all the details about the "troubles," but
seem to recall that 800 years or so of history needed to be studied
to get a good grasp of the situation.


Not really. Part of the problem was a readiness of Irish Republicans
to bring in "800 years of history" in order to suggest that Britain
and British people had some sort of inherited guilt. The fact that
bad things were done by British governments to the Irish hunderds
of years ago does not mean the Britain of today has any bad
intentions towards them.


It was my impression that the problems *began* some 800 years ago.
(That statement should not be interpreted to mean that I favored the
IRA and its actions.)


Sure, 800 years ago, Norman aristocrats attempted to take control of
Ireland as their grandparents had taken control of England a hundred
years earlier. 400 years ago a large number of people of Scottish
background and Protestant religion were settled in Northern Ireland,
displacing the native Catholic population. But shouldn't we decide
what is right to do on the basis of people living today rather than
on the basis of what people living hundreds of years ago did?

I'm not sure that question can be answered "Yes." For one thing, who is "we"?

....... I would
have thought anyone white and living in North America today would
have a vested interest in taking that option and in not supporting a
view of history which attempts to role back population movements of
the last 400 years or so.

I'm not 100% sure of what you're saying there. Reading it one way, it sounds very insulting to the white people in this country.

Four hundred years ago, Europeans (maybe even some of my ancestors) were trickling into what is now the US and taking land from the natives, pushing them farther and farther west. Is that the sort of "population movement" you mean? Or do you refer to the advent of slavery and the subsequent freeing of the slaves? And are you referring to reparations of some kind to those two groups? If so, all that is meat for another OT thread (and possibly another group), I think.

OBaue: It's "roll back," not "role back." But you knew that.

Maria Conlon
Now concerned about Skitt's Law.


.

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