Facebook Transplant Part 14 - Originally Posted 7/5/09 - The Sun Finally Sets...

After I have been off from work, and thus away from extended periods online, and have spent part of today wading through my customary blogs and online newspapers of choice.

I had been in blissful ignorance about WW3 about to happen in Georgia, the mutual expulsion of NATO and Russian diplomats as spies, and general “on the brink” news that would have interested me far more than the predictable and generic news items on Madeleine McCann two years on and the endless panic mongering about swine flu.

But, aside from the events in Georgia and the happy occurrence that NATO is showing some gonads and calling Russia’s bluff, I also stumbled across these two articles. Take the time to read them – they are very interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5280118/Britain-will-be-missed-on-the-world-stage.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1177719/MAX-HASTINGS-Thatchers-legacy--America-falling-love-Britain-again.html

Both reinforce what I have been feeling for a few months now, pretty much ever since I have started reading a lot more on Imperial, Colonial, and early post-Colonial history with regards Britain. These “studies” have removed a lot of the romanticism that I once held about British military prowess.

A further reality check came by looking between the lines of the MOD and media propaganda about our performance of late in the War on Terror, something made a lot easier by the twin blogs http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/ and http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/. I look forward to one of the bloggers books, “Ministry of Defeat”, when it is released later on this year and urge you to pick up a copy – it will make you angry, believe me.

The long and the short of it is that, after a few decades of kicking and screaming in resistance following our loss of face and prestige during the Suez Crisis, I think that we are finally seeing the death throes of the UK as a projector of power and policy in the world.

Some would say that is a good thing, those wracked by misplaced post-colonial guilt, those who bleat about illegal wars, anti-Americanists, the Islamic lobby, and the Left in general. I for one say it’s an awful thing. I know that we have been a second tier player for the last 50 years or so, but we were still a player who had influence and something positive to offer our allies, especially our greatest ally, the US.

I am generally a big fan of the US. I don’t like everything about it, its attitudes, its institutions, its values, and a plethora of other aspects, but in the big scheme of things, I see America as definitely being one of the “good guys”, a label that maybe only a dozen countries deserve in my mind. America under his holiness St Obama? Well, I don’t know yet, although his weakness towards rogue states is very worrying and his determination to adopt the worst aspects (as opposed to the few very good aspects) of European socialism could harm the US in the long term. He has 100 days, I give him maybe a grade of 60% so far and will watch the rest of his 1st term with interest.

The US has not “needed” us for a very long time, not economically, not militarily, not socially – indeed, it is us that have needed them in all of these aspects, and who will continue to have that need. What is galling is that the semblance of respect and equality, however shallow and image based rather than substantial and real, is now gone and I seriously doubt we will ever get that “special relationship” back when we have so little to offer. Without the backing of the US, with only such toothless tigers as the UN and parasitical institutions as the EU in our corner, we will be sitting ducks for increasing Russian belligerence and Islamic radicalism/terrorism.

When you combine this loss of what little international prestige we once had, prestige largely due to the “special relationship”, with the shocking degradation of domestic Britain, then the future looks dark indeed.

We have the highest number of new HIV cases in the Western world, largely thanks to sub-Saharan African immigration, mostly illegal. We have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe and severe drug problems. Our police are shackled and watched relentlessly by the left – just witness the ridiculous and farcical aftermath of the G20 “demonstrations” and the media lead witchhunt. No wonder crime is through the roof. Binge drinking, obesity, Islamic extremism, dilution of British values and culture, crime, bad education – its hard to think of this country as even being the same one that accomplished so much. It’s a fall of even greater proportion than that of the Roman Empire degenerating into the basket case that is Italy.

Our economy is in tatters and, given that we have next to no real industry or agriculture here and that our economy was based largely on finanicial services which I do not ever see recovering to pre-recession levels, I am failing to see how we are going to recover enough to pay off the frankly terrifying levels of public debt that our esteemed Labour government is putting us in. Apparently, more people have signed an online petition at 10 Downing Street’s website, calling for Brown’s resignation, than voted for Labour in the last general election, which they won!

I guess the last relics of my romantic view of British power, influence and importance haven’t totally left me, since I am actually feeling physically sad about our current state of existence and don’t really see any way of improving it. I think I will dust off my ideas about immigrating to Canada, which at this rate will not only have a stronger and more dependable military, but will also have retained enough of what once made Britain great to satisfy me. I for one can’t think of anything that will fix us in the short term, let alone the long term, and maybe it is indeed time to search for greener pastures.