Willy Waving Contests

Posted by robbiebow on 25 August, 2009 under politics | Be the First to Comment

The past fortnight we’ve had British-American willy waving contests about the NHS and the Lockerbie bomber early release. I’ve noticed a fair bit of chauvinism in the air, which is to be expected when two nations divided by the same language get into this sort of thing.

But it’s a shame. It happens more so these days and, whilst it’s nowhere near as serious as he hoped, it’s all playing out to Osama bin Laden’s aim to polarize: to polarize West from East; Muslim from non-Muslim; America from fellow Western nations; to cut the (American) head off the (Western) snake.

Like I said, it’s not as serious or as immediate as he hoped, but it’s what he wanted, and it’s not healthy. So we chip, chip away at one another and bicker. People muse the fall of America and how it’ll benefit us (which it won’t – far from it – but that’s another story). In the words of a wiser and more pacifist friend of mine, “why are we fighting like this”? We have so much more we can be getting on with.