John Bull vs Uncle Sam

[reedak]

Part 1

1. India was regarded as the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire. However, the real "jewel in the crown" should be the empire's lost colony of the United States of America. Once it lost that piece of precious land, the fate of the British Empire was sealed and it began to decline.

The hostility aroused by the American Revolution between the US and its former imperial master lasted more than 130 years until both countries fought side by side during World War I. If we look back at history, such bitterness, distrust and hostility are not surprising but normal between an existing power and a rising power, e.g. between the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire, or between the US and China today.

If we use the US-UK relationship as reference, we should expect the enmity and distrust between the US and China to last at least 130 years.

2. The 1814 burning of the White House

...Two hundred years ago this month, 4,000 British soldiers lay siege to Washington, D.C., and set fire to the U.S. Capitol and the White House.

And the burn marks on the White House walls are still there.

"We now have evidence of the char marks, the scorching that would have happened when flames were drawn out through open windows and doors and licked up around the tops of the stone," said William Allman, the White House curator.

It is, as far as we know, the best evidence the one time enemy's forces were in our nation's capital, said Allman.

The burning of Washington was the darkest moment for the United States and President James Madison in the War of 1812 -- a sort of second war of American independence....

Moving from the Capitol, British Navy Rear Admiral George Cockburn, Army Major General Robert Ross, and 150 redcoats marched to the White House....

* The biggest surprise? A dinner set for 40. So the British feasted in the White House dining room before burning the mansion down....

After torching the White House, the redcoats burned the buildings housing the Departments of State, Treasury and War, concluding one of the most devastating days in American history.

Imagine the scene after the British have departed Washington?" said Vogel. "The Capitol and the White House are smoldering shells. The American Army has abandoned the city. Nobody knows where President Madison or the cabinet is. It's really impossible to think of many more despondent, desperate moments in American history."...

Six months later, the war ended in a virtual stalemate, and British leader George Cockburn returned home, where his portrait features Washington blazing in the background.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-1814-burning-of-washington-d-c/

* P.S. With hindsight, President Madison should have put poison in the food or liquor when he set the dinner for 40 in the White House.

 

[reedak]

Part 2

America’s violent birth: Terrorism of the Patriots

1. ...extreme polarization, violence as a means of politics, and intimidation of the press were an integral part of the nation’s tumultuous birth. But instead of remembering that fierce rancor, we have been holding on to the founders’ powerful fiction of a non-violent, unified American Revolution. Today, as the deeply divided United States endeavors to find a way forward from its present perils, it is finally time to look back and reckon with this nation’s divisive, violent founding.

Most Americans don’t realize that the Revolution was not just a courageous struggle for noble ideals against an oppressive empire, but also America’s first civil war. John Adams estimated that one third of the American population supported the Revolution, one third were uncommitted and fully one third opposed the revolution — the American “Loyalists,” who cut across every social echelon, religious denomination and geographic region, as well as race. The Revolution divided communities and split families, most famously the Franklins of Philadelphia — Benjamin, the Founding Father, and his son, William, a passionate Loyalist leader. Faced with strong internal opposition, and soon, too, war against the world’s mightiest empire, the Patriots relied on terror — of acts of violence and the threat of violence — to crush dissent.....

Source: https://www.salon.com/2017/07/04/am...rised-that-u-s-politics-is-a-blood-sport-now/


2. "..extreme polarization, violence as a means of politics, and intimidation of the press were an integral part of the nation’s tumultuous birth."

"...the current administration peddles “alternative facts” and declares the press the “enemy of the American People,”

Those words in Holger Hoock's article remind us the current situation in America under the Trump administration.

Trump tweeted on February 17, 2017: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!”

President Good Brain seems to be very familiar with the history of America's tumultuous, divisive, violent birth. That is how he "Makes America Great Again" (MAGA) as in the tumultuous era of the American Revolution.

Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-tweet-media-enemy-american-people-235150