So, "Black Friday" good for bargains or another sign of moral decay?

Its shameful. People have behaved appalingly. It really makes me feel ashamed.

But then again, people are broke and fed up, but its no excuse for acting like animals.

 

I hope these people see themselves and realise just what they look like.If people are so broke they shouldn't be buying large TV's or whatever anyway.

 

I dont know what to think. Its almost soddom and gomorah all over again. Greed, decadence and amoral behaviour with no justification what so ever. The shops are to blame as well as the mindless crowds....and the media for once again talking up an American tradition that has no place in our society. In fact most of the sad facets of our lives in the modern world are imported from America.

 

Black Friday follows immediately after Thanksgiving Day in America as the official start of Christmas shopping. Why Britain has taken it up I don't know, since you do not celebrate the first feast enjoyed by the pilgrims. As such there never has been nor there will be any intent upon our part to besmirch your perfect shores. You may be sorry that we became an independent republic, but I'm sure not.

 

Good post Buck. I dont think I care one way or another to be honest. Thanksgiving means nothing to me and it never will, neither does trick or treat (appalling thing) School proms (the most twee importation ever created) and now the riots of black Friday. Some really good stuff here he says with more than a hint of irony in his voice....oh and thanks very much for the Leehman Brothers almost destroying our banking system due to your almost completely unreglated and unfettered financial markets. I have had a fantastic time over the last 7 or 8 years coping with the fall out from that one.

Sorry you became an independant republic. Wherever did you get that idea. It would have happened at some stage with or without the help of the French. The fact that the French made it possible for you when it did become a reality is a matter of historical fact. (await backlash on this one he says with baited breath)

The UKs perfect shores.....are you having a laugh. This country is far from perfect but the importation of practises from the USA both in a business and social sense has contributed significantly in my very humble opinion to many of the ills facing our society.

In fact we are now awaiting the European Council of ministers to give in to your Corporations pressing for the introduction of the TTIP regulations. When this law is passed into European wide law you may well as well call Europe the next state of good old America. Looking forward to that one....not.

 

I come on to this forum quite rarely, as a relief from my native city's forum in Sheffiekl. So I am not really worried if you're anti yank. You'ld be at home in Sheff. But if Americanisms are popular in UK that's your people enjoying freedom of choice, something we take for granted. We send American football teams to Wembley three times a year and fill the place with fans. I'm pretty sure there are a few Brits who go. Halloween is harmless enough, a few kids enjoying some candies on a cold October evening. There's a lot less chance of getting burned to death than guy fawkes night. McDonalds gets hammered, and to be honest I agree. But the locals eat there more person for person over there than here. Talk all you like about the Lehmans, but what about Anglo? If you no longer have to help make this a better world, fair enough. But a good many of my tax dollars go out in help to people in trouble, and I don't begrudge it. By the way, the French didn't win at Ticonderoga, Saratoga, or Valley Forge. Neither did the British. The Revolution seeded an idea in France that would become the reign of terror a few years later.

 

Welcome Buck. Its good to talk about different thinks on here with a different perspective. What follows is me playing devils advocate. I like to do that and get a discussion going. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt....here goes.

I think the conclusive battle (which I was alluding to) was very much a French supported victory. I am not a colonialist, imperialist or a supporter of Empire. I am pleased you gained independance as I am for all the other freed countries of the former empire. I am merely commenting on the fact that it was a bit of a team effort. Actually the same could be said of British forces given that there were large contingents of Hanovarian forces fighting in Red Coats. To be honest if my memory serves me right at one stage in the battle German soldiers on each side were in combat against each other, as were Irish. Interesting when you start to think about it.

Can I ask a question which might be a little provocative. You mention American dollars being spread around the world to help people...well isnt it also true that large quantities of American dollars have also been spent over a long period of time trying to destabalise countries in Central America, the Middle East and the former Soviet block. Trying to spread the American ideal of democracy (whatever that is) to nations that dont really want it seems a bit odd to me and the rest of the world feels the backlash. American foreign policy has always seemed a bit devisive to me and has rarely if ever achieved what it set out to do.

I want to ask another question which has burned within for such a long time. America says it wants to help the rest of the world...a very praiseworthy aim but when is your government going to something positive for the black communities in the South. Isnt poverty and deprevation a massive issue in many of the southern states for the black majority.....or is this just something we all imagine. So I think I am saying perhaps it would be wise to spend the dollars sorting your own country out first, set a proper example to the rest of the world. I realise that political hypocracy isnt the sole domain of the white house we have our own very accomplished liars and disemblars in Westminster. I am merely making an observation.

The American Football at Wembley is great if you like it and as you say people seem to given that Wembley is full but you do realise that there have been several attempts over the years to establish the sport in Britain and Eurpope that all failed due to lack of interest and a lack of financial support. Filling Wembley three times each year is a far cry from a nationwide league with full stadiums. I actually watched a bit myself back in the day. There was a team called Leeds Cougars and they played at Mclaren Field (Bramley rugby league and now a housing estate). Went about four times and gave up on it. Bored me to death.

 

I think,in times of war, that you seek your allies from any source that advances your cause. Hence we, and I mean the UK and USA, sought an alliance with a ruthless and unprincipled man like Josef Stalin, which in the end came close to causing WW3. America would have won their independence anyway despite the French. History ws on their side. Fighting on their own turf, excellent marksmen, because you had to be to raise a family in colonial America. No supermarkets then. Fair dos to the British soldier. It's not a lot of fun shooting at people who look and talk like you with British names. Tommy Atkins was and still is a humane person.
Don't get me started on American foreign policy. Vey late coming into both World wars, but at the same time many new Americans had departed a continent which was becoming unliveable to them. They had no intention in being dragged back into the chaos. BUt come back they did, and helped end both wars. It should be remembered that it was an American, General George Marshall who suggested the best policy following WW2 was to fund the rebuilding of West Germany back to its full capabilty. General Douglas Macarthur took on the same task with Japan. Both peojects created firm allies out of enemies. Now, about the southern blacks. When I went to Alabama working in at a paper mill in 1971, I was asked iwhere I lived and when I said Canada,was told I was a nxxxxxlover. I'm not allowed to use the word even on here.I have been back to the south many times since, and while its not perfect it is a lot better than it was. You have no doubt been hearing about the killing in Missouri, and the destruction. This kind of police brutality has to stop and it will be eventually. My own grandson Greg is happily married to a black girl, who I like immensely and her family.
America's view of democracy is that a citizen is free to talk about any subject on earth as long as he doesn't use profanity, do whatever he want's as long as its not a felony, and can vote for anyone he wants even if they aren't on the ballot. This country, even after 238 years is still a work in progress, still trying to get over its worst moments. As for me, its been my home for 37 years, and Canada for nine before that. I live in a beautiful New England state, equidistant fom Boston and NYC, married now to a native of County Clare in Ireland, following the death of my first wife Patricia who died in a car crash in Massechusets in 1979. I have great friends and neighbors who love my Yorkshire accent.
As for sports, I watch American football sometimes but much prefer ice hockey or basketball. I coach soccer and enjoy watching EPL. American football doesn't come close to union rugby firom which it was created.

 

I would like very much to continue this discussion with both you and FasFreddy as soon as possible. However, at the moment I am busily engaged in writing up the Minutes of a meeting of the town's Wetlands Commission for Decenber which will take up most of the day. There is plenty of water in Connecticut, but heaven forbid that somebody might put something undesireable in it.:icon_smile: Talk to you later. In the meantime consider what the world might be like had America never succeeded in its revolution or in fact had never existed at all. Food for thought.

 

I am really enjoying this discussion. Please come back Buck. Its always good to have new angles on things and new discussions.

Your final sentence is really interesting. America would have gained independance at some stage. It was only a matter of "when". America existed a long time before British and European settlers arrived there. If settlement had not happened I imagine the indiginous American people(s) would have developed, maybe flourished and evolved over time into a nation.

I guess the real question is would America have developed into the nation it is now without European settlement. I would like to think it would - in some way - but with a completely different pespective on life and the world. However what is certain is that their would have been a nation despite that fact that the world and perhaps many Americans like to forget about the indiginous peoples of America.

America took a big step forward when the first black president entered the oval office and this was quite rightly seen as a mile stone in American history however I wonder when there will be a president directly decended from the Sioux or Chyenne etc...or has it already happened..I really have no idea perhaps it has.

 

There hsve been suggestions from time to time thatthere was Indian blood in at least one of our presidents, if not more. There was certainly blood in some of the pilgrims for sure, Pocahontas for instance had a child from a puritan. I have read receently a very good book on the French and Indian War written by Walter R. Borneman. The French had set up a fort at Ticonderoga in what is now New York State with a view to control shipping down the East toward the small towns of New York and Boston and beyond. But the British attacked the city of Quebec and despite losing General Wolfe succeeded in beating the French. From that point on the French knew that the Eastern colonies were out of reach, so they shifted their attention to the West where they had managed to make alliances with some warlike Indian tribes like the Hurons and Sioux. A certain Major George Washington of the British Army had been assigned the job of blunting the French ambitions, which he did quite willingly and at great risk.. So did Benedict Arnold who got the French thrown out of Ticonderoga. So what position do the French have in North America today? Quebec of course, though it continues to fight a losing battle with the encroachment of English language TV watched by most French Canadian young. There are a lot of French speakers in New Brunswick , a few in Ontario, and some in Mantoba, but further west, forget it. The French were thrown out of Nova Scotia and sent to Louisiana. They were the Acadians, ans survive todaay as Cayuns. France still has a presence just off the coast of Newfoundland. Two islands, Saint Pierre and Miquelon still part of France with he gendarmes and all. They play the Newfies at hockey from time to time in what is usually akin to a blood bath.
Charles DeGaulle, never a freid of the English and Americans was invited to attend the Montreal Expo in 1967. During a speech to the crowd he siaid "Vive le Quebec" which drew a roar from the crowd. All well and good. Then he shouted "Vive le Quebec LIBRE" which sent the crowd frantic. The Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, himself a French Canadian, ordered De Gaulle out of Canada immediately, sending him packing in the Destroyer he's arrived in. De Gaulle made every effort he could to ensure thAat Britain would never enter the European Union. Was he right?. Moere later.

 

Buck, yes I think that is right De Gaulle did not want British invovlement in the EU. He was particularly bitter towards Britain in many ways over many years.

Your last post was really interesting. I would like to learn more about this.

 

I made a concerted effort to make sure all my errata were cleared up after I proof read my last post. Guess it didn't take. This was after several hours working on minutes for a long and difficult meeting.
I could never understand why De Gaulle was so vindictive. He was small potatoes among giant peronalities., Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Hitler. Even a minor General Eisenhower was given the job of liberating France not him. He marched down the Champs Elysees like Julius Caesar as soon as it was safe to do so following the liberation of Paris. Only to be shot at by communist fighters of Le Maquis. His great concern was that entry of Britain would bring in American influence instead of his. He even threw out the headquarters of NATO out of Paris, who promptly moved to Brussels to the delight of Belgium.
A brief introduction to my life and my reasons for loving North America.I was born in 1931 in Brightside, the muckiest part of the muckiest city in England. a two bedroom house, no hot water, bathroom, or inside toilet, but always a roaring fire in the fireplace, thanks to a coal miner uncle. A week in Blackpool every summer. I got a scholarship to Nether Edge Grammar School where I excelled in French and German and got a job as a translater at one of the city's steel works. I hated it for its petty snobbery, so joined the RN at 17. I stayed in till 1966 and reached the rank of CPO as a radio and radio technician in the Air Branch. After I left the servce iI got a good job with Davy Ashmore as a field engineer on industrial automation, which I had gained skills in from guided weapon technology. I was constantly on the road, and my wife Pat had begun to dislike our native city after we had lived many tears in Cornwall and Malta. So in 1968 we emigrated to Montreal to work at RCA on microwave and sattelite systems. Apart from a couple of years in Eastern Quebec and a year in Newfoundland, we stayed in Montreal, my favorite city to this day, until 1977 when the company I was now working for asked me to move to Massachusets. There were a few problems to overcome before I earned a green card in 1979, just in time for us to be travelling to Maine, pulling a camper, in heavy rain to be hit head on by a heavy truck which had jacknifed on the Mass Pike. My son Mark was driving, and I never saw my wife again. We were very badly injured. Three years later I married my Irish wife Pauline, and we have been visiting County Clare every year until recently because my doctor won't let me fly in aircraft that use recirculated air. So now we have to suffer Florida every year at relatives. What a shame!
Mostly I like to use one of my two boats, my canoe in Maine, or my cruiser Ciera on the Hudson River.

 

Britain beat America in that respect. Winston Churchill had some American Iroquois blood from his mother's side

 

Surely this implies that America won this one since Jenny Churchill was Amercan not British. Its funny how often an invention is claimed by one country. only to be challenged by another. Russia is famous for it. America never claimed to have invented the automobile for instance. It just made it affordable.:icon_smile:

 

Buck many thanks for sharing your story with us. It seems like your life has been massively interesting with lots of highs and terrible tradgedy. Some of the things you have done and the journey you have followed are quite inspiring. I am glad you have joined the board and I would like to learn a little bit more about the part of America you live in and its hostory. I realised while reading your posts that like most people I am familiar with things on a superficial level but there is an aweful lot of the important detail missing. What books would you recomend or are there any particular author/historians that are accesible and informative. I am sorry for being a bit brusque in the earlier responses to you. I didnt mean anything by it, i just like to try to get a discussion going and in this case I am really glad I did.

This is the wonder of this forum. We start out discussing horrible riots in Tescos and now we are having a fantastic discussion about some really interesting stuff. For instance I had no idea that Winston had Indian decendants.