Don’t let the border bump you on the ass on the way out

Don’t let the border bump you on the ass on the way out
: The Observer’s U.S. correspondent, Ed Vulliamy, leaves the U.S. and it appears it’s not a minute too soon. He pens a bitter, mean, angry, anti-American (and badly written) farewell piece that is filled with nothing but negativity: terrorist bombs, lynchings, poverty; he sees our world through dung-colored glasses:

America was always a dichotomous, Janus nation – born of a revolution by democratic visionaries such as Tom Paine but built on genocide and enslavement. Enriched by immigration but made greedy by power and wealth. It was always a question of which America was in the ascendancy at a given time. I think that during Clinton’s presidency there were elements of that democratic America to the fore. Or at least there were by contrast to a country now redefining its role as an international citizen, a country where democratic rights, enshrined in the Constitution, are eroded largely by consent.

Jeesh.

Good riddance.

14 responses to “Don’t let the border bump you on the ass on the way out”

  1. Jennifer Martinez Avatar

    What a bastard! Here’s an appropriate quote for the traitorous fool:
    Love this country, or leave it – you have the freedom of choice due to the sacrifices of our nation’s Veterans! – LTC. Hal Fritz, USA (Ret), MOH, Vietnam Veteran
    Jennifer Martinez sends

  2. misterhell Avatar
    misterhell

    But what else would you expect from The Guardian?
    “We’re affluent Euro-lefties and we know best. Part of knowing best means knowing that America doesn’t.”

  3. Reimer Behrends Avatar
    Reimer Behrends

    They must have replaced the article in the meantime, because the one I’ve read was very different from the one that Jeff seems to have commented on. It related the bittersweet love of a British man for the country that was his home for six years. The same way I felt for my own home country, incidentally, when I was leaving it five years ago. The love affairs that people have with their home countries, native or adopted, rarely read like a retelling of “The Princess Bride”. They have their ups and downs, good times along with the bad.
    Perhaps you have to be French to really understand how love can have a tragic element without being hate.
    What bothers me a bit, though, was that yesterday Jeff pointed to a nasty, ill-informed screed in the Telegraph regarding the heat wave in France, without any indication of being similarly agitated. Yes, the one where the author asks where the Red Cross (labeled “noisy humanitarians”) is in France, when everybody who checks the news can find out that Red Cross volunteers have been helping the hospital for weeks.

  4. linden Avatar

    My issue with this ridiculous screed is the idiocy and wilfull blindness of its author. Frankly, corruption, greed, poverty? You will find them EVERYWHERE. As well, they have always been part and parcel of reality in every country on earth. Wherever man is those things will exist. What a tool. He just never looked close enough. Also, Vulliamy, grow up!
    There was another daft screed in the Guardian recently about the death of American art because the latest Julian Schnabel show was not up to snuff.

  5. Harry Avatar

    I think you are rather proving his point Jeff.

  6. Jeff Jarvis Avatar

    Oh, come on, Harry: Read the piece; it’s pure Ameriphobia. How do you expect me to react? If I agree with him, then I’d leave for, oh, I don’t know, France?

  7. Diana Avatar

    ‘Ecco la vera America’ – behold the real America – said a correspondent for La Gazetta dello Sport of Milan, and he wasn’t far wrong.
    say what? nobody in this country gives a shit about the World Cup.

  8. Hoodie Craw Avatar

    Lighten up, Jeff. He’s following a long tradition in british newspaper media. Riling you natives is what he was sent here to do.
    They’ve been doing it for Donkeys years. Just that, before the internet, you guys never got to read it.

  9. d00d Avatar

    This guy sounds like he’d be more willing to give Bill Clinton a Monica Lewinski than Monica was. He was ok, but he wasn’t THAT cool, geez.
    I like how he tries to point out how everything wrong w/ Mexico is the US’ fault(to shine & not reflect any light back, sweatshops etc., ie: us: rich, mexico poor ’cause the us doesn’t “shine” back. typical pap & fodder. note to Ed Vulliamy: the US doesn’t run the Mexican govt & isn’t responsible for their economic system.
    Oh, and to point out the injustice of it all that Bush didn’t stay up till all hours of the night to watch a football match?(note to self: boo hoo) This is what being an award winning journalist is all about? I believe the Queen’s English for this is: bloody wanker.

  10. Puce Avatar

    I too.

  11. Tom Avatar

    This guy is right…and wrong. It’s possible to be both at the same time. He appears to love and hate various things about America.
    He veers off, however, when he starts to suggest that somehow spending six years in this country equips him to psychoanalyze us.
    I welcome anyone who has insights into the American character, but when they start up with this “we know better because we are (insert nationality here)” kind of tone, I just want to turn the page. Like I said, he’s right about a lot of this, and just plain wrong about a lot it.
    America is a chaotic mishmash of races, climates, cultures, religions and attitudes. The people born and/or raised here can’t begin to get a handle on it.
    Someone who comes here for a brief spell, lives mainly in our biggest city and refuses to shed his own cultural biases is NOT going to figure us out.

  12. Mike Avatar

    About 500,000 New Yorkers feel the same way. So what ? Susan Sontag ? Puhleez. He didn’t learn much in his six years.

  13. Mike D Avatar

    Is he a journalist or a 70’s rock groupie?
    John Cale, Patty Smith, give me a break

  14. JK Avatar

    Hey, he’s just winding himself up to do, from the moment he gets back to the UK, what being on the left is really all about both here and over there (which is fitting in with your friends and their comfortably settled opinions).
    Let him go. If he arrived back with some new ideas he would be ostracized for life.