Between my English and Scots-Irish-English grandparents, a deep and abiding love of English literature and history, a fair number of English friends, and two long-ago summers sojourns in Britain doing the youth hostel and Brit-Rail Pass, I’ve always looked on the place as my metaphorical second country. I know it about as well as any American could and not actually be in residence there, and I’ve always kept in touch through English magazines, newspapers and yes, in recent years through websites. Yes, and I score sufficiently high on any number of those quizzes testing American knowledge of British slang to say, with perfect truth, that I speak fluent Brit. (Although I can’t place British regional accents … something to do with acquiring most of this knowledge from the printed page rather than the spoken word.)
So ever since I happily discovered The Internet, and began following more news than was available in the local newspaper and mainstream print publications, I’d been reading English news sites starting with, I think, The Times of London and The Spectator before they put the good stuff behind a pay-wall, and moving on to the Telegraph. I had a print subscription to the Guardian Weekly, for years and occasionally checked out their website before the burden of wading through waist to neck-deep oceans of political-correctitude got to be too much of a chore. Now my guilty tabloid pleasure is to scan the Daily Mail; I know, in the eyes of the grand and the good, this is about one step above the Star or the National Enquirer. But the Mail and the Enquirer have of late begun to commit regular acts of non-partisan journalism especially when it comes to the American political scene, in contrast to the supposedly more respectable publications.
I was already aware of the horrific and ongoing scandal of native English girls many barely into their teens being groomed, raped, gang-raped and sex-trafficked by British-born Pakistani men, in Rotherham and elsewhere. The release of an especially damning report on a formal inquiry into the matter has even rattled the cages of bloggers like Wretchard at Belmont Club and no wonder. The most horrifying aspect isn’t just that girls were routinely raped on a wholesale basis, or that many were blackmailed by threats to their family into cooperating in their own exploitation. Even worse is that the police forces, social workers, and local politicians also knew but refrained from doing anything about it because they did not want to be accused of racism. It seems that the national media outlets also looked away, for as long as they could. As commenter Andrew X, at this discussion thread explained: The media lying is due to a combination of fears fear of being called racist, fear of Muslim fanatics, and above all a fear of the public. The establishment sees the working class as ignorant racist morons so they’re afraid to say anything that might give the mob an excuse to go on the rampage. It’s not just the rape gangs that see British people as “white trash”.
Wrap your mind around that, if you please that those bureaucrats, politicians and investigators whose profession and mission is to protect and defend their fellow citizens, especially the most vulnerable among them hesitated to act because they were afraid of being called racists, which would be a career-limiter, in these present days. They might get a letter of reprimand, or a tough question or two from local media and a certain degree of heat from the diversity-loving intellectual set. That many of the girls victimized were from working-class families or the English equivalent of trailer-trash, or from troubled backgrounds anyway just adds a dimension of particularly ugly snobbery. In order to maintain the benign mask of multicultural toleration and diversity in place, the ruling managerial and political class essentially sacrificed the children of the ruled class to a sexual Moloch … and kept quiet about it for years. How badly the ordinary British citizens are being served by their ruling class, these days! (Nearly as bad as as Americans are being served when it comes to black on white crime, but that’s a rant for another occasion.) My grandparents would be appalled, and horrified at what has become of the country that they immigrated from 100 years ago, but still held in affection.
Discuss.
(Update – additional information and almost too much detail to bear on the history and scope of this exploitation is in this PDF report, found through a link at Breitbart.)
(Crossposted at www.ncobrief.com)
It’s been a triumph of the BBC-Guardian mindset, and of the Labour Party’s.
Britain has had a revolution in mindset the past 25 years. I was there a few years ago when a wealthy man opened his front door in Chelsea and was attacked by thugs. A homeowner a few years ago was being pelted by rocks thrown through his windows by thugs. He finally attacked them with a wooden club to chase them off. He was arrested and charged.
I can remember walking through Picadilly at midnight 30 years ago. I wouldn’t do it today.
Labour pretty much castrated the country.
I look at the news about this – and about the incidents that Mike K mentions, and I wonder what will finally goad a rebellion. Or have the ordinary British had any will to resist kicked out of them.
You’d think that the systematic, organized sexual abuse of their daughters, enabled and covered up by the ruling classes would do it … but if it doesn’t, then likely nothing will.
>>It’s been a triumph of the BBC-Guardian mindset
People forever underestimate the power of propaganda. That’s why absolute control of the schools is so important to the Left.
Drool Britannia. That’s what happens when you get senile.
Sgt. Mom – You aren’t the only American visiting the Daily Mail site.
(Yes, I know; the link goes to the Puffington Host, but I saw the same stat two years ago at more respectable sites.)
One interesting advantage the Daily Mail has, which I have yet to see explained: They are better than any American newspaper I know of at putting up collections of interesting photos. (From time to time, I’ve seen good collections at the Boston Globe, but they don’t seem to do it very often.)
I have no idea why, for instance, USA Today hasn’t emulated the Daily Mail, because most of the collections I’ve seen wouldn’t cost much to put together.
Claire Berlinski, in the book I reviewed a couple of posts down, has a great deal to say about Britain’s current problems and the root causes thereof.
I doubt that American elites are very much different than British elites. They both loathe the masses. The only real limiting factor on this sort of thing happening in the US is wide spread gun ownership.
This times 1000
And I note that the ultimate core function of a government, that which gives it legitimacy, is to protect the people who are loyal to that government from attacks by foreigners. The British government has invited in foreigners and given them free rein to attack their people. It is noteworthy that there are several cases of parents being arrested when they tried to protect their underage daughters from the act of being raped. Further, there are documented cases where Muslim men were interrupted by police in the act of raping underage females. And the cops retreated in embarrassment.
British subjects have almost no influence on the government of the country. Even less than American citizens have with their government. All three Brit parties are playing the same game as the Institutional Republicans and Democrats here. One could easily make the argument that the British government system has lost all legitimacy. The social contract is that people give up the right of private violence to the state in return for protection by the state from violence and equitable enforcement of laws. The British government has abandoned its side of the contract. The British people should no longer be bound by theirs.
And I note that this is Britain. Not one of these [Crap, words just failed me. I have 28 years in law enforcement, and can curse in several languages. And I cannot adequately describe the evil and worthlessness of the British government. This just does not happen to me.] members of the British government; police, elected officials, or civil servants [By the vaporous b*lls of the Holy Ghost, what an abuse of language that term is.] will suffer any legal, penal, or financial penalty. Some have already been promoted. The worst that will happen is a cushy retirement.
I know that these are Brits. They make eunuchs look virile. But I cannot but think that if there is an ounce of manhood left in Britain, the first verse of a song I know would be their guide.
The Night of Fire is yet to come.
The Tyrant’s shadow on the years,
Demands we kneel, or take the gun.
And go shed blood instead of our tears.
I am neither Christian nor Jewish. But I reference Genesis 18. If Abraham could have found 10 righteous men in Sodom, the Lord would have spared the city. In Britain, finding 10 men would be the problem.
Subotai Bahadur
One of Jeffery Dahmer’s victims (a 14-year old) almost escaped. The police intervened and returned the victim to Dahmer because they didn’t want to be accused of homophobia or racism. That was in 1991.
Draw the obvious conclusion.
Sgt Mom,
This is a time for killing.
And the people that need killing are the UK gov’t officials that covered it up.
I had to pass on the link to my Facebook group. What a rotten, corrupt group of people. Of course I doubt that any lost their jobs.
They are, after all, there to protect children.
The only thing our Ruling Elites have to offer is betrayal. They gain our trust then betray, they have no other real skill to offer the world.
There is an accounting coming due, Trent. I don’t think it involves ropes and handy lampposts for those who enabled the abuse …yet … but I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing trials, long prison sentences, loss of pensions and social shunning involved.
As for the perpetrators, definitely the ropes and lampposts.
There is an accounting due, but there are no means to collect it. I am a far more cynical soul [more realistic??] and I just do not see a way for it to happen within the law.
Even though it was the Labour Party that deliberately brought in a new electorate to replace the English; all three parties are as complicit and involved in the PC fiction that there are no problems. All three parties have decades of complicity in child molestation [look at the BBC Scandals and NHS Scandals]. There is one Crown Prosecution Service that while supposedly independent, in fact serves Parliament. And all three parties running the government have every reason to hush it up.
All three fear Muslim violence. All three have contempt for the British people. All three are implicated in the crime. Prosecuting the corrupt [the word is not strong enough] officials is going to be as impossible as prosecuting the entire Black Democrat political machine running a US city for corruption.
The only accounting possible, if such is ever to occur which is far from assured, is going to have to be outside the law. Because the whole system of law will protect the guilty.
As for the perpetrators, their people have no problem with using violence to threaten officials. And the officials know it. They will not be touched.
The relative silence compared to what should be the reaction; by the press, by the public, by the political parties means that Britain is terminal.
My heart tells me to support Scottish Independence. My head says it will be a Labour cesspool given the strength of the parties there. But an independent Scotland will not be a part of the EU automatically. So they can ignore EU immigration mandates, ignore EU mandates on criminal punishment, and will be able to keep Muslims out and deport those there illegally. And protect the Scottish people from attack by foreigners. That chance might be worth it.
I have to note that both the Democrats and the New Whigs that run this country have the same contempt for the American people as the Brit parties have for the Brit people. The Brits are just farther along.
In the long run, SB – it is the problem of the Brits to deal with what has happened. We can only watch from the sidelines and wish UKIP well (since they seem to be in the way of being Codevilla’s ‘Country Party’) … but the contempt in which ordinary working-class Britons are held in by their ruling classes is absolutely nauseating. This particular instance is just the most horrible, I guess. But there are straws in the wind, which the Mail and the Telegraph have noted; how the child care authorities are so quick to snatch children from families, and adopt them out. How problem families are parked by the council authorities in relatively stable areas where the problem families promptly make life hell for the neighbors. The ‘Travelers’ permitted to camp any old where and dump trash by the truckload – while responsible householders are harassed over planting some pretty flowers in the grass strip in front of their house. A serving soldier stabbed to death in the street in broad daylight in front of a large crowd by a pair of Islamists. How you absolutely cannot defend yourself with anything, even in your own home… it goes on and on and on. Even allowing for the ‘bleeds-leads’ tendency in news-gathering, this is not anything like the England that my grandparents knew … hell, it’s not even the England that I saw in the 1970s.
I noted the other day that the Mail had a feature about young girls in the US and their pink rifles, and of course the usual Mail commenters were hyperventilating about America’s gun culture and the very perversity of girls proudly showing off their guns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I couldn’t help thinking that very likely none of those little girls would wind up being drawn into some kind of sick sexual exploitation like those girls in Rotherham – and if they did, by some misfortune, likely their fathers and brothers WOULD respond, in an effective manner suitable to our gun-obsessed culture.
>>I have to note that both the Democrats and the New Whigs that run this country have the same contempt for the American people as the Brit parties have for the Brit people. The Brits are just farther along.
Dan Hannan who is fond of saying “I am living in your future, and I am here to tell you, you’re not going to like it!”
Dan Hannan – The New Road to Serfdom
http://youtu.be/yDKJBaCZOqQ
I keep saying, the first step to British recovery is to burn and loot Oxford and the LSE. On this side of the Atlantic, it should scare folks that Harvard has an endowment of $30 billion that they can spend to screw over the country.
“Harvard has an endowment of $30 billion that they can spend to screw over the country.”
We almost escaped that fate as Larry Summers, before he was Obama’s choice for Treasury, trashed the Harvard endowment.
under Summers’s regime and beyond. And when the market crashed in the fall of 2008, Harvard would pay dearly, as $1.8 billion in cash simply vanished. Indeed, it is still paying, in the form of tighter budgets, deferred expansion plans, and big interest payments on bonds issued to cover the losses.
The lefties like Summers didn’t like paying private investment advisors to manage the endowment. They knew better.
In the Summers years, from 2001 to 2006, nothing was on auto-pilot. He was the unquestioned commander, a dominating personality with the talent to move a balkanized institution like Harvard, but also a man unafflicted, former colleagues say, with self-doubt in matters of finance.
Academic economists. What could go wrong ?