Don't get me wrong, I love Morrissey and the Smiths as much as the next person, probably more so, but it just seems strange that Morrissey said he left England because the England he loved had finally died, and yet where does he go? To the very country who's influences destroyed the England that he wrote about and loved so much. Gobalisation = Americanisation, and very few places are free from it.

I think he really meant "Nobody in England likes me anymore and in America there are more cheap gigs I can play"

i don't think you can really blame america for england's "demise." remember, england pioneered globalization. i mean, the brits had colonies on every continent other than antarctica (and okay, i guess they lacked extensive colonies in south america). america has been an important world power for less than 100 years and it's a product of english colonization to begin with, so it's silly to say america ruined england.

the U.S.A. is britain's frankenstein's monster.

England is far from ruined, in spite of decades of crass American export. The Smiths themselves could only ever have happened here in England, which is why I find it odd that Morrissey chooses to live in L.A., pehaps the most superficial, shallow place the world has yet known. Still, Morrissey is, and no doubt always will be an enigma, a contradiction.

> i don't think you can really blame america for england's
> "demise." remember, england pioneered globalization. i mean, the
> brits had colonies on every continent other than antarctica (and okay, i
> guess they lacked extensive colonies in south america). america has been
> an important world power for less than 100 years and it's a product of
> english colonization to begin with, so it's silly to say america ruined
> england.

> the U.S.A. is britain's frankenstein's monster.

well i don't think england is ruined. i adore england. however, i must say that a lot of the stupidest, crappiest trends in music and tv start over there.

and los angeles isn't as bad as people say. yeah, we have our share of stereotypical superficial california people, but those kinds of people exist everywhere. i don't think los angeles has the monopoly on shallowness. i've lived here my whole life and apart from my penchant for wearing flipflops year round, most people would never accuse me of being a superficial californian. what's funny is most of the shallow people i know are not natives. native californians tend to be somewhat laidback, but they are real people -- not plastic and fake. in truth, most of the superficial types are transplants from the midwest and back east who have this idea in their heads of what california is about and seek to LIVE it. it's kind of sad.

in any case, los angeles is a big place with millions of people. it's unfair to categorize them all in this fashion.

Perhaps Morrissey left England for the simple fact that he was no longer feeling happy living there? As for the american influence, I guess he ever felt a kind of interest on american culture.




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> I think he really meant "Nobody in England likes me anymore and in
> America there are more cheap gigs I can play"

I guess he said in old interview "nobody in England wants me anymore".

Most of us are victims of european imperialism. United States had luck to receive the english culture, and not the portuguese. Portugal, the poorest country in Europe!!! A bunch of murderers came to my country to kill native indians and to bring shame and hate to this beautiful land. We have received a lot of immigrants during the last centuries, especially italians here in the south, but we still are trying to clean up all the shit that Portugal did bring to this place.




http://www.morrissey-solo.com/discuss/images/pic96512.jpg

What are you talking about? The Portuguese only colonized Brazil and if you live in Brazil you should be thankful that they brought some civilization to a country full of naked monkeys.

that's kind of like saying that american indians should send the federal government a fruit basket for nearly driving them to extinction, stealing their land, and sending the few that are left to live on what amount to wild animal preserves for humans.

> What are you talking about? The Portuguese only colonized Brazil and if
> you live in Brazil you should be thankful that they brought some
> civilization to a country full of naked monkeys.

Aside naked monkeys, this land had native indians. OH SORRY, they are the naked monkeys, isn't it? z-z-z-z-z-z-z

american and culture is a non sense

Mindy, personally which America would you choose, the one which has no houses except tipis and pueblos where you have to go "hunting" to get food or the one where you can get your Diet Dr.Pepper in every grocery store except strange Mexican ones?

I knew it.

the america i'd prefer is irrelevant to the point i was making. did i say anything about what i'd prefer? no, i was talking about the native americans whose culture and way of life was completely destroyed in the name of progress. i'm not saying progress is bad, but the way it was handled was certainly not ideal.

p.s. if america were all pueblos and longhouses, i'd probably not be living here would i? if i were born at all, i'd have been born in europe in all likelihood (since my mexican grandmother is half castillian, i'm really only 1/8th mexican). and the ease with which i procure diet dr. pepper really doesn't mean that this america is any better than the old one. that's rather petty, don't you think? all i'm saying is you need to be a bit more sensitive. in general, i don't go in for apologetics, but jesus!

> american and culture is a non sense

Do you really know the meaning of "culture"?

> Mindy, personally which America would you choose, the one which has no
> houses except tipis and pueblos where you have to go "hunting"
> to get food or the one where you can get your Diet Dr.Pepper in every
> grocery store except strange Mexican ones?

Well, I can not talk in the name of mexicans, but being the first in the list of obesity is something to be proud of?

> I knew it.

i think someone who has "culture" wouldn't go around insulting other people's cultures.

that being said, i know american culture pretty much sucks -- certain aspects anyway, but it hasn't always been that way. furthermore, it speaks volumes that every other nation on earth has some perverse obsession with america. they either love us or hate us. they take all of our trends to the extreme. it's very peculiar. you can only ascribe so much of that to the effects of globalization. i know aspects of it suck, but why copy us then? (japan, i'm looking in your direction. just kidding. all of europe is that way too, including britain.)

> i think someone who has "culture" wouldn't go around insulting
> other people's cultures.

Was it directed at me? I hope not, since I am not insulting anybody. But i guess the non americans, non brits need to endure a lot of assaults when they come to this message board. Everything we say seems to be "not valid", and not to mention this obsession on bashing mexicans. damn it, leave the mexicans alone, they are just having fun, listining to Moz!

> that being said, i know american culture pretty much sucks -- certain
> aspects anyway, but it hasn't always been that way. furthermore, it speaks
> volumes that every other nation on earth has some perverse obsession with
> america. they either love us or hate us. they take all of our trends to
> the extreme. it's very peculiar. you can only ascribe so much of that to
> the effects of globalization. i know aspects of it suck, but why copy us
> then? (japan, i'm looking in your direction. just kidding. all of europe
> is that way too, including britain.)

I think we have no choice, not anymore. United States are too powerful to avoid. We used to learn "latim" and french when I was a child, but now we have english. This history is old, the Roman Empire did the same thing with lots of places on the planet (!!!). Sure, the effects of globalization, I agree, but how can you resist to something so big and strong as the american culture? They copy because they want to keep in the market.
JOIN US OR WE'RE GONNA DESTROY YOU. But this will last forever?

> Was it directed at me? I hope not, since I am not insulting anybody. But i
> guess the non americans, non brits need to endure a lot of assaults when
> they come to this message board. Everything we say seems to be "not
> valid", and not to mention this obsession on bashing mexicans. damn
> it, leave the mexicans alone, they are just having fun, listining to Moz!

it wasn't directed at you at all. it was directed at the person ahead of you. sorry for the confusion.

> I think we have no choice, not anymore. United States are too powerful to
> avoid. We used to learn "latim" and french when I was a child,
> but now we have english. This history is old, the Roman Empire did the
> same thing with lots of places on the planet (!!!). Sure, the effects of
> globalization, I agree, but how can you resist to something so big and
> strong as the american culture? They copy because they want to keep in the
> market.
> JOIN US OR WE'RE GONNA DESTROY YOU. But this will last forever?

and i do agree that the u.s. is too powerful to avoid, but the younger generations in a lot of countries don't even try to resist it it seems like. and when i say "copy," i don't mean business-wise. i mean things like how the kids in japan try to dye their hair blonde and wear blue contacts to look white and other weird things like that. i'm talking about how kids in france will wear head to toe tommy hilfiger or something in order to "look" american.

and i don't think it will last forever. rome fell. america will too, eventually. i'm not saying it will be bloody, but i think there will definitely be a loss of power.

American culture dominates because it integrates. You cant stop it because it simply swallows everything it comes across and modifies it to fit in.

That's why people buy into it, it's the great equalizer of this age.

> American culture dominates because it integrates. You cant stop it because
> it simply swallows everything it comes across and modifies it to fit in.

yeah, too bad it integrates so much crap.

> That's why people buy into it, it's the great equalizer of this age.

see above statement. it integrates crap with good stuff.

> and i don't think it will last forever. rome fell. america will too,
> eventually. i'm not saying it will be bloody, but i think there will
> definitely be a loss of power.

Nation-states will be obsolete in a few generations. It's already headed that way.

But anyway, people are obsessed with America because America is the center of the world, the American Revolution is the most influential force on earth, and in the words on Leonard Cohen, America is "the best and worst of everything." Sail on, mighty ship of state....

> yeah, too bad it integrates so much crap.

> see above statement. it integrates crap with good stuff.

But does most of that crap even matter? YEah, it can be annoying
if you, say, happen to choose a movie unwisely and find
yourself wasting two hours and 8 bucks. But is there really
any other damage done besides that?

In the long run, the positive and worthy outputs from a culture
are remembered and the worthless stuff goes to the dustbin.

People get a little too worked up by all the crappy
cultural outputs around them. They act like the culture
is being "harmed," that they should take "offense."
But maybe they'd be better off trying to focus on the outputs
that are positive contributions.
That way they won't be taking part in this generation's version
of "the culture is going to hell."

It's the difference between looking at cultural outputs on
scale of 0 to + 10 or on a scale of -10 to +10.

> Don't get me wrong, I love Morrissey and the Smiths as much as the next
> person, probably more so, but it just seems strange that Morrissey said he
> left England because the England he loved had finally died, and yet where
> does he go? To the very country who's influences destroyed the England
> that he wrote about and loved so much. Gobalisation = Americanisation, and
> very few places are free from it.

Perhapsd you haven't noticed, but much of the world is BEGGING for a little Americanization.

> England is far from ruined,

It was rotting, but I think the great Tony Blair is reviving the place!

I watch Blair weekly on C-SPAN and he's a marvelous, passionate, and strong leader (and I plagiarize from him constantly). He's helping set Great Britain up quite nicely in the New World Order.

> Most of us are victims of european imperialism. United States had luck to
> receive the english culture, and not the portuguese. Portugal, the poorest
> country in Europe!!! A bunch of murderers came to my country to kill
> native indians and to bring shame and hate to this beautiful land. We have
> received a lot of immigrants during the last centuries, especially
> italians here in the south, but we still are trying to clean up all the
> shit that Portugal did bring to this place.

Well one of the best time's I ever had was a trip to Portugal.
I had tacked it on for the fuck of it when I took a trip to
Spain (another lovely country), and I plan to go back there
as soon as I can for more. It's actually a really neat, fun,
and beautiful place. And I love their music.

But anyway, one of the great strengths of American culture is
it is the product of so many different culture's mixing together.

> Nation-states will be obsolete in a few generations. It's already headed
> that way.

No argument there.

> the American Revolution is the most influential force on
> earth,

What do you mean by this? Presume you're not talking about the Revolution as a battle or war, so much as a domestic event which unleashed forces (capitalist and industrial revolution) which affected the whole world. If that's the case, I think that's a really interesting (and probably true) perspective.

Wonder what will happen when China becomes the world superpower. . .

> and in the words on Leonard Cohen, America is "the best and
> worst of everything." Sail on, mighty ship of state....

Nice quote. This is the point I try and make to people who bag America as if it were this monolithic, right-wing, religious political entity. There's so much diversity in country that size that it necessarily encompasses the entire social and political spectrum, even if you're part of a small niche in America- you're still part of a large community. I suspect Moz tried to use this to his favour as a commercial decision when things seemed to be flopping in the UK. The US will be the biggest market for just about everything for a long time to come, and I figure he wanted to leverage that. I'm sure he meant his stated explanation also, but I suspect that was not the whole reason.

What? Jerry Springer, J-Lo and Starbucks? As I said, there is on country and one country alone that could only ever have produced the band we love so much, and that is dear old Blighty.

> Perhapsd you haven't noticed, but much of the world is BEGGING for a
> little Americanization.

> Perhapsd you haven't noticed, but much of the world is BEGGING for a
> little Americanization.

most of the world begging for americanisation my arse

> It was rotting, but I think the great Tony Blair is reviving the place!

> I watch Blair weekly on C-SPAN and he's a marvelous, passionate, and
> strong leader (and I plagiarize from him constantly). He's helping set
> Great Britain up quite nicely in the New World Order.

tony blair is so far up dubya's ass. you'd have to call a proctologist to get him out of there.

What was the question again?

read the rest of the thread, lazy!!!! :P

> tony blair is so far up dubya's ass. you'd have to call a proctologist to
> get him out of there.
Funny, thats what I thought of him with Clinton. I too have been watching PM Blair on C-Span and I get a lot more info from him than from President Bush.

well you're right about the clinton thing too. it seems like tony blair is always getting buddy-buddy with american presidents. i prefer him to maggie thatcher -- but barely.

> well you're right about the clinton thing too. it seems like tony blair is
> always getting buddy-buddy with american presidents. i prefer him to
> maggie thatcher -- but barely.
But what I can't figure out is why, when the majority of the British are against war with Iraq. Im waiting to hear the reations to Powell's speech today.

i caught a tiny bit of it when i was waiting in the language lab for my french class to start. unfortunately, there was a lot of noise and i didn't get to hear much of it.

> Well one of the best time's I ever had was a trip to Portugal.
> I had tacked it on for the fuck of it when I took a trip to
> Spain (another lovely country), and I plan to go back there
> as soon as I can for more. It's actually a really neat, fun,
> and beautiful place. And I love their music.

Yes, I have been to Portugal as well, not just Portugal, but Spain and Italy too. Yes, that is a beautiful country, by the way, is there something ugly in old Europe? And their music is named "fado", quite interesting. Unfortunatelly they never EVER did something worth in Brasil, they just came with africans to be their slaves, and also wanted to turn native indians to slaves, BUT the indians didn't accept to work as animals to them, so they killed native indians like we kill a fly. However we don't even care about them anymore.

> But anyway, one of the great strengths of American culture is
> it is the product of so many different culture's mixing together.

> But what I can't figure out is why, when the majority of the British are
> against war with Iraq. Im waiting to hear the reations to Powell's speech
> today.

Blair is ahead of the majoriy of the British public, just as Churchhill was back in the day (and FDR in America). They'll come around. What's right is right!