Frederick Forsyth's letter to George Bush on the Guardian website

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Whenever I read shit like this I get so angry I'm unable to think of a retort. Please help me so that next time I meet a rightwing shit-brick bigot on the street I won't be reduced to blind rage.

Dear Mr President,

Today you arrive in my country for the first state visit by an American president for many decades, and I bid you welcome.

You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world's most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.

I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.

It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second.

Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il... and hate a God-fearing Texan. So hallelujah and have a good time.
Frederick Forsyth
Novelist

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

'destroyed'

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:15 (twenty-two years ago)

That said, Harold Pinter's one is equally poor.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

weird. in his gruaniad diary column (which is about 45 words) he's usually anti-war for the good reason that it was justified with a big bag of horseshit.

harold pinter et al have todally discredited the anti-war party. we need more ppl like graham greene about.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Julie Burchill's one is great.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:20 (twenty-two years ago)

alternative Forsythe's letter to George Bush:

Dear Mr President;

All right my love?

Brucey

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler

Actually, it was the right wing, and the aristocracy who mostly supported the appeasement of Adolf Hitler. Churchill was considered a lone nut by many of them.

Also, remember that the US - those great anti-Nazis - were isolationist until Pearl Harbour.

Things like this make me so angry I can't even speak properly, let alone bring together a coherant argument.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:21 (twenty-two years ago)

well, there were some leftists who said "we shd sit this out and let the imperialists fight one another" - trotsky wrote stuff attacking them

(also the hitler-stalin pact kind of ahem muddled the issue)

but yes this is prime trolling by FF and he well knows it: it is written to enrage not to clarify

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

god no kidding kate -- i thought i was happy till i started reading those letters they can (almost) all go fuck themselves. i might turn my protracted suicide bid into something more heroic now. if only i could get them all in the same room -- portillo especially.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, the idea that we are somehow protesting in *support* of tyrants abroad, rather than against tyranny at home - or tyranny in the person of Bush as it were, this really angers me. As misrepresentation always does.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

actually craig brown's one (=bel littlejohn) is okay. but you do not want to fuck with me today. i want to go tomorrow having seen this shit.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:32 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a great irony in that Forsythe is very anti-immigration yet many immigrants are getting is using a loophole exposed in one of his spy stories. I think it involves requesting a birth certificate for someone who would be your age if they weren't already dead. Something like that.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

ceausescu was given the same treatment bush is getting wasn't he? ie a visit w.the queen plus some honour or other, good-friend-status gladhanding by the british state

anyway i can't think of ANY left faction be it never so tiny or mad which wz pro-NC

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I've yet to meet any Mugabe fanboys either

― DG (D_To_The_G), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

whereas there were plenty of FF's sort who supported pinochet, apartheid... the lies pile up so fast you can hardly belive his word processor didn't step in to save him further embarrassment.

DG -- i think Darcus Howe digs Mugabe, but I'm not 100%.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, remember that the US - those great anti-Nazis - were isolationist until Pearl Harbour.

Let us also remember that Prescott Bush (Dubya's grandfather) made quite a bit of cash as the business partner and US banking agent for Nazi financial backer Fritz Thyssen - a connection which continued even after the US entry into WWII began.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

are these just in the paper or on the site? i can't find them online.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

here

I can't find anything about Darcus Howe being all like Mugabe rox u r all gay, perhaps Google isn't working hard enough

― DG (D_To_The_G), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:54 (twenty-two years ago)

this is cos the new statesman site is a fuXoor to search.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Andrew Motion is still a rubbish poet then.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

as an aside (looking at the guardian website) i didn't realise that julie burchill had quit the guardian - for the times!!!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:10 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish death on michael gove.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

now the guardian's freelance budget will be available to pay freelancers again.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

thinkin about it, the guardian wd have done better to have logged em all in on ilx -- their ting is like a crap thread with no back-and-forth.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I've yet to meet any Mugabe fanboys either

Not now, but he was once very popular with many on the left, for standing up to white imperialism, I think.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

it occurs to me that this flood of bush fan-letters - having to restate in sneering unison to the world what they consider utterly obvious - is a fairly telling admission of the failure of the pro-war Mission to Explain

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:54 (twenty-two years ago)

FF's son used to go out with my friend M. He (oh, warg, oo, just nearly libled someone with a lot more money than me there). Anyway, it always makes me laugh to see daddy dearest being an extreme, anti-drugs, right winger.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

forsyth is a twat and i have no idea why people let him trot this shit out. he is badly informed, historically erronious and most of all a total cunt (work for me google, baby, please). i also see no reason why the guardian, who would have to have paid for this bilge, could possibly begin to justify such a spectacular waste of money, ink and paper.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, I suppose in a way it's a GOOD sign if the only pro-Bush drivel they can find is such bilge as to render the viewpoint nullified.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

they gave an already rich man money to talk bollocks when they could have given it so sokmeone with who can actually write and needs it - just another example of the guardian being lazy, thoughtless and propping up everything it supposedly stands against

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

ARCHIVES OF IDIOCY PT ONE

the 13 months of hell that was Vietnam

Bonnie Greer

Our nations are bound together by history, culture, language and genealogy. Let it always remain so.
Eric Forth, Conservative MP
[i just love the use of the word 'genealogy' -- doesn't it make you feel warm inside?]

Think of [the protestors] as Democrats, casting an early overseas vote.
Timothy Garton Ash
Writer and fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford
b-b-but tony, the dems are pro-war for fuck's sake.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not sure that printing this does prop him up

also haha "everything it supposedly stands against" = every freelancer ever to thread!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty sure they were asked to write letters to the editor, so may not have been paid to do this.

I'm speaking to an Obs person later so will ask.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

enrique, "angry protestors overseas" can just as easily be parsed as "badly handled war"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

far as i can tell, the dems position is that the war was right (and it went to plan) but that the 'peace' is being fucked up, and that the solution is that the US troops shd be replaced with... non-US troops. which isn't good enough really.

― enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

stevem - *that* made me laugh out loud.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:24 (twenty-two years ago)

which dem's position is that enrique?

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

who is darcus howe by the way?
i only know him from brasseye
also,surely the guardian were merely trying to "show the other side of the arguement" rather than actually supporting the kind of shit ff is spouting?
plus,reading something like that is as good an arguement against that kind of thinking than an article critiquing it

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:10 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/greatlives/images/darcus_howe.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:12 (twenty-two years ago)

why don't we just set up a gigantic street-brawl, where the right-wing extremists and the left-wing extremists can just kick the shit out of each other ... and hopefully kill each other. or if they don't kill each other, the winner gets to set up their stupid utopia ... in Utah or Antarctica.

meanwhile, those of us normal people in between these extremes -- the moderate left and the moderate right, and those who just don't give a fuck -- can sort out our differences and get on with our lives already.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:13 (twenty-two years ago)

(is that how you spell critiquing?)

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

(crosspost)

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

yes!

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

haha flamewars should be referred to as crossposts!

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:15 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yeah, the bush family = the american ceausescu family. poppy = nicolae, babs = elena (an insult to elena, actually), and dubya = nicu (the worthless, lazy, dumb-ass son).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:16 (twenty-two years ago)

and whats the story with darcus howe?

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:20 (twenty-two years ago)

one of them is that all the sites which used to have his pic on are now down except that one!

he is an occasional tv personality and columnist who used to be associated with c.l.r.james and the radical black left: don't know what his politics are now - his tv appearances are usually good fun as he is v.smart and ebullient

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

darcus profile

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:25 (twenty-two years ago)

cheers mark
by the way,i read and really enjoyed your "concrete so as to self destruct" essay today-nice work...

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

—:')

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:34 (twenty-two years ago)

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