When you think of it, Great Britian has a long history of being conquered.
Long, but fairly ancient. There hasn't been a successful external conquest of Great Britain since 1689, and even that was sort of pre-arranged. Generally when parts of Great Britain have been subject to the ravages of an invading army it's been from others parts of the island or, at a pinch, other islands in the archipelago.
Well, if it weren't for the lend lease program, it could have been conquered more recently.
That may or may not be true but this remains a hypothetical, rather than a historical, invasion and as such completely irrelevant to whatever point you thought you were making.
When you think of it, Great Britian has a long history of being conquered.
Long, but fairly ancient. There hasn't been a successful external conquest of Great Britain since 1689, and even that was sort of pre-arranged. Generally when parts of Great Britain have been subject to the ravages of an invading army it's been from others parts of the island or, at a pinch, other islands in the archipelago.
Well, if it weren't for the lend lease program, it could have been conquered more recently.
So what? The US did that because it was in our national interest, not out of the goodness of our collective heart.
Do you think house of Drumpf were in power, that they would have started the lend-lease program?
You probably remember if Churchill had his way, he would have rather the USA enter the war much sooner. but Roosevelt's hands were tied up by an America First Congress who did not want any aid going to Europe. Roosevelt finally convinced Congress to authorize the Lend Lease program in early 1941, just a few months before the USA declared war on Japan for its attack on Pearl Harbor.
In truth, under the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s Britian was forced to buy all of its equipment through a cash carry program, using its gold reserves to by the equipment. Britian was all but bankrupted just before the lend lease program was approved.
The lend lease program of WWII was the bases for the Ukrainian lend lease program of 2022 signed by Biden to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now that the House of Drumpf is back in power, that program is all but choked off.
Gives us a clue of how the House of Drumpf would have reacted to the war in Europe, much less the war in Asia. Especially since Donnie's favorite nighttime reading is said to have been Mein Kompf.
And, now, Donnie Jr is thinking about a White House Run of his own. He says The Calling is There.
Gives us a clue of how the House of Drumpf would have reacted to the war in Europe, much less the war in Asia. Especially since Donnie's favorite nighttime reading is said to have been Mein Kompf.
By whom is it said that Trump’s “favorite nighttime reading” was or is Mein Kampf? By anyone with credibility? Anyone trustworthy?
Gramps, do you not see how in repeating throwaway lines like that, as well as by using “Drumpf” and “Donnie,” you are taking pages straight out of the Trump playbook on belittling and dismissing those with whom you disagree?
Yes, Trump is undeniably contemptible. But there are better ways to call it out than by stooping to his level.
Nick, you may remember this is a Hell thread. Moreover, DJT's grandfather, who came from Germany was named Friedrich Drumpf. Freidrich changed the name to make it more--shall we say--American.
If you look at the history of the Trump surname in USA, you will also find German predecessors had long changed their Drum(pf) name when they arrived on our shores
I was doing a riff on Trump's real German name because the House of Windsor's original name was Saxe-Coburg und Gotha. It was changed by King George in 1917 because of the anti German sentiment due to WWI.
In the case of DJT, his family has a long fascist history. I think it quite appropriate to revert back to the original surname to emphasize where his comes from.
Don't forget T's father, Fred, was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927. Fred's real estate ventures were racially discriminatory. While his grandfather's political leanings have been hard to pin down, it is known he was opportunistic and exploitative. He likely reflected the biases of the times.
I have no idea why you're posting about some weird and irrelevant alternative history.
The twists and turns of history are often unpredictable and arbitrary. Trump is changing the world order and he's the epitome of unpredictable and arbitrary.
Don't forget T's father, Fred, was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927. Fred's real estate ventures were racially discriminatory. While his grandfather's political leanings have been hard to pin down, it is known he was opportunistic and exploitative. He likely reflected the biases of the times.
But the claim you made was that Trump’s “family has a long fascist history.” None of these things supports that claim.
Unfortunately @Gramps49 has form for accepting claims without checking them - which is a shame because often their contributions are interesting. I do however find myself having to fact check them a lot.
Unfortunately @Gramps49 has form for accepting claims without checking them - which is a shame because often their contributions are interesting. I do however find myself having to fact check them a lot.
My claim Trump read Mein Kampf is based on what Ivanka wrote about him having it on his nightstand. No where did I mention he expressed affinity to the book. The concluding sentence of the Snope's article is: What we did find is that people (including some close to him) have been insinuating that Trump has an affinity for Hitler for the better part of 30 years, which in and of itself is interesting. In USA football parlance, that is a hole you can drive a truck through.
Unfortunately @Gramps49 has form for accepting claims without checking them - which is a shame because often their contributions are interesting. I do however find myself having to fact check them a lot.
My claim Trump read Mein Kampf is based on what Ivanka wrote about him having it on his nightstand. No where did I mention he expressed affinity to the book.
You said “Especially since Donnie's favorite nighttime reading is said to have been Mein Kompf.” I really don’t know how you expect “favorite nighttime reading” to be understood as meaning anything other than saying he had an affinity for the book.
But the set-up involves a dumbfuck Yank who falsely claims his country deserves full and sole credit for stopping Hitler from conquering Britain. So the punch-line only really works if the Americans truthfully bear full and sole blame for enslaving the Black guy's ancestors.
IOW the total period of the Black family's enslavement would have to have taken place between July 4, 1776 and December 18th 1865, and entirely within territory controlled by the United States. I am not an expert on the geo-economic layout of Anglo-American slavery and the resultant migration patterns, but my GUESS would be that's not a particularly strong statistical representation among the section of people known as "Black British".
Cards on the table: I'm relatively certain that story is apocryphal, meant to illustrate the supposed moral and cognitive superiority of the British over the Americans. At the very least, the professed details lend themselves remarkably well to appropriation for such pond-warfare.
Fine. Whatever. I'll admit I remember the exchange but not the particulaities of the speakers other than it was a white person speaking to a black person.
But where along the line? It seems likely that at least some people who had been enslaved in the US and their descendants made their way to the UK at some point, but I have never gotten the impression that this is a well-worn path. What am I missing?
Edit: Or maybe the "you" in "if not for you I'd be speaking Yoruba" refers to Europeans and their descendants in general?
But where along the line? It seems likely that at least some people who had been enslaved in the US and their descendants made their way to the UK at some point, but I have never gotten the impression that this is a well-worn path. What am I missing?
Well, factoring in slaves who were taken from the 13 Colonies to the slave-holding Caribbean, and Black Loyalists who fled the newly formed USA for free British territory around the time of independence, yeah, there could be a few of their descendants in the UK today. But their ancestors would still have experienced slavery under the British Crown at some point. Bondage under entirely American slavemasters strikes me as likely a rare demographic in the ancestry of Black Britons.
Or maybe the "you" in "if not for you I'd be speaking Yoruba" refers to Europeans and their descendants in general?
Well, I think the American in the anecdote is clearly meant to be understood as bragging on behalf of Americans qua Americans, so responding with an insult directed against all ethnic Europeans would be a rather asymmetrical comeback.
Black people enslaved in Africa were typically taken to the Caribbean or America pre and post independence by people of many nationalities - but a substantial number of British and American traders were involved.
The Windrush generation came to Britain in the middle of the 20th century and most of them were descended from Africans originally enslaved as part of the triangle trade.
So the basic point, that if white colonists had not provided a market for enslaved Africans - their descendants would still have been living in their respective lands speaking their original languages, like Yoruba, is correct. In the 19th century, a number of black people - and people of many heritages - ended up in Britain having worked in the merchant navy, or been pressed out of those ships into the regular navy.
The exchange is cited by Gary Younge, a Black British journalist who wrote this on twitter:
“During the Iraq war a white American wrote to me. “If it weren’t for us you’d be speaking German.”
“If it weren’t for you,” I replied. “I’d probably be speaking Yoruba.” We’re not coming from the same place.” From yesterday’s Irish Times interview
The Irish Times is paywalled so I can’t see any further context. But the interview was printed on the 11th of March 2023. He was a guardian correspondent in the US for 12 years and the interview is about the publication of a collection of his writing across his journalistic career.
(ETA of course many people whose ancestors were enslaved don’t know the detail of where they were taken from, as so much was lost generation to generation - I don’t know if Gary Younge knows more about where his family originally came from or whether he was using that as an illustrative example.)
I have long learned no matter what I say, you are likely to disagree with it. You say it is not what the expression means, but you do not give a counter explanation.
I will give you one, just to help you a bit. There are some trees in California where a hole had been cut through so vehicles could drive through them. We even have a few in Washington like that.
However, the expression has also been used in USA football. The phrase "a hole so wide you could drive a truck through" has its roots in American football commentary, where it vividly describes a massive gap in the defense—often created by the offensive line—to allow a running back to charge through effortlessly.
While the exact origin is unclear, it likely emerged as a natural extension of sports metaphors that emphasize size and space. The imagery of a truck, a large and unmistakable vehicle, helps convey just how open the path is. Similar expressions exist in other sports, but football commentators popularized this one due to the game's reliance on blocking and running lanes.
Disagree with me if you want, but the challenge for you is to offer a counter explanation.
"You could drive a truck through it" in my experience is normally used to refer to logical errors or gaps in an explanation or alibi. It is a bad thing.
"You could drive a truck through it" in my experience is normally used to refer to logical errors or gaps in an explanation or alibi. It is a bad thing.
I usually hear it when someone states a principle, then adds an exception, but someone else thinks the exception is so wide as to make the original principle meaningless.
BOB: I'm against the death penalty. Well, except for the really horrific crimes.
MARY: "Really horrific crimes"? That's an exception you could drive a truck through."
Mary thinks that since many crimes qualify as horrific, Bob might as well just say he supports the death penalty, and be done with it.
Mea culpa on the story being apocryphal. Wikipedia states Yonge's ancestry as Barbadian, but doesn't say when and under what circumstances his family went there. The link to the info is paywalled.
"You could drive a truck through it" in my experience is normally used to refer to logical errors or gaps in an explanation or alibi. It is a bad thing.
Same here. As I hear the expression used, the metaphorical “hole” that a truck could drive through is a weakness or problem in an argument or explanation, and driving the truck through exposes those weaknesses or problems.
However, the expression has also been used in USA football. The phrase "a hole so wide you could drive a truck through" has its roots in American football commentary, where it vividly describes a massive gap in the defense—often created by the offensive line—to allow a running back to charge through effortlessly.
Can you cite anything that supports your claim that that the phrase has its origin in American football commentary?
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy.
This suggests to me that “a hole so big you could drive a truck through it” is just an update of a much older idiom. Indeed, this page cites a usage of the idiom from 1672.
Back to the Trump/Mein Kampf debate for a sec, from my cursory scan of the claims and sources...
My guess is that Trump probably DID keep the book in the vicinity of his bed, but that his interest in it was less as "political blueprint", as it was "object of disapproving but still rather unseemly intellectual fetishization".
For the rough social archetype, see Guy born in 1945 who idolizes his dad as the Greatest Generation, but(*) likes to collect cheap-paperbacks detailing Satanic Sex Rites Of The Third Reich.
(*) Or "and", depending how you see the relationship between the two traits.
Back to the Trump/Mein Kampf debate for a sec, from my cursory scan of the claims and sources...
My guess is that Trump probably DID keep the book in the vicinity of his bed, but that his interest in it was less as "political blueprint", as it was "object of disapproving but still rather unseemly intellectual fetishization".
I think “guess” is the key word here. Because that’s all I think anyone is doing.
And what sources did you give a cursory scan? All the sources I’ve seen say that Ivana Trump is reported to have told her lawyer that Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf, in a cabinet by the bed. (And I found at least one source that says she said she gave him that book.). Nowhere, though, do I see an actual quote from her.
@Gramps49, as you noted, this is Hell. I will not be defending my points here unless I happen to feel like it. I don't owe you an example or an explanation or anything else.
I do regularly disagree with you. It's because you say so many things that are wrong or make no sense.
But where along the line? It seems likely that at least some people who had been enslaved in the US and their descendants made their way to the UK at some point, but I have never gotten the impression that this is a well-worn path. What am I missing?
Well, factoring in slaves who were taken from the 13 Colonies to the slave-holding Caribbean, and Black Loyalists who fled the newly formed USA for free British territory around the time of independence, yeah, there could be a few of their descendants in the UK today. But their ancestors would still have experienced slavery under the British Crown at some point. Bondage under entirely American slavemasters strikes me as likely a rare demographic in the ancestry of Black Britons.
I note that American ships post (as well as pre) the revolution were engaged in the slave trade to the Caribbean. Even illegally post the 1808 ban on the international slave trade. The US domestic slave trade continued with slaves usually shipped from the more northerly slave states to the deep south. This sometimes resulted in the ships ending up in British ports (e.g., bad weather such as the Comet, 1830; the Encomium, 1833; Enterprise; 1834; Hermosa, 1840) and the slaves becoming free. In the case of the Creole, 1841, the American slaves on board revolted and sailed to the Bahamas and freedom.
Also the War of 1812 included many American slaves joining the British and gaining freedom then being settled in the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad) or Canada.
Add in the American slaves (or even freedmen who feared re-enslavement) who fled to Canada in the decades prior to the American Civil War.
Back to the Trump/Mein Kampf debate for a sec, from my cursory scan of the claims and sources...
My guess is that Trump probably DID keep the book in the vicinity of his bed, but that his interest in it was less as "political blueprint", as it was "object of disapproving but still rather unseemly intellectual fetishization".
I think “guess” is the key word here. Because that’s all I think anyone is doing.
And what sources did you give a cursory scan? All the sources I’ve seen say that Ivana Trump is reported to have told her lawyer that Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf, in a cabinet by the bed. (And I found at least one source that says she said she gave him that book.). Nowhere, though, do I see an actual quote from her.
Yeah. I'm not strongly wedded to any particular interpretation of the reportage. I basically just believe it because it seems to fit with Trump's otherwise known personality traits. But if there's no ur-text for Ivana's supposed claim, that certainly doesn't help the case for its authenticity.
But where along the line? It seems likely that at least some people who had been enslaved in the US and their descendants made their way to the UK at some point, but I have never gotten the impression that this is a well-worn path. What am I missing?
Well, factoring in slaves who were taken from the 13 Colonies to the slave-holding Caribbean, and Black Loyalists who fled the newly formed USA for free British territory around the time of independence, yeah, there could be a few of their descendants in the UK today. But their ancestors would still have experienced slavery under the British Crown at some point. Bondage under entirely American slavemasters strikes me as likely a rare demographic in the ancestry of Black Britons.
I note that American ships post (as well as pre) the revolution were engaged in the slave trade to the Caribbean. Even illegally post the 1808 ban on the international slave trade. The US domestic slave trade continued with slaves usually shipped from the more northerly slave states to the deep south. This sometimes resulted in the ships ending up in British ports (e.g., bad weather such as the Comet, 1830; the Encomium, 1833; Enterprise; 1834; Hermosa, 1840) and the slaves becoming free. In the case of the Creole, 1841, the American slaves on board revolted and sailed to the Bahamas and freedom.
Also the War of 1812 included many American slaves joining the British and gaining freedom then being settled in the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad) or Canada.
Add in the American slaves (or even freedmen who feared re-enslavement) who fled to Canada in the decades prior to the American Civil War.
Thanks for the info.
Given that slavery itself(as opposed to the trade) wasn't abolished in the British Empire until the early 1830s, what was the slave/free status of Trinidad at the time the Post-1812 Loyalist Blacks went to live there?
In English Canada, the moral superiority of British North Americans relative to the Yanks was often illustrated by the example of slavery, eg. the tory mob that burned down parliament in 1849 while protesting a supposedly pro-annexationist bill sang "No slave shall breathe our air!" as part of their battle anthem.
Given that slavery itself(as opposed to the trade) wasn't abolished in the British Empire until the early 1830s, what was the slave/free status of Trinidad at the time the Post-1812 Loyalist Blacks went to live there?
In English Canada, the moral superiority of British North Americans relative to the Yanks was often illustrated by the example of slavery, eg. the tory mob that burned down parliament in 1849 while protesting a supposedly pro-annexationist bill sang "No slave shall breathe our air!" as part of their battle anthem.
The Black soldiers sent to Trinidad (known as Merikins) were free though living in a place that still had enslaved people. They were given land grants and lived in their own communities. Trinidad itself had been seized by the British from the French in 1797 and did not have as heavily developed plantation system as other older colonies such as Jamaica. It seems to me that Britain was interested in establishing loyal British subjects (even if 'coloured') in this new territory where most of the existing free settlers were French in origin (some white but most 'coloured') plus the slaves they owned.
The Black soldiers sent to Trinidad (known as Merikins) were free though living in a place that still had enslaved people.
So kind of a hybrid slave/free jurisdiction. I guess as long as you were free before moving there, you got to retain your status upon arrival.
Simon Schama has written what I understand to be an interesting book about Black Loyslists in the Americas, called Rough Crossings. I bought a copy years ago, lent it to a friend, then got it back but lost it again before I had a chance to start reading it.
It seems to me that Britain was interested in establishing loyal British subjects (even if 'coloured') in this new territory where most of the existing free settlers were French in origin (some white but most 'coloured') plus the slaves they owned.
I believe the experience of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia was somewhat mixed, though I haven't gotten too far in studying the details. (See my.history with the Schama book.)
The current tangent is understandable, but needs it's own thread perhaps. Could we here please direct our ire against the subject of this thread and not at each other? Also focus on Trump's current actions, for example his rant against Putin? No surprise there, of course!
I may go back to my original resolve of reading nothing about him that's not an obituary.
I realise that for a great many his words and actions are highly consequential, but for me reading about them negatively impacts my peace of mind- of which I have little enough.
Is this the place one comes to confess you have a copy of Mein Kampf under your bed?
(Disclosure: I am a history graduate with an interest in Nazi persecution of disabled people. There are many different reasons one might read Mein Kampf)
I may go back to my original resolve of reading nothing about him that's not an obituary.
I realise that for a great many his words and actions are highly consequential, but for me reading about them negatively impacts my peace of mind- of which I have little enough.
I still think Putin has something on Trump in reserve. Might go back to when Trump was trying to establish a Trump motel in Moscow. Then too, it is said much of the Trump enterprises had to rely on Russian financing when he could not get loans through the standard banking practices. Trump would hate it if all the Russian chips were called in or if Putin does a final reveal.
But, even if Trump were to finally and fully support Ukraine in their war effort, we might have exhausted what we could have given Ukraine already. We don't have many Patriots to give away anymore. For that matter, I don't think the European allies can supply them either.
The biggest issue for me is the continuing gaslighting of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. Our national credit rating is taking a hit. Our poor and elderly are being threatened. Our federal government structure is crumbling--thank you Elon--and there are also a number of other stupid things. Like forcing the West Point graduates to salute him as he was walking between them with his Make America Great Again hat on (aren't they still made in China?), and telling the graduates they need to avoid marrying trophy wives--guess he is speaking from experience there.
3.5 years remaining? Impeach and convict the bastard.
Early Memorial Day 2025, President Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to post a rambling diatribe.
Trump, writing in all caps, posted, "HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THE BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTAO INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERERS, AND RAPE AGAIN, PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL
As reported by Alternet. Also USA Today, MSN, Dailey Beast, Et al.
Comments
That may or may not be true but this remains a hypothetical, rather than a historical, invasion and as such completely irrelevant to whatever point you thought you were making.
'If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German'
'If it wasn't for you, I'd be speaking Yoruba'.
Do you think house of Drumpf were in power, that they would have started the lend-lease program?
You probably remember if Churchill had his way, he would have rather the USA enter the war much sooner. but Roosevelt's hands were tied up by an America First Congress who did not want any aid going to Europe. Roosevelt finally convinced Congress to authorize the Lend Lease program in early 1941, just a few months before the USA declared war on Japan for its attack on Pearl Harbor.
In truth, under the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s Britian was forced to buy all of its equipment through a cash carry program, using its gold reserves to by the equipment. Britian was all but bankrupted just before the lend lease program was approved.
The lend lease program of WWII was the bases for the Ukrainian lend lease program of 2022 signed by Biden to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now that the House of Drumpf is back in power, that program is all but choked off.
Gives us a clue of how the House of Drumpf would have reacted to the war in Europe, much less the war in Asia. Especially since Donnie's favorite nighttime reading is said to have been Mein Kompf.
And, now, Donnie Jr is thinking about a White House Run of his own. He says The Calling is There.
The ancestors of the Black British guy were enslaved by Americans?
Actually, if it weren't for the Germans in WWI, most of the United States would have been speaking Duetsch today.
Gramps, do you not see how in repeating throwaway lines like that, as well as by using “Drumpf” and “Donnie,” you are taking pages straight out of the Trump playbook on belittling and dismissing those with whom you disagree?
Yes, Trump is undeniably contemptible. But there are better ways to call it out than by stooping to his level.
Beside, you think this man reads? That's not at all the impression he gives me.
If you look at the history of the Trump surname in USA, you will also find German predecessors had long changed their Drum(pf) name when they arrived on our shores
I was doing a riff on Trump's real German name because the House of Windsor's original name was Saxe-Coburg und Gotha. It was changed by King George in 1917 because of the anti German sentiment due to WWI.
In the case of DJT, his family has a long fascist history. I think it quite appropriate to revert back to the original surname to emphasize where his comes from.
And, Donnie is such a little man.
8647
None of it changes my opinion, which is that you diminish your own comments and observations by playing his game by his rules.
The twists and turns of history are often unpredictable and arbitrary. Trump is changing the world order and he's the epitome of unpredictable and arbitrary.
I find @Gramps49 musings interesting.
Unfortunately @Gramps49 has form for accepting claims without checking them - which is a shame because often their contributions are interesting. I do however find myself having to fact check them a lot.
My claim Trump read Mein Kampf is based on what Ivanka wrote about him having it on his nightstand. No where did I mention he expressed affinity to the book. The concluding sentence of the Snope's article is: What we did find is that people (including some close to him) have been insinuating that Trump has an affinity for Hitler for the better part of 30 years, which in and of itself is interesting. In USA football parlance, that is a hole you can drive a truck through.
Yeah, "somewhere along the line".
But the set-up involves a dumbfuck Yank who falsely claims his country deserves full and sole credit for stopping Hitler from conquering Britain. So the punch-line only really works if the Americans truthfully bear full and sole blame for enslaving the Black guy's ancestors.
IOW the total period of the Black family's enslavement would have to have taken place between July 4, 1776 and December 18th 1865, and entirely within territory controlled by the United States. I am not an expert on the geo-economic layout of Anglo-American slavery and the resultant migration patterns, but my GUESS would be that's not a particularly strong statistical representation among the section of people known as "Black British".
Cards on the table: I'm relatively certain that story is apocryphal, meant to illustrate the supposed moral and cognitive superiority of the British over the Americans. At the very least, the professed details lend themselves remarkably well to appropriation for such pond-warfare.
But where along the line? It seems likely that at least some people who had been enslaved in the US and their descendants made their way to the UK at some point, but I have never gotten the impression that this is a well-worn path. What am I missing?
Edit: Or maybe the "you" in "if not for you I'd be speaking Yoruba" refers to Europeans and their descendants in general?
Well, factoring in slaves who were taken from the 13 Colonies to the slave-holding Caribbean, and Black Loyalists who fled the newly formed USA for free British territory around the time of independence, yeah, there could be a few of their descendants in the UK today. But their ancestors would still have experienced slavery under the British Crown at some point. Bondage under entirely American slavemasters strikes me as likely a rare demographic in the ancestry of Black Britons.
Well, I think the American in the anecdote is clearly meant to be understood as bragging on behalf of Americans qua Americans, so responding with an insult directed against all ethnic Europeans would be a rather asymmetrical comeback.
Black people enslaved in Africa were typically taken to the Caribbean or America pre and post independence by people of many nationalities - but a substantial number of British and American traders were involved.
The Windrush generation came to Britain in the middle of the 20th century and most of them were descended from Africans originally enslaved as part of the triangle trade.
So the basic point, that if white colonists had not provided a market for enslaved Africans - their descendants would still have been living in their respective lands speaking their original languages, like Yoruba, is correct. In the 19th century, a number of black people - and people of many heritages - ended up in Britain having worked in the merchant navy, or been pressed out of those ships into the regular navy.
The Irish Times is paywalled so I can’t see any further context. But the interview was printed on the 11th of March 2023. He was a guardian correspondent in the US for 12 years and the interview is about the publication of a collection of his writing across his journalistic career.
(ETA of course many people whose ancestors were enslaved don’t know the detail of where they were taken from, as so much was lost generation to generation - I don’t know if Gary Younge knows more about where his family originally came from or whether he was using that as an illustrative example.)
I have long learned no matter what I say, you are likely to disagree with it. You say it is not what the expression means, but you do not give a counter explanation.
I will give you one, just to help you a bit. There are some trees in California where a hole had been cut through so vehicles could drive through them. We even have a few in Washington like that.
However, the expression has also been used in USA football. The phrase "a hole so wide you could drive a truck through" has its roots in American football commentary, where it vividly describes a massive gap in the defense—often created by the offensive line—to allow a running back to charge through effortlessly.
While the exact origin is unclear, it likely emerged as a natural extension of sports metaphors that emphasize size and space. The imagery of a truck, a large and unmistakable vehicle, helps convey just how open the path is. Similar expressions exist in other sports, but football commentators popularized this one due to the game's reliance on blocking and running lanes.
Disagree with me if you want, but the challenge for you is to offer a counter explanation.
I usually hear it when someone states a principle, then adds an exception, but someone else thinks the exception is so wide as to make the original principle meaningless.
BOB: I'm against the death penalty. Well, except for the really horrific crimes.
MARY: "Really horrific crimes"? That's an exception you could drive a truck through."
Mary thinks that since many crimes qualify as horrific, Bob might as well just say he supports the death penalty, and be done with it.
@Doublethink and @Firenze
Mea culpa on the story being apocryphal. Wikipedia states Yonge's ancestry as Barbadian, but doesn't say when and under what circumstances his family went there. The link to the info is paywalled.
Can you cite anything that supports your claim that that the phrase has its origin in American football commentary?
I note that a June 9, 1899, debate in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom included that comment “You could drive a coach and six through that Treaty.” The “coach and six” idiom was also used by Dickens in A Christmas Carol (1843):
This suggests to me that “a hole so big you could drive a truck through it” is just an update of a much older idiom. Indeed, this page cites a usage of the idiom from 1672.
My guess is that Trump probably DID keep the book in the vicinity of his bed, but that his interest in it was less as "political blueprint", as it was "object of disapproving but still rather unseemly intellectual fetishization".
For the rough social archetype, see Guy born in 1945 who idolizes his dad as the Greatest Generation, but(*) likes to collect cheap-paperbacks detailing Satanic Sex Rites Of The Third Reich.
(*) Or "and", depending how you see the relationship between the two traits.
And what sources did you give a cursory scan? All the sources I’ve seen say that Ivana Trump is reported to have told her lawyer that Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf, in a cabinet by the bed. (And I found at least one source that says she said she gave him that book.). Nowhere, though, do I see an actual quote from her.
@Gramps49, as you noted, this is Hell. I will not be defending my points here unless I happen to feel like it. I don't owe you an example or an explanation or anything else.
I do regularly disagree with you. It's because you say so many things that are wrong or make no sense.
I note that American ships post (as well as pre) the revolution were engaged in the slave trade to the Caribbean. Even illegally post the 1808 ban on the international slave trade. The US domestic slave trade continued with slaves usually shipped from the more northerly slave states to the deep south. This sometimes resulted in the ships ending up in British ports (e.g., bad weather such as the Comet, 1830; the Encomium, 1833; Enterprise; 1834; Hermosa, 1840) and the slaves becoming free. In the case of the Creole, 1841, the American slaves on board revolted and sailed to the Bahamas and freedom.
Also the War of 1812 included many American slaves joining the British and gaining freedom then being settled in the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad) or Canada.
Add in the American slaves (or even freedmen who feared re-enslavement) who fled to Canada in the decades prior to the American Civil War.
And you are so correct and make sense in every communication?
I was thinking about that book as I read your posts.
From memory - which is a bit shaky now - I believe Thanet was the traditional point of invasion.
Yeah. I'm not strongly wedded to any particular interpretation of the reportage. I basically just believe it because it seems to fit with Trump's otherwise known personality traits. But if there's no ur-text for Ivana's supposed claim, that certainly doesn't help the case for its authenticity.
Thanks for the info.
Given that slavery itself(as opposed to the trade) wasn't abolished in the British Empire until the early 1830s, what was the slave/free status of Trinidad at the time the Post-1812 Loyalist Blacks went to live there?
In English Canada, the moral superiority of British North Americans relative to the Yanks was often illustrated by the example of slavery, eg. the tory mob that burned down parliament in 1849 while protesting a supposedly pro-annexationist bill sang "No slave shall breathe our air!" as part of their battle anthem.
The Black soldiers sent to Trinidad (known as Merikins) were free though living in a place that still had enslaved people. They were given land grants and lived in their own communities. Trinidad itself had been seized by the British from the French in 1797 and did not have as heavily developed plantation system as other older colonies such as Jamaica. It seems to me that Britain was interested in establishing loyal British subjects (even if 'coloured') in this new territory where most of the existing free settlers were French in origin (some white but most 'coloured') plus the slaves they owned.
So kind of a hybrid slave/free jurisdiction. I guess as long as you were free before moving there, you got to retain your status upon arrival.
Simon Schama has written what I understand to be an interesting book about Black Loyslists in the Americas, called Rough Crossings. I bought a copy years ago, lent it to a friend, then got it back but lost it again before I had a chance to start reading it.
I believe the experience of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia was somewhat mixed, though I haven't gotten too far in studying the details. (See my.history with the Schama book.)
I realise that for a great many his words and actions are highly consequential, but for me reading about them negatively impacts my peace of mind- of which I have little enough.
(Disclosure: I am a history graduate with an interest in Nazi persecution of disabled people. There are many different reasons one might read Mein Kampf)
I read about him on here. Nowhere else.
But, even if Trump were to finally and fully support Ukraine in their war effort, we might have exhausted what we could have given Ukraine already. We don't have many Patriots to give away anymore. For that matter, I don't think the European allies can supply them either.
The biggest issue for me is the continuing gaslighting of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. Our national credit rating is taking a hit. Our poor and elderly are being threatened. Our federal government structure is crumbling--thank you Elon--and there are also a number of other stupid things. Like forcing the West Point graduates to salute him as he was walking between them with his Make America Great Again hat on (aren't they still made in China?), and telling the graduates they need to avoid marrying trophy wives--guess he is speaking from experience there.
3.5 years remaining? Impeach and convict the bastard.
8647
I can't get as bad as this:
Early Memorial Day 2025, President Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to post a rambling diatribe.
Trump, writing in all caps, posted, "HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THE BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTAO INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERERS, AND RAPE AGAIN, PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL
As reported by Alternet. Also USA Today, MSN, Dailey Beast, Et al.
What is even more chilling is the fact that many people actually believe the shite that pours from Trump's mind.