United Kingdom
.jpg "Banksy Brexit artwork in Dover")
Brexit mural in Dover. The Banksy artwork appeared overnight near the Dover/Calais ferry terminal.
Photo: Immanuel Giel
In the 2016 referendum the British people were asked a simple question: Do you want the UK to remain a member of the European Union or to leave the Common Market?
The result of the referendum was overwhelmingly undetermined. There was no supermajority for either option. Half of the British population wanted to leave, the other half to remain in the EU. [1]
With this result, the conservative British government never should have triggered Article 50, the legal and political process to withdrawal from the EU, because this meant to ignore the will of half of the country's population.
And there was Russia's interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum "through Twitter and other social media, and potentially direct financing through a gold mine, to procure Brexit." [2] [3]
A decision spanning generations should have had an overwhelming majority in the first place. Now the population of the United Kingdom is evenly divided by the peoples' opinion, and the same goes for the British parliament.
Brexit is neither good for Europe nor the kingdom. It's a lose/lose outcome. The whole process is destabilizing the fabric of UK's democracy and weakens the European Union. That US President Trump supports Brexit and Russia's president wants it, should have rung many alarm bells. Their political agenda is to divide and conquer.
I would rather be the tail of a dragon, than the head of a pig.
Korean proverb
USA
There are real villains among us.
Individual-1 is entering Airforce One. This individual is the greatest threat to the health of Earth. The commander-in-mischief is a significant source of a communicable disease, the mild kind is known as nationalism, the severe form as fascism.
The plague has nasty symptoms. There are the lies and the half-truths used as smokescreens to stir confusion, there are the denials of any wrongdoing, and the attempts to get rid of political rivals by calls to "lock them up." And there is the denunciation of other human beings, like the Muslims, the gays, the caravan, the Democrats, the intellectuals, and the media; the selection of the target is configurable to the liking, Yews, Christians, Negroes, Latinos, women, Mexicans, journalists, whatever is opportune.
Image: The Guardian
The US 2018 mid-terms election is done - kind of.
Since the US are no longer a British colony, they can do what they want. As long as they don't mess up the fabric of the global system of shared values, mutual trust, respect, cooperation, and safety.
Don't sell your citizens snake oil like "beautiful clean coal," "election theft," and "there is no climate change;" or use racial slurs, calling non-white people and other human beings "the blacks," "the gays," "the Muslims," "the Hispanics," the "Pocahontas" and "unknown Middle Easterners." This kind of speech is derogatory and abusive, the ugly face of racism and populism.
The top acting representative of the United States, lied 7,645 times in public since he took office, [1] using blunt lies for political gain and represents it as the noble truth.
What does this tell us about one of the president's favored mantra "there is no collusion with Russia?" One can almost assume that meanwhile,
the White House is just a shell agency of the Kremlin.
America, the world is watching you!
But there is another problem as well. Most of the world's citizens know terrific little about the United States of America.
OK, there is Hollywood in California. Well known thanks to the motion picture industry and the annual wildfires. People heard about sunny Florida. The state with its funny buildings, inhabited by senior citizens. The state which became famous due to its inability to count votes.
There is the largest city in the USA, New York. The town which is home to the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World). And there is Washington, where the US President and his 'Vice' president run their reality TV show.
But for example, a few people outside the US know there is an entire state named Washington (on the map of the USA, in the upper left corner). The same goes for New York, the state just north of the city with the same name.
So, let's get started:
50 States
Flag of the United States
Image: © nationsonline.org
The United States of America is a federal republic comprising fifty states and the Federal District of Columbia (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States).
The country covers the central part of North America. The US originated in the American War of Independence, the successful rebellion of the British colonies (aka, the original thirteen colonies against the British Empire) on the east coast of the continent in 1775–83.
After independence, the territory of the original British colonies was extended across the continent through the westward spread of more and more incoming migrants.
They came in the ten thousand, economic immigrant and religious refugees from all over Europe, soldiers of fortune, fur hunters, and gold diggers.
Since centuries the British have shipped thousands of convicts and other persons regarded as undesirable in the kingdom to the New World every year. In the US history books of today, all those people were kindly called pioneers and settlers.
The European settlement of what is now the USA was unfortunately at the expense of the original inhabitants, the Native American Indians.
So, please learn from history. 99% of the US citizens of today are descendants of immigrants! People who came to the New World in the hope to find freedom and prosperity.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
From the Declaration of Independence
Learn more about the US today, see our road trip through all of the 50 States - from Alabama to Zabriskie Point (which is not a state but begins with Z ;).
