The Netherlands finds some humor in our unstable, incompetent, egomaniacal, blustering buffoon of a president. I don’t, but maybe I’m just a little too close to the problem.
Can we all come live with you in the Netherlands now? It seems to help deal with our problem to be on the other side of an ocean from it.
You know Geert Wilders is poised to win the next election right?
I recommend the book Distraction, by Bruce Sterling. It involves a USA declaring war on the Netherlands, who has been heading the world-wide boycott of the US due to environmental stuff.
So the USA sends exactly one ship against them and they surrender.
Next thing, the USA moves its government over there and suddenly starts making sense …
That’s silly, the US would never declare war against the Netherlands.
*remembers where the International Criminal Court is located*
Oh.
Given Dump’s actions regarding US programs to combat climate change, I’d say that this would be a bad time to move to the Netherlands.
Raise the dikes!
just john @2
I’ve been wondering, how possible would it be to actually put something like that into place? Can we actually encourage the international community to place sanctions or boycotts on the US if we don’t take action against climate change?
Please, do come, you’re more than welcome.
Our language is a bit of a tongue breaker but you’ll get used to it. Almost everybody will talk English to you anyway, even if you want to practice your Dutch.
Oh, and don’t mind Wilders. He represents about 20% of the population. That’s a lot, but still the chances that he gets significant political influence are extremely low. I know people said that about Trump too, but in a multiparty democracy (17 parties in our parliament already) a the-winner-takes-it-all situation is next to impossible.
And the weather can’t possibly worse than in Minnesota.
(But be prepared someone telling you that you must fuck off to your own country)
The problem with moving to another country is that there would be one less sensible person left in the US.
I would move to the Netherlands in a flash if it weren’t so flat. As a Yorkshire lad, I like to have hills around me.
call me mike. Try Maastricht. No moors, but it’s quite hilly.
#10 / Mark: There’s always the bridges over the canals here.
#8 / Riet: Usually doesn’t happen if you’re white, unless you’re complaining about Zwarte Piet. And I wonder if Minnesota has had three straight days of fog.
But immigration is pretty tough here if you don’t already have a job…
#2 / just john: If you’re going to recommend a Bruce Sterling novel, can I recommend The Zenith Angle, the hero of which is named ‘Derek Vandaveer’? Freaked the hell out of me.
Since this is Rabbie Burns’ birthday (221 today and going strong but for his unfortunate death).
I suspect that this is how he would react:
Ill fa’ your dishonest, unsonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
The Donald whare’s your troosers?
I’d hope that the people from Trump-country still retain their humour, too. Satire and ridicule have long been extremely valuable political tools and while, yes, Trump is quite scary in his incompetence and vileness – only outdone by the people he appointed to his cabinet or as his VP in my view – we still need to be able to laugh at and about them. Fighting back can come in many different forms and this is one of them.
Stephen Fry (i hope you are standing at the mention of his name?) once commented that the reason why The Netherlands was such a nice tolerant place was that the ancestors of the Boers left for South Africa in the 18th century .
It must be true because he said so.
Well, they’ve got their own genocidal maniac with bad blond hair, but these days, who doesn’t?
Meanwhile in other news: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/01/ploumen-plans-international-safe-abortion-fund-to-offset-trump-ban/
@Halcyon Dayz, FCD – Ploumen is our Minister of International Development. The US have just become a developing country.
rietplum
It’S not about abortion in the USA, but about keeping abortion services funded by aid organisations alive.
Gilliel – Yeah, I know, I just couldn’t resist an easy point.
Trump is known to dislike windmills -he thinks that they spoil the view from his golf courses. The Netherlands will freak him out.
Whenever i hear Americans say that if it hadn’t been for American help during WW2 we Brits would be speaking German i feel like telling them that if it wasn’t for us Brits they would be speaking Dutch .
Can’t imagine Frank singing, New Amsterdam ,New Amsterdam.
davidc1 #23
You messed up a punctuation placement.
davidc1 @23:
That’s largely because American history of WW2 typically just portrays it as “France sucked*, Britain had a stiff upper lip, then America came in and beat Germany and Japan all by itself.” The Eastern Front is largely ignored, as is the military contributions of the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and good luck finding something that even mentions Norway, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Yugoslavia, or any of the other countries.
*The fact that France had lost more people in WW1 than the US has lost in every war it’s ever fought in combined is pretty much never mentioned.
chigau@24 thanks for pointing that out ,where is it then ,i write and speak rubbish English .
microraptor @25 Have you seen a Errol Flynn film ,Objective Burma ? where he polished off all the Japanese that John Wayne could not wipe out .
Didn’t go down well over here in the UK ,in fact it was banned for a few years .