in the uk freemasonry has been and always will be only open to the so-called elite people in our community. so i with a working-class background are viewed by those 'elitist' as 'factory fodder'. like many others in our country i'm the working-class hero that you speak of the keeping the systems going.
i spent the younger years of my life as a 'docker' (longshoreman). i moved on from there groggy to an adult apprenticeship as a fitter & turner and spent much of my life designing and producing hospital equipment which required some plumbing just as you were required to do. i was not able to carry out any electrical installation due to demarcation.
i have worked all of my life, and retired when i was 65 years of age, that was over 3 years ago, so a ponce i'm not my friend. i have never drawn unemployment benefit at any time in my life (not my scene).
in between that i was a member of the british armed forces and most of that time was spent was attached to the sas as a driver.served my time in the middle east, yemen and oman, and parts of north africa, uganda, kenya and nigeria.
like you i divorced and found a woman that had a brain and moved out to new zealand to escape from the crap environment of my early years in england. we had my own business in new zealand in the manufacturing of fashionware. at last i could afford to purchase my own home.
i understand your point about the non-producing elitist you speak of but bloodsuckers will unfortunately will alway's be in our midst.
i returned to england because we had our first child and i did not want to raise my child in that god forsaken country.
yes the churches of england do have psuedo freemasonary connection, as far as i know, mainly the catholic church.
i remember as a lad when they met up at church on a sunday to do their 'business', and during the week meet up again at their exclusive clubs. so i'm not afraid to respond to you groggy, it's that there's nothing i can do about the situation so i must find my own way in life.
as far as the 'american tie' is concerned to the british that i know comes down basically to 'trade', commerce, banking etc. our 'time' was up many years ago. we defended our islands in 1940 which we really could not afford to do, so we had no choice but to seek help from the usa to fight against a tyranny from europe. we were on our knees after that war and had to crawl out of it year by year.
we have just recently finished paying the usa back from what we owed them to fight that war. yes we were thankful for your help for we still enjoy that freedom that we fought for alongside nations like yourselves and many others. so yes we have through that time become dependant on the usa and the like. in the light of that we have fallen in line with what the usa does, and seen as the 'lapdogs' of the usa, but i know that britain will not allow that to continue for much longer, times change groggy, we've been where you are now. have a good day.