God save the Queen and a fascist regime … a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
In William S. Burroughs' "The Place of Dead Roads," the author critiques England's societal structure, portraying it as stagnant and decaying. He argues that the monarchy, particularly the Queen, serves as a stabilizing force that allows a small elite to maintain their wealth and power, despite the country's evident decline. This relationship upholds a regime that he describes as a weak form of fascism, avoiding extremes and thereby failing to address underlying problems.
Burroughs emphasizes the notion that England exists in a state of denial, likening it to an injured animal unaware of its mortality. He suggests that the legacy of the British Empire haunts the nation, leading to a moral and social decay. This imagery of a fallen, oblivious creature captures the essence of a society grappling with its history while remaining trapped in its own failures.
