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No shit, what American thinks either are true?
America, fuck yeah!
Has been a joke for like 30 years now
You haven’t met much of the rural population, have you?
This. Conservatives have poor media literacy. They don’t understand that they’re the punchline in stuff like that. They miss the point of stuff like RoboCop and Starship Troopers and unironically like those movies for the action and don’t even recognize the social commentary. They watched Team America and guffawed into their 24 packs of light beer at every shallow joke without recognizing that the jokes were intentionally shallow to point out what an idiot would think is a good joke. It’s like the TV show in Idiocracy. The real joke is below the surface.
Literally the opposite…
Where are you see conservatives talking about how great America has been under Bidnen?
Like, you put zero thinking into your comment, just like you assume the people you’re “dunking on” do.
You’re a different side of the same coin, that’s never meant opposites, you’re th same thing.
Just neither sid bis smart enough to figure it out, and both think only the other side is dumb
Believe me there’s no shortage of people who know that were not the shining city on the hill, unfortunately we’re drowned out by pandering patriotic country music and gunfire from mass shootings.
This clip from the Newsroom sums it up perfectly.
I like the clip, but IMO they basically bailed out in the end by all the nonsense quoted from the ~3:25 mark on.
Jeff basically makes it sound like the US used to be incredibly self-aware, humble, kind, and well-administrated, but I think what most Americans don’t choose to understand is that since the very settling of the continent, it’s been a highly fraught, contentious situation, much of it characterised by greed, cruelty, violence, intolerance and self-righteousness.
Now yes, from what I understand of history, under FDR we more or less hit a peak of being a well-run, progressive country, on the level of many modern Euro countries more or less, but most of that was specifically in response to the utter disaster of the Great Depression and the need to adjust powerfully, swiftly and accurately. Meanwhile, IIRC during his presidency, there was in fact a right-wing movement intending to remove him by underhanded means.
So I like the hopefulness of the clip, but in the end I also find it pretty typical of Americans being largely unwilling to understand the hows and whys of the nation, going back to the early 1600’s.
Eh, sorry for the dang essay. :S
Man I forgot how good that show was
I mean, we generally know the first part. The second isn’t really a surprise either.
What? We have two right wing parties to choose from! Is that not enough? Should we make three right wing parties so you feel we are better represented?
Yeah, most of us in the U.S. don’t think this way. This is just republicans, and they aren’t really here on Lemmy.
Your population is essentially being farmed by corporations.
Nothing new to that. In 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the US Supreme Court declared that companies are people too. With the same rights — under the 14th amendment.
But without the responsabilities I bet.
And the option to be thrown in jail.
Whether or not they’re subject to the death penalty seems to still be undecided in the court of popular opinion.
The court has spoken : only the rights.
Vasectomy safe. No wage slave renters coming from this guy.
Universal health care is better than whatever you have, for 99.9% of the people 99.9% of the time. And it always was. And always will be.
We know. Even if some of us don’t want to admit it.
This is absolutely true, but I do think that a lot of Americans are in fact ready to hear this. There is just a lot of money and power involved. And those with money and power don’t want to change it since it won’t improve their lives. There’s also religion involved. And many Republicans are religious and have been fooled into thinking that universal healthcare is all about allowing abortion.
But, then who makes money ? It just doesn’t make sense !
Yeah, anyone with a brain knows this… So, like, between 33-66% of the country.
Most “third world” or “developing” countries aren’t that bad, and there are places in the US far worse than the median developing country.
Also most people in most places do not want to go to the US, even to visit much less immigrate. It’s generally either the worst of a particular society or those specifically harmed by the US previously and feel their chances are better off with the abuser instead of in the abused country. It’s not a wanted destination.
Trump has a famous line whining about America only getting immigrants from the “shithole countries”. Wonder why, dude.
Everyone i’ve known who wanted to go to the US was interested in making easy money by scamming people. That’s the type who admire the US.
The UN General Assembly Human Rights Council 2018 report on USA’s poverty and human rights is a pretty quick and clear overview which makes it clear that parts of the USA are just undeveloped:
http://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1
“5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty”
“69. In Alabama and West Virginia, a high proportion of the population is not served by public sewerage and water supply services”
We can’t understand how millions can vote for a senile, convicted sexual predator as president…
Dude half of us don’t understand it either.
It’s amazing what decades of defunding education will do when you mix it with a healthy dose of conservative talk show TV and social media algorithms.
I dunno, i understand it pretty well. Lack of education, lead paint/gasoline, nationalism, fascism, racism, sexism, economic disparity, lack of healthcare to deal with neural degeneracy common in trump supporters, and finally lower borth rates among the more educated. America is a shithole, and has been for the past 40 years at least. Until we finally grow a spine and start “adjusting”, things are going to continue getting worse until were all dead and the olligarchs own everything. Then theyll move on to fucking the rest of the world (harder than they already are)
Was with you to the last bit. What does it mean to “grow a spine and start ‘adjusting’”? Why is “adjusting” in quotes?
Less than half apparently…
I guess it’s much less than half.
About 1/7 are less than voting age. Another 1/7 or so voted for the oompa loompa, and another 1/7 voted against. So actually, about half of the population just doesn’t vote because they’re a different type of idiot.
I do hate it here, for what it’s worth.
Welcome to every election, not just presidential and not just a Republican or Democrat problem. Trump is disgusting but Seattles former mayor was way worse and didn’t get a peep nationwide.
And Chicago, and New York, and…
I’m just glad our poor congressmen can legally insider trade, think of the children!
Hah! Let’s make a list of the countries where leadership of that ilk has never existed. (We’ll just ignore that most of them did not allow elections.) Won’t take much paper.
International rankings of the US are abysmal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_the_United_States
Affordable healthcare
Public transit
Civilian oversight
Prisoner rehabilitation
Universal income
Free education
Separation of religion and state
Wealth taxes
Law enforcement accountability
Environmental regulations…
Please adopt me.
Separation of religion and state
I cringe every time their president or other politicians are talking about god. It’s unbelievable how backward the US are in this regard.
Varies state to state and city to city, but my city has the majority of that list… plus the freedom of speech is nice. When I read the news about people in Europe going to prison for comments online but getting slapped on the wrist for violent crimes I’m baffled.
Oh really? I would like to know which city is that so I can confirm, but I seriously doubt you have most of that list since that’s regulated on state or federal level.
Also we have freedom of speech in Europe, but you obviously can’t incite violence, the same is true in the US, going online and trying to get people to bomb a building filled with gays or immigrants is hate speech and will get you arrested in most civilized countries.
Have you just come here from 9gag?
The main reason US can and could ever delude itself into being great is for having a ridiculous people-to-land/resources ratio. There is nothing inherently great about how the US does things, it just seems that way because you can do whatever you want if you have essentially infinite resources compared to everyone else.
Yeah, in addition to having a super-endowment of natural resources, remember that we also stole the labor of about 20 generations of Africans to help turn that into wealth.
True, but that isn’t really very unique to the US
Of course! The part that Americans don’t want to hear is that we are wealthy because of that theft of labor. It’s not just an immoral peccadillo of our ancestors.
Yeah, and the right side of our government is now trying to cover up and bury that entire segment of our history. It’s absolutely insane what they are doing.
The people who worship it are also the people who screwed it all up. It’s like a failed experiment that needs to be reset. The freedom that everyone speaks of is mostly just one person’s way of taking freedom from another.
Honestly, speaking as an American, there’s kind of endless examples of us doing most things worse. Healthcare, democracy, workers rights, our “justice” system, incarceration… The list goes on and on.
The U.S. is an oligarchy.
Luigi knows
We obviously know this.
No, no, we know that one.
The level of nonsensical nationalist propaganda in the US is maybe only second to North Korea’s.
As an American, I’m gonna barge in with my loud opinion, 'cuz that’s what we do. Here’s something which people living elsewhere might not know that Americans aren’t ready to hear:
Automobiles are luxury toys and fashion accessories, and we shouldn’t base our entire lives on them. No, the car industry didn’t make our economy strong; it took off after we already had a lot of extra wealth to burn after becoming a world economic powerhouse. We can’t afford to keep wasting all that wealth on them as the world starts to burn, and half of our citizens sink into poverty.
Ironically the ability to not have a car is also flex on wealth in the US because you would have to be able to afford to live and work in a region that is incredibly limited and expensive. In most of the US cars aren’t luxury toys, they’re a needed appliance and many employers will refuse to hire you without one.
That’s 100% due to government policy. Those places are highly desirable places to live as evidenced by the high prices, but they are limited in supply only because it’s illegal to build new ones. We used to build efficient places out of economical necessity, then for the usual reason (racism), we codified an extravagant, wasteful built environment as the default, or only, option.
Cars are still luxury toys, they’re just required by law.
Nowhere is a car required by law …lmfao
That’s not exactly true. While yes, the car isn’t required but there are zoning restrictions on density of housing and mixed use spaces making the car needed to accommodate.
I’m going to stipulate here that you don’t get to have it both ways, to say that a car is both essential to American life, but not required by law. See, it’s laws that shape the human environment to make one essential: Parking minimums, building codes, zoning, lending standards, driver’s licenses as default photo ID, and so on.
If it’s laws that make cars required to live, then they’re de facto required by law.
Okay, but they aren’t literally required by law. You’re just making a case for them being a necessity not everyone truly wants.
Plenty of people don’t own vehicles, and they are not getting in trouble with our legal system for simply making that choice.
Yes, but it’s a hair-splitting distinction that it’s not a law is not an individual mandate that each citizen own one. There are plenty of other laws that do literally require cars. For that matter, it’s required by law that we have Social Security Numbers, and that’s just a side note in a discussion about their role in our society.
Quite a few people buy cars just because they need to get places and there’s not good alternatives. Otherwise why would cars like the Sentra or CRV exist? Just making it so those folks don’t need to buy one would do a lot to make cars more luxurious and fashionable.
I like how you cite cars which are fairly reasonable options when the Mitsubishi Mirage exists.
I have one of those! Its a manual!
I thought about getting one but then I watched the crash test of a pickup hitting the side and read that they have the most deaths is any vehicle.
I sorta feel like getting hit by a pickup in anything is a bad time but I will say it is a very small car and very light.
I was gonna mention it but thankfully it’s been discontinued
Those are fine examples to prove my point. Even the low-end, just-get-around cars have climate controls, entertainment systems, and plush seating. They’re about more than utility, just getting from one place to another. For the CRV, the web site for it really wants to sell the image of adventure, like driving one means you’re ready to head out on road trips, and listen to the Bose sound system while doing so. The base model is also 190hp. The Sentra is 149hp, and over $20,000 base price. Compare that to the Ford Model T, at around $6,000 (inflation adjusted). That was 20hp. Twenty horsepower, no air conditioning, no power steering, no Apple CarPlay, and people drove them across the continent.
Anyway, I just got home from some errands, and while out, I saw a guy driving a big, shiny, white Ford Model F truck, and wearing a cowboy hat. There are no cattle ranches in Wisconsin. Also, it’s January and he wasn’t wearing a coat; he doesn’t plan to go outside. The car one drives is totally a fashion statement. Driving a low-end car conveys a message about you, just like wearing off-the-rack versus bespoke clothes. Even Warren Buffett’s econobox is a statement.
And that’s leaving aside the assumption that getting from place to place has to involve a car.
People also used to sleep in houses made of sod with mud floors and wood fire heating. But we don’t now because that’s not very nice, despite it being incredibly energy intensive to light, heat, and cool a whole house and refrigerate parts of it and have thinking machines just to play games on.
I want cars to be luxurious and fashionable but not necessary. I think it will lead to cars that look and drive better, and fewer people on the roads will make driving more fun.
I’m with you on that last bit. The problem that we have with cars is the way that almost everybody is forced to use one for every trip to go anywhere, or at least forced to own a car for many trips. We can’t sustain that economically (I believe that car ownership is a financial burden for around 1/4 of Americans, and our infrastructure rates at D+ nationally), ecologically (climate change is only part of it, the direct ecological destruction is also enormous), and even psychologically (the loneliness epidemic). I’d be over-the-moon if everybody had a choice of a convenient alternative to a single-passenger car for any trip that they wanted to do, with cars as the luxury alternative.
They are also necessities, unless you have a very specific job in a large, or otherwise very specific city. Their adoption has created expectations, particularly amongst employers.
Necessities? How did humans survive for 200,000 years before their invention?
Tell me you live in a tiny country without telling me…lol
Is this one of those canned arguments that Americans are programmed to pop out when somebody questions the car-based lifestyle? Okay, then, if the United States is so big, then shouldn’t we have room to build amenities closer to where people live, so we don’t need to drive everywhere for everything?
as an American
lol
For millions of United States Americans, the so called “American Dream” is achieved in Mexico. They’re often illegal immigrants. They often have mental health problems. They gentrify our cities and are entitled as fuck.
Pot calling kettle and all, but I do wish they’d go back to their own shithole country. They have demonized my country for decades and have weaponized the cartels to feed their own addictions. Most of the problems here can be tied directly to their humongous drug problems.
Yankee go home. The United Mexican States is tired of your shit.
And half of them won’t even bother learning Spanish. I’ll never give someone who immigrates due to hardship a hard time about learning the language, but privileged fucks who go to exploit a lower cost of living or whatever often just end up in expat bubbles and don’t know more than a few words of the local language even after years despite having that privilege of time/money/resources to learn it.
So are there any good ones? Learning Spanish and giving back to the community? Just curious. That’s what I plan to do when I move out of here, learn the language and do volunteer work, etc.
Spot on about the gentrification bit. Entire town populations have shifted from local people to the self called expats and snowbirds. Just look at Chelém, Mérida, San Miguel de Allende, Tulúm, Cancún and many many more including most upitty neighborhoods in México City (Condesa, Roma, San Angel).
I had no idea we had people illegally immigrating that much. Bet they’re the type to use the word “illegals” pejoratively.
Despite his severe back problems, Luigi mangione is the only one of you who has a backbone.
USA could be, but isn’t the greatest country in the world.
You wasted your chance as a hyper-power. The Soviet Union had fallen and the world was essentially yours but you did nothing with it. Now India and China are rising powers and you are going back to being a regular super-power.
I mean…what did you want us to do? Invade Europe?
As an American, I can think of a few things we shouldn’t have done. The whole debacle in Iraq comes to mind. A few trillion dollars pissed away. Thousands of American lives lost. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead. All for Iraq just to end up a puppet state of Iran. We’ve also destabilized the international system, particularly the trade system, that we built up in the first place. We’ve repeatedly violated our own trade agreements so many times it’s not even funny anymore. How could we have used this unique historical opportunity for the betterment of the world? Here’s one idea.
In an ideal world, the US would have used its hyperpower status to truly advance democracy around the world. We would have taken this opportunity to once and for all finally drive the last nail in the coffin of global authoritarianism and dictatorship. In our timeline, we looked past the CCP’s human rights abuses and let China into the global trade system. We did this because our corporations got greedy and wanted to make bank in the Chinese market. We gave in to their greed at the expense of global human rights and our own long term national security. Now we’ve turned the government of China (which has morphed into some horrible amalgamation of communism and fascism) into the most capable manufacturing power on the planet. It didn’t have to be this way. We could have told China, and everyone else. “Democracy first, then trade. We’re only interested in trading with and enriching fellow free nations.”
After the Cold War ended, the US was ascendant. The economic power of us and our allies was unmatched. The US, Europe, and allies dominated the world economically and militarily. Imagine in a different timeline if we had used that power to peacefully advance democracy worldwide. Imagine if after the Cold War, the US international policy became:
“We allied with dictatorships when necessary during the Cold War to contain the USSR. That is no longer needed. From now on, we’re happy to open up markets and trade with anyone, as long as they are a liberal democracy. You want to join the global economy and get rich? Give your people freedom. Petty dictatorships can remain poor and undeveloped, thus limiting the amount of damage they can cause outside their borders. We’ll give food and medical supplies to nations in crisis, even those ruled by dictators. But full economic integration will only be done with fellow democracies. We will not trade with tyrants.”
That is the kind of visionary approach that a hyperpower like the US could have taken to really make the world better. You don’t need to invade countries to have an influence on them. And this really does represent a lost opportunity. The time immediately after the fall of the USSR was the moment when the free and democratic countries were at the absolute peak of their economic power. But since we allowed China into the WTO and opened up trade with them, we have created an industrial juggernaut that is ruled by an absolute dictatorship.
At the end of the Cold War, the democracies could have banded together and used their utter dominance of the global economy to push for further democratization around the world. There just wasn’t anyone else to trade with for many advanced consumer and industrial goods. But now? That kind of strategy wouldn’t work. If all the democracies tomorrow insisted on trading only with other democracies, the various dictatorships around the world can now just keep trading with China.
TL:DR: After the fall of the USSR, democracy as a global force was at the absolute historic peak of its power, both economically and militarily. If the US and allies had really brought their full economic and cultural power to bear, they could have attempted a last final push to ensure democracy reigned everywhere. Even without invading anyone, we could have used that immense economic power to at least attempt to throw down the last of the dictators and to bring democracy to every man, woman, and child on the planet. Instead, we tried to line our own pockets and ended up creating a monster by turning communist China into the workshop of the world.
Why would the U.S. have started trying to expand democracy after the Cold War? They were willing to support anti-Democratic coups in Iran, Syria, Brazil, Iraq, Bolivia, and probably dozens of others I’m forgetting. America was promoting capitalism during the Cold War, not democracy.
Sure. You’re correct, but irrelevant. That’s why I said “in an ideal world.” In an ideal world, what kind of actions could the US have taken immediately after the Cold War to make the world better for everyone? Obviously the Cold War was more about advancing capitalism than advancing democracy. Hence us forming alliances with dictators, as I mentioned. But in an ideal world, with capitalism triumphant around the globe, the US would have at least used its hyperpower status to push hard for democracy globally.
You’re calling for the USA to brutally repress and dominate the world, that’s not Democracy.
I was thinking the haning chads and the spinelessness of dems did us in. If Al Gore would have won! But I guess the history goes deeper.
The USA could also have stopped China manipulating their currency exchange rates. This is artificially making their exports cheaper and boosting their economy. Simultaneously this is exporting their economic imbalances to the global economy and destablising other countries, typically manifesting as manufacturing declining and ‘service’ based sectors becoming more prominent than they should be.
Yes, there were a whole series of things that could have been done. But looking back, it seems obvious now that helping China to get rich was a poor decision. A wealthy and more industrialized country is simply a far more serious geopolitical threat than a poorer one. I’m glad that the Chinese population have been able to pull themselves up out of poverty. But in terms of our own national security and the security of democratic countries everywhere, enriching such a brutal dictatorship was a terrible mistake. Without its economic explosion, China wouldn’t today be on the brink of potentially invading Taiwan, and they wouldn’t be serving as the main economic backer for Russia’s war in Ukraine. In our world, wealth is power, and power is wealth. And by trading with the CCP, we magnified their power many fold.
God, you Americans are so selfish
Its sad that I am old and cynical enough to think your entire TLDR paragraph is targically absurd. Of course we’d never do those things. I used to think such things could happen.
Typical American: “what we did wrong was not be even more brutally repressive to other countries”.
Maybe France…
Casual French bashing
“Nobody ever says Italy”
They tried, even had some monopoly bills printed.
Edit, because it’s apparently not a very well known story.
Now India and China are rising powers and you are going back to being a regular super-power.
NOT that I don’t think you’re mistaken, but at the same time, India & China are about as @(*&#-ed as it possibly comes when it comes to being considered ‘super-powers.’
Well, I mean they are all fucked up super-powers now. My main point was that there was a period of like 20+ years where the USA literally ruled the world but didn’t do anything with it.
Yeah, I get you…
One thing that totally kills me is how the US just *screwed* with so many other nations over the years, mainly for profit, etc.
Same as every super-power in existence ever. Maybe …it’s just a super-power thing?
In a general way, likely yes.
But in a specific way, for example when you look at Jeff Daniels’ Newsroom speech to the college audience, there’s a ‘squeaky-clean,’ treacly level of nonsense that’s long been attributed to the US, that simply doesn’t jibe with reality. It’s got some parallels with the English Empire nonsense, but not necessarily so much with other super-powers. That’s the difference.
They did plenty with it: they brutally repressed the globe to create unimaginable profit for their ruling class.
The main thing Americans need to hear but aren’t ready for: you aren’t better than India or China as super powers, in fact, you’re worse than China.
American capitalists needs other countries to get rich too so we can sell them shit. If those countries stayed rural and backwards who would buy our wares.
Thank the stars for that! We don’t deserve it.
