Flag flown upside down as sign of distress outside of US State Department building today
Flag flown upside down as sign of distress outside of US State Department building today
I don’t understand what it’s going to take for someone to do something. Protests are not going to work when they’re holding all our money, services, rights, data, etc hostage, and threatening all our public servants. We already had a hard time protesting before this, because health care is tied to employment. It’s not a coincidence that they’re going after Medicare and Medicaid. They want an entire nation of indentured servants. Unable to own anything, including our own freedom. When we can’t work anymore we can just go die in the wilderness like animals I guess. Hmm where have we heard that before?
Everyone is terrified and exhausted. It seems pretty evident that the election was outright stolen, and I have a hard time believing nobody in power suspected something that many of us immediately called, not with the mountains of evidence that’s been stacking up for months, years even. So why didn’t they do anything? Why did they wait until Trump was sworn in to even talk about it?
I see Canadians online talking about Americans like we chose this. But we didn’t, it was forced upon us, and we’re begging for help! Who can we turn to if not our allies? What is going on???
I hear you, friend. Just remember, they don’t live here. They haven’t experienced the calculated dismantling of our education system. They haven’t seen the meteoric rise of Christian nationalism. They don’t know how sick and tired the general population is. Social safety nets are more robust in their countries, so they don’t have nearly the same number of racist, angry, lead addled boomers managing to gain a chokehold on every aspect of our daily lives.
But we do live here, we have experienced it, and you are not alone.
Anytime I talk about these things to folks outside the US, it’s always some reply about “your country chose this!” And how, regardless of how I voted, I still somehow let this happen. It’s super frustrating and disheartening.
The way i see it, the current disasters unfolding were predictable as far back as the 1960s. Unhinged greed is a disease, and letting it run free and calling it “progress”, “economic liberalism”, and channeling it to make it your main way of doing economy, is a disease. What’s angering me personally is that it seems to me that Americans are so extremely short-sighted, that as long as it worked for them, everything was ok in their eyes, and now that they’re hitting the wall, they suddenly want to get off the vehicle. Good planning takes a long time, and even if we wanted to help you, we couldn’t, because there’s not enough preparation time.
Now, it is the cool thing to be super anti-American.
This isn’t news. Different than what americans might think, they’re not necessarily looked at as the “big heroes” everywhere. There’s a lot of countries who have made a lot of bad experiences because of them, and really, the USA isn’t popular, on average, world-wide.
This is a really flimsy talking point I’m so sick of.
We refer to you as Americans because that’s what you told us to call you. We are judging the actions and system of government you set up, and are paying for… Are you somehow now suggesting that unless there is 100% internal consensus you are unresponsible for the actions of the government your money pays? Your internal politics are your god-damn problem. I could not care about how you internally identify.
Reality check: The man you all tolds us is in charge of your country now is threatening me and my family now on the international stage.
So own it. You are literally paying your money to keep it going. It is yours. You built it, you are funding it… For decades we’ve listened to you go on and on (and fucking on) about your freedoms. Good. Now is the time to prove you are both brave and free. Stop posting on Lemmy and go get in contact with people doing the actual, real work of defending your country. Stop coming here and defending yourself from me ffs. I’m just your pissed off neighbour. It doesn’t matter what I think. Go do something useful ffs.
As it stands, it seems that Trump represents you feckless cowards perfectly.
Ah yes, American Freedom, amiright? Freedom that exists as long as they don’t have to excercise it. Or excercise anything, really.
Do American schools still have History classes? Or is it all just Pledges of Allegiance to their Dear Leader now? If they did then you would know of “The Boston Tea Party”. It was what your ancestors did when the government of their time kept taxing them without giving them a fair, democratic vote. See also: “Electoral College”.
I have an idea, why not stop arguing with an internet stranger and go get involved in your political process? Think of it like “compound interest” - the sooner you get involved the bigger your impact! Alternatively, keep telling me how you are impotent to do anything while celebrating your July 4th freedom celebrations unironically.
The US is not the only democracy that is currently endangered. Europe can easily follow suit, South America in some parts as well, as we’ve seen.
Freedom doesn’t come freely, it has to be fought for, hard, time and time again.
Non Americans don’t understand and assume we have the same liberties as them.
“Just do die in the street and achieve nothing” Isn’t the compelling moral argument many Canadians seem to think it is.