This is the playbook they’re using vis a vis Carotid Artery Charlie
I think it’s bad that my first thought was to check the year, to find out what stage of the progression we’re at, and how much time we still have…
Turns out we’re at the beginning of the camps opening. Sounds pretty accurate. Basically no time left.
No disrespect, but from my time living in the US (and I still have very good friends on both sides of the political spectrum) it is extremely unlikely Americans will be able to do anything about the current oligarch regime.
Do you honestly think Americans are capable of not just bullshit protest, but actually taking major urban areas (particularly of significant symbolic value) and fighting back against attempts to put down the protest. And I am not just talking out of my ass, I was at those protest both during the daytime and during the night building out barricades.
I will note that when I use the term “bullshit protest”, I am not necessarily saying protest won’t work. But you would need 60-70 million Americans protest almost daily and shutting the country down. Let’s be real, this is not happening in the US.
Paradoxically, talking to my centre-right American friend is what led me to the conclusion that the current US system is basically at a dead end. They mentioned the “gilded age” and how the US managed to “make it through”. History is unpredictable and institutions save you, until they don’t.
Not to be a doomer, but my recommendation would be to either forget about politics (enjoy the relatively high material standard of living in the US, the marvel movies, the fast food and so on) or leave the country, move to Canada (or even Mexico) or Europe.
EDIT: In retrospective, the post and the last paragraph was honestly too negative and lacking in compassion. What I really should have said is that now is not the time to think of exceptionalism, the time is to make it happen.
For what it’s worth, protests in e.g. NYC look exactly like that. The problem comes down to geography. Most countries are small enough that people from around the country can concentrate in the capital for a few weeks and grind everything to a halt, and if they can outlast the terror campaign they can topple a regime.
We can’t concentrate like that in the US. People on the West Coast can’t go en masse to a city 2,500 miles away. It’s like 40 hours of continuous driving. And the contagious esprit de corps that comes with “history happening” en masse is really necessary for protests to work the same way.
Russia and China have the same problem. I suspect it’s a major reason why they’re still authoritarian. What’s remarkable is how long the US hasn’t been authoritarian, given its size. India and Brazil, also large countries, are currently struggling or have recently struggled with authoritarians as well, respectively.
Massive countries are a double-edged sword. They provide a lot of resources and people, but it’s very difficult to hold their governments accountable.
This is one of the main reasons I advocate for creating at least three countries out of the United States: Pacific, Northeast, and Midwest/South.
To extend the analogy, just as we need anti-trust enforcement for corporations that are too large to be held accountable and “too big to fail,” we need the same for countries.
My neighbors are more concerned about their drive time to work than any message protesters my have.
Successful protests reach a scale and determination where this doesn’t matter.
Don’t mean to be a doomer, if anything I am trying to show a realistic option beyond doomerism.
A few of them are itching to run someone protesting down. They feel being slowed down by someone’s “bullshit” is justification.
Yeah. I don’t disagree. It’s so fucking upsetting.
You cannot run a country when the people who run all the country machine day to day don’t give a shit about education, aren’t invested in maintaining what sustains them, don’t really look out for each other, and don’t work that hard. You just can’t do it. I don’t care what politics you put on top of it, what system you want to make that’s going to reform Washington in whatever way. It just doesn’t work, it’s like building a house out of mud. The horrors we’re starting to experience the early stages of right now are just the inevitable product of leaving the most powerful organized government on the planet in the hands of a citizenry that can’t be bothered to make sure it all stays on the rails.
The US is a big place, and a hell of a lot more diverse than my depressing little summary up there, and it has literally millions of people who are fighting hard to keep the ship off the rocks right now. I don’t feel like the early days of the Gestapo had gangs of civilians keeping tabs on where they were going and showing up and yelling at them sometimes until they left. I feel proud as hell of the people who are trying to stop it all, and that’s very much a part of the American character, somehow, even after all these years of rot. Tolkien talked about it in the English people, soft like butter sometimes but then tough as old tree-roots when they’re tested. America has heart in a way that a lot of countries don’t seem to have. But it just feels like the ground is melting under us. I don’t understand how we can survive.
I’m not talking about “this” being Trump, although yes absolutely that too. I’m just talking about… everything. Every empire dies, and more or less always in the same way. Success and good living, then softness, then rot, and it crumbles. The US is unique because it was able to constantly absorb in all this new blood from outside to wash off the stagnation, keep things solid and strong, but now that’s cut off. I’m just really scared for my country. I fucking love this place, it’s my home. Every day now I think about leaving. I want to be here but I can’t see how it will survive.
Maybe it will heal stronger after the break. It’s a unique type of country, it doesn’t have to follow that same decline and fall. Maybe this is what we need to break us out of half a century of lazy stagnation entitlement. I don’t know. All I know is, I’m looking around and I can’t see what’s going to bust us out and up. I don’t feel like I know my country, I don’t know any other home but I don’t feel like it is my people anymore.
America has heart in a way that a lot of countries don’t seem to have.
…
…and that’s very much a part of the American character,
…
Maybe it will heal stronger after the break. It’s a unique type of country, it doesn’t have to follow that same decline and fall.
So I’ve lived in ~5 countries (across three continents) for multiple years, I speak multiple languages and I’ve visited maybe another ~25 countries.
Every country has its own beautiful and unique things. Every country also has its own bad things.
That being said, I am very proud of my own country, Ukraine.
While you should be proud of your own country, I would argue it is unproductive to focus on exceptionalist rhetoric in this context.
Arguably, it is this sort of superficial, exceptionalist rhetoric is at the root cause of the situation:
- Assuming that Americans are unique and that oligarchs and corruption isn’t going to lead to universal outcomes.
- Disregard for the need for reform, assuming that a system made ~250 years ago is magical and impervious to reality.
- Ignorance of the more “luck-driven” elements of the success of the American system (and an unwillingness to consider the implications of said luck).
- Cultural mores emphasizing repetition of alleged commitment to some vague freedoms. If you keep parroting, “freedom this, freedom that”, your not going to be able to make a true evaluation of the price and nature of freedoms when push comes to shove.
Please note, while it does come off as if I am being a doomer and anti-American (honestly, I starting to think I shouldn’t have added the last paragraph, even though I think it is true), this is not true at all. Beyond general humanism, I would stand to benefit from a democratic America. However, I am not really seeing any desire among Americans to take any meaningful action and consider novel approaches (I am referring to both the leadership of the centre-right and common voter who supports them).
the hands of a citizenry that can’t be bothered to make sure it all stays on the rails
I don’t understand how we can survive.
Every day now I think about leaving. I want to be here but I can’t see how it will survive.
The US is unique because it was able to constantly absorb in all this new blood from outside to wash off the stagnation, keep things solid and strong, but now that’s cut off. [emphasis added]
Arguably, it is this sort of superficial, exceptionalist rhetoric is at the root cause of the situation
If you keep parroting, “freedom this, freedom that”, your not going to be able to make a true evaluation of the price and nature of freedoms when push comes to shove.
My brother I think you need to reread what I actually wrote.
Look man, I genuinely don’t want steer things in an even more negative direction.
Perhaps I misread things. Honestly, I regret writing my OP in such a negative tone and I should have been more constructive.
I was just sharing things that came to mind.
My country is trying to die, there are monsters in the streets and it’s hard for me to see how we can win the fight that is coming for us. From my side you’re not going to bother me too much with any negativity you type in a Lemmy comment.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mores
It seems that the singular form of mores is non-standad, although I could have sworn I read it in more formal works.
move to Canada
Are we still pretending they won’t come for Canada once their economy collapses and they need resources?
You have good Nazi freinds? Cool story bro
Centre right = “liberal” in American parlance, supporter of the Democratic party.
They are not Nazis (I am assuming you referring to my other friend, not the centre-right one). I am not white. If they were Nazis we wouldn’t be friends for almost 20 years. They’ll come about (and they don’t fully support Trump and have reservations), they are good people.
Cool story bro
Thank you for this. You are literally proving my point. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.
Keep up with the “Cool story bro”, this is the exact nihilist attitude that I was talking about. US is rife with these sort of nihilists and performative roleplayers. Cyberflunk does not know me (I have far more to lose with Trump than Cryberflunk), does not know my friends and yet the only thing that he took from post is that I have “Nazi” friends (while being not white).
This is why the following recommendation is harsh, but true:
Not to be a doomer, but by recommendation would be to either forget about politics (enjoy the relatively high material standard of living in the US, the marvel movies, the fast food and so on) or leave the country, move to Canada (or even Mexico) or Europe.
I thought they misspelled Goebbels and actually meant Stephen Miller.
Stephen Miller is clearly Himmler. They even have a certain physical weirdness in common. The Goebbels part of the operation has seen some substantial improvement; I think they have learned that it works better if you don’t have one visible person who’s in charge of the propaganda, but just a shadowy network that’s smuggling various things that are “what everyone believes” into the discourse. I don’t think there is really an equivalent of Goebbels in the modern setup.
Fucking guy plays with dolls…did Himmler?
Possibly. He was a weird dude.
Its the 30s already? Did not see that.
5 more years…
Did I finally have a stroke?
Yes but that doesn’t seem connected directly.
Damn I was hoping I hallucinated this last bit
Ouch
I believe it’s pronounced Gerbils.
That’s Dr. Gerbils to you
