We enjoyed an even more short-lived period of good terms following 9/11. A French newspaper/magazine had a headline the next day: “Today We Are All Americans”.
Wanna bet whether that will happen after the next 9/11 event?
In fact they are enablers of fascism.
After WWII the United States ran the world. It was rich and virtually untouched by the war, unlike any other major nation. The U.S. liked being the ruler of the world, so much so that it sank into fits of paranoia and internal repression at the thought that the USSR believed it had some claims to part of the world, merely because they took the brunt of defeating the Nazis.
Every president from Eisenhower on used American power, sometimes overtly, sometimes clandestinely, to overthrow legitimate governments elsewhere. Not many in Europe, true. Nevertheless, the rest of the world knew they had to bend the knee to the almighty U.S. or suffer the consequences. Might makes right and money is power.
Europe, it’s now your turn. Al America wants from you is unceasing fealty and the acknowledgement that you will never be allowed to become equals or, worse, better off. To the eyes of those who believe in America First, you are all brown people. And look how we treat our own.
I don’t hate America. To the contrary, I’m aware of all the fantastic things the country has done and why it has for hundreds of years attracted people from all over the world because they were so utterly convinced that they could lead better lives here.
But my eyes are wide open.
NP, I’m not offended.
I’m not sure whether Britain and the other Anglo countries are still sharing intelligence with the US (5 eyes). I wouldn’t put it past Trump to screw up even this longstanding and mutually beneficial arrangement, for no benefit to anyone.
Under a normal President of either party we would still be able to rely on US weapons and supplies. There would be no concerns about a ‘kill switch’ in F-35 jets.
No, we won’t. Thanks to Trump, countries like Poland are now contemplating developing their own nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation may well be the worst legacy of Trump’s second term.
I mean, it’s not hard to. Look at the sheer size of the US armed forces and their gear. It’s not hard to see why a country with the world’s biggest AND second best air force, with hundreds of foreign bases, with a navy you could cut in half and still control all the oceans and seas, is spending a lot of money.
I would 100 percent support a Canadian nuclear weapons program now, were it not for the fact you can’t hide something like that and if we started it up the USA would attack us.
All true. We in the U.S. can’t even trust our government anymore. It makes sense that no one else can either. We have already lost our country. But I wish the rest of the world the best of luck.
If we were talking about any other country, we’d be sure to separate the actions of the government from the people. We don’t blame all Russians for the war in Ukraine; Americans should get the same courtesy. I doubt anyone here even voted for Trump.
You think they’d literally attack with the military? Or do you mean economically? Trump is already doing that.
Two things:
No you wouldn’t.
2. No one in this thread has attacked Americans in general. All the outrage was preemptive just in case anyone did.
And of course now we have it with China.
Don’t get me wrong: China is a malevolent force in many ways. But is the threat entirely down to China’s actions, or because of the threat of them overtaking the US economy or in innovation?
It feels to me as if the US is spoiling for a fight with China, purely on the basis of needing to assert a position as #1.
This rant is slightly off-topic, so I guess to bring it back on topic: I can conceive of a time where Europe takes that position as the main “antagonist” to the US. Previously I would have thought it would take at least a generation, but now it only needs the US to formally ally with Russia, which doesn’t look inconceivable.
There were basically two drivers that attracted immigrants to America. The priority of one over the other varied over the years and with the individuals, but the two drivers were freedom (as they often came from places with oppressive regimes) and the opportunity to prosper (i.e.- to become rich).
The question of freedom has always been relative, and right now is truly questionable as the tyranny of fascism ramps up, and falsely accused “enemies of the state” (which turns out to mean “people Trump doesn’t like”) come under attack. But even back in the good ol’ days of the 60s, what was freedom when you or your children could be drafted and sent to a far-off land from which they might never return, for no good reason but to fight a futile war that nobody wanted.
The prospect of getting rich has always been America’s singular strong point, though even there an oppressive plutocracy has hugely distorted the playing field and disadvantaged small business and the middle class, while the poorer classes remain hopelessly downtrodden. This is seen in the Gini index, where America has one of the largest wealth disparities in the civilized world.
And even if wealth in the form of a high standard of living was readily achievable, wealth doesn’t equate to happiness, as the citizens of many other countries have discovered. A citizen of a peaceful and egalitarian society will almost certainly lead a happier life that an American in a similar position who makes 50% more, is constantly under stress, gets almost no vacation time, worries about their health care, and is far more likely to die of a stress-induced heart attack.
Your “statistics” are out of date. At least up until the latest Orange Uproar, USers have been more commonly damned with faint praise.
Not so the British.
As to why American citizens should be concerned about how residents of other nations view the country, this was covered amply in another thread. There’s enough shit raining down here that we have plenty to cope with without worrying about how Jacques Blow is tolerating the stench from afar.
It’s likely USers travelling abroad these days have more to fear from their reception by the natives than foreign tourists in the U.S., despite what news stories suggest.
I vividly recall an editorial in a major British paper that deplored the attacks but in effect said “well, you had it coming”.
I hope European countries and Asian countries etc will stand up to the US. Don’t appease the US or allow it to dominate global politics any more than it already does. Unite and rely on each other to stand against the US as need be.
The US is an international threat. Not each of us American folks personally, of course. We individuals here are in deep shit, at risk from our own nation. We can try to do political resistance to what our nation is now engaged in doing, but it ain’t gonna be easy.
I’m an American.
I don’t fucking trust the US anymore either.
IMO, any European, Canadian, or Mexican who does trust the US is an idiot.
Even if we somehow pull our collective heads out of our asses and don’t elect a fascist dictator in 2028, I still wouldn’t trust the US very much because we’d only be 4 years away from possibly doing it all over again. I thought after the last go round that there’s no way we’d be stupid enough to do it again, but here we are.
No, because what they’re objecting to is being victimized by the application of the always false and always destructive notion of collective guilt.
Maybe. I’m not sure I’m convinced. I was going to post some personal anecdotes of my observations of certain American tourists, but this is getting off topic. Suffice to say that the stereotypical Ugly American is still very much with is. Cite: the results of the 2024 election. The tyranny, the persecutions, the illegal deportations of brown people with a documented right to residency, the reversals of any policies even remotely related to diversity and equity, the threats against harmless allies and sovereign nations – a significant plurality, if not majority, of Americans voted for this – they love this stuff. It’s not hard to believe that “the cruelty is the point” – the Nazis felt exactly the same way.
Wrong. The enablers of fascism are those who see the group before the person and apply the idea that individuals are guilty of the crimes of groups. Fascism loves and promotes the notion of collective guilt and punishing individuals for the actions of nations, demographics and ethnicities.
Nope, it’s the residents of fascist America who get upset when the developed world points out that America is a threat. They focus on their petty emotional comfort over the well-being of others. It’s how fascism thrives here: half of America is fascist and the other half wants to do jack shit about it, but still think of themselves as good people.
Remember: if you ever wondered what you would have done in 1930s Germany: whatever you’re doing now is what you would have done then.
Is it true that “No true American…” has been said so many times Scotland is thinking of suing us for plagiarism?