Lemmy has a strong tendency to criticize the US, and a lot of the critiques of certain issue with the US are valid. However, I started getting really tired of opening comment sections in innocuous and non-political posts only to see that someone somehow found a way to criticize the US in it. At first, I started thinking that maybe some Lemmy users are really unhappy and find criticizing a something stronger helped them feel better as if standing up to injustice was a passion of theirs. But, we don’t see them do that with other targets, just the US. The more I notice and think about it, I’m starting be suspicious that some of those users and comments aren’t authentic, but made to create divisiveness in the West and reject the US entirely. In other words, they may be Russian, Chinese, et al. agents working to feed a stream of propaganda in order to further cause chaos and lack of unity in the West as we have seen them do before.
Anyone else think about this?
This is what I’m thinking the game plan is:
- Criticize something obviously unjust that the US has done. Ignore that all other major powers have also committed atrocities.
- Link and liken it to other US matters & behaviors
- Paint the US entirely as evil so that nothing the US can do is just
- Attack anyone that supports anything out of the US (we are between here and #3 above)
- Create a black-and-white model of geopolitics: US vs everyone else. EU and Russia on the same team lol
- West fragments as US and EU relationship dwindle from pseudo-populist movements (e.g. MAGA)
- Pick specific countries in the EU to start alienating and repeat the cycle
- ???
- Profit in special economic zones
as an american, i whole-heartedly support anti-american sentiment. we fucking deserve all of it. we voted in a clown shitshow of a government and of course the world should laugh
As an outsider (not american and don’t live in the US) I just want to add that I’m not “anti-american”. The problem is that you guys built a “bully” reputation while at the same time we see the hardships the regular american have to go through without healthcare, education and labour laws, and nobody really cares.
And this isn’t even the first clown shitshow of a government we’ve voted in this century
Yeah, actually that’s a really important point, plus between the insane amounts of essentially anonymous propaganda that’s been unleashed on us through Citizens United and all the state government voter suppression laws that were allowed by Shelby County we’ve really only been a quasi-democratic society at best for most of this. Americans aren’t uniquely terrible people compared to the citizens of any other country, we’ve just got some incredibly shitty rich people who ran the table on political power.
e; forgot to rest of my thought
of course. and dont forget the whole fucking over the globe by forcing our version of democracy everywhere. or that our biggest industry is generating human killing devices we spread across the planet under the guise of ‘defense’… or that our country was founded by genociding almost an entire continent of humans.
i find it beyond funny that we support israel because ‘they were there first’, but if you mention that maybe the american indians should rise up and take their country back you get very different responses. america is the land hypocrites.
I don’t think we’re the only land of hypocrisy out there (like, listen to Russia talk about how they’re the real protectors of human rights, or China say other countries are threatening their national security, or Mexico complain about cartel violence while letting their police do whatever they want, or Israel do so much shit I don’t know where to start), but, yeah, a lot of us are brainwashed as hell, and our government is completely full of shit whenever it’s scolding anyone else about human rights, international law, the climate, etc.
i find it beyond funny that we support israel because ‘they were there first’, but if you mention that maybe the american indians should rise up and take their country back you get very different responses.
Yep, and also the fact that there’s such a vocal anti-migrant movement here after almost all of our ancestors in immigrated here is completely absurd
Nearly half the electorate didn’t vote for the reactionaries. I’d also add that this regression isn’t an exclusively American phenomenon, we’re just unfortunately at the vanguard.
it wasnte even half… 88 milllion eligible voters didnt vote at all. not voting is making a decision. people that do not vote at all are complicit
Hard disagree, Republicans wouldn’t do so much voter suppression bullshit if it didn’t have any effect. People who don’t vote are almost always being oppressed in a variety of different ways.
I waited in line for five hours to vote, and I don’t even live in a place that does voter suppression bs. I can understand why some people threw up their hands and went home. Then you’ve got the people who did vote but had their vote invalidated by bureaucratic nonsense. The deck is stacked against the people
they suppress the vote because if all eligible voters voted, they would never win another election. i stand by the fact that if you did not vote at all, you are complicit in letting democracy die at the hands of conservative extremists.
came to write something like this. feel the exact same. we don’t need to post the election results to am I the asshole because we are not the assholes.
American here. When you elect a man—twice—whose character and policies have led to a fractured nation, a failing education system, crumbling infrastructure, and a healthcare system that leaves millions behind, it’s no surprise that the world views us with disdain. When your citizens are struggling to afford basic necessities like rent and groceries while a handful of individuals hoard wealth that rivals entire nations, we’ve earned every ounce of criticism.
Buckle up, because the descent into this nightmare is far from over. The worst is yet to come, and it’s going to be a long, suffocating fall.
I find it a little frustrating that you think any of this started with, because of, or will end with cheeto.
This:
a fractured nation, a failing education system, crumbling infrastructure, and a healthcare system that leaves millions behind
has always been the case, and it is a feature, not a bug. Always has been.
And it will never change as long as you continue to focus on the things the system tells you to focus on (like team red vs team blue, or the clown at the front of the stage) rather than on the system itself (a state mechanism built on slavery and genocide from day dot, and designed and enforced by and for the rich and powerful, who are the ones actually pulling the strings) and abolishing that.
And before OP gets their underwear in a twist - all states are oppressive and should be abolished, but a country founded on and with the biggest hard on for capitalism on the planet, and who has the power to, and has been since its founding, loudly and aggressively dragging the rest of the world on a race to the bottom (if not directly with war mongering and political interfering, then with profiteering off of their enemies war mongering and politically interfering), deserves all the criticism it gets, and the fact that it’s easier for you to create a straw person to dismiss the perfectly valid and long overdue criticism, than it is to hear them and sit with the mild discomfort it causes you to hear the truth and confront reality, is a you problem, not a lemmy problem.
The US bullies nearly every other nation on the planet, they also bully thier supposed friends. People have little option with a bully aside from vociferous push back.
You’re right that the US is strong, they way you deal with your disputes is violence, or implied violence.
Look at the ICC where they will hurt the judges becase they have an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu to investigate war crimes but were all ra ra when the Court did the same for Putin. The US has an invade the Hauge Act if the same court investigates any US citizens for war crimes
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law
Lemmy is more geographically diverse then many places online, so perhaps instead of taking umbrage, listen ?.
Welcome to a non US centric platform. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit,Digg, etc are all US centric platforms so there will be a pile-on when US criticism is mentioned.
Lemmy.world is not a US centric instance so you don’t see the pile-on. You get actual opinion on an over represented country.
I was listening to NPR a few days ago and they were talking – in the context of Jimmy Carter’s passing – about the global community having to grapple with two different sides of the United States. The side that is incredibly generous and has contributed an enormous amount to the welfare of people throughout the world and the side that is a basically a bully that uses it’s vast power and influence as a means to further it’s own selfish interests.
Both of those things can certainly be true. The US has contributed a lot of positive things to the global community and at the same time, the US is effectively the most powerful and sophisticated empire in human history. Empires cannot maintain their power without oppression. Over the last 249 years, we have created some truly horrific disasters, at home and abroad, in the name of acquiring and maintaining power. That deserves criticism no matter who’s doing it.
strong tendency to criticize the US
The whole world has been criticizing the USA since I was born 50 years ago. All I remember is that their way of life is declining all the time, they lied to go to war with Irak, and now they elected Trump, which makes is worse.
someone somehow found a way to criticize the US in it
I can say the reverse. All the time I see Americans talking about the USA in conversations where it is not the topic. What do you think about this? Like someone made a pizza in a random Asian country, and the whole conversation will switch to how NY pizzas are the best.
they may be Russian, Chinese, et al. agents
You’re paranoid. It’s the internet, it’s global, everyone criticizes everyone else. As for causing chaos, you elected one of the most disgusting felon who exists, the chaos is already there.
I mean we’d be fools to think there aren’t bots and propaganda here, but overall I think it’s just that Lemmy leans left and the left isn’t particularly proud of what we’ve become.
For the past 80 years, we’ve made the world a worse place for the benefit of Americans. Which I get, to a point. Our government is elected to take care of American interests. Sometimes that’s not pretty and often I don’t agree with what has been done in my name, but I can appreciate that someone was trying to do what was right for the country.
But over the past 25 years, it’s no longer about what’s best for Americans and is about what’s best for American wealth. That doesn’t include most of us. So there is very little redeeming about our government now, and this is what a majority is voters wanted. Welp…
HALP: This social media platform that isn’t owned by a US corporation is not suppressing criticism of the US enough!
You can always go back to your safe space on Reddit or Facebook or whichever corpo US social media site.
find criticizing a something stronger helped them feel better
🤦
Are you for real? And you are surprised US and USians get criticised?
A corporate owned platform is not going to expose you to viewpoints that are against its interests. Lemmy is more inline with the actual state of the world as you are talking to other humans.
Sure at times we many not like what we hear but that is ok. We all need to hear other viewpoints, it is how we grow. Its not a personal attack and if you think about it being critical of a government is good, people should want their government held accountable and working for the people.
It is also not about red vs blue or any of the other bullshit labels . None of that matters, you are more like the average Russian than your leaders. Most people just want to get on with their lives with as little bullshit as possible. As for loyalty to the nation, I like Einstein’s answer here.
Viereck: “Do you look upon yourself as a German or as a Jew?”
Einstein: “It is quite possible, to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
I am from Europe and I am highly critical of the US as they are a bully, They are not some moral do-gooders that the movies paint them as. They have military bases all over the place and have meddled with so many countries. They are an empire.
“The U.S. has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2023”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States
As for the platform aspect, do you think Twitter or facebook and the rest have been a net positive for humanity ?
Sure there have been positives but there have been massive negatives such as
- the undermining of Democratic elections, brexit and trumps campaigns.
- things like xkeyscore where these companies in some cases collaborated with the NSA or if not the greed facilitated the collection of data.
- the algorithms that promote hate because it drives engagement, thus further driving a wedge in the fabric of society.
- we have seen governments pressure these companies to hand over data and they then arrest, torture or kill the users.
- things promoting US Interests are pushed such as the Arab spring but things against it such as occupy wall street or criticism of Israeli genocide is silenced or shadow banned.
- suicides from bullying
For the record I am critical of my own government too where it makes sense but they do not invade other countries.
I’m American. I’ll jump on the criticize America bandwagon any day!
So, no, we suck in the worst possible ways. That is really all there is to it
As a French guy, I can say that I suck way more than you. America has the American dream. France has the “we suck, we complain about it all the time, and we’re proud of it” vibe.
France also has the “take my rights, we take your head” attitude. I like that.
Nowadays it’s the modern version: “we don’t like that, and we’ll complain very loudly about it.”
Mais oui
Everyone talks about how fun chopping up the Bourbons was and then leaves out how shitty the Reign of Terror was in the wake
No
I would add that a lot of what Americans read as “criticism” can be explained by a heady combination of incredibly poor reading comprehension and a lifetime of being spoon-fed humour with a laugh-track.
The amount of angry, abusive reactions to posts that are clearly a joke is hilarious in itself and just makes us wind them up even more
Most of the anti-American sentiment I’ve seen on SM over the last 2 or 3 years has been from Americans. It sucks here unless you’re rich, racist, and/or incredibly stupid.
Have you seen America lately?
