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[-] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 140 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The US has been drunk on the delusion of how noble and benevolent we consider ourselves since World War II.

We like to conveniently forget that at the time, many Americans looked up to the Nazis and were embracing eugenics. We were legally sterilizing subjective "undesirables," often without their knowledge, and we had no plans to do shit until the Axis, already steeped in conflict, decided to attack us directly from half a world away, committing one of the greatest self-inflicted tactical blunders in history thankfully.

America is all about subjugation, exploitation, and genocide. It just got a propaganda team to soften the way in which it talks about it since the mid 20th century.

At the end of the day, that's the magic of America: bullshitting. Lying. To ourselves and others. From "all men* are created equal" (Only applies to wealthy Caucasian land owners) to "manifest destiny" (genocide the people that already live here because its our destiny) to "separate but equal"(even apex American bullshitters couldn't say this one with a straight face) to "turning the bull loose"(get back to work slaves, this isn't a society) to "don't ask, don't tell" (we refuse to accept you as a human being, but hey come die gruesomely so our greedy fucks can access foreign oil markets). Our bullshit machine runs so deep, we are a ~~nation~~ capital exploitation farm that practically doubles as a religion.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26322647/#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20members,upheld%20such%20laws%20in%201927.

[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 55 points 11 months ago

People also forget that the people who came to the New World to escape religious persecution were being persecuted because their beliefs were so radical that no one wanted to deal with their bullshit anymore.

[-] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 41 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yep!

And we're still the sexuality phobic weirdos of the developed world, which stems out of our puritanical backwards forerunners.

Glorification of gruesome, bloody hyperviolence all day baby, we'll show it on a loop on the news for the kiddos! Don't forget to like and subscribe!

One flaccid dick or vagina in public, on the other hand, and everyone loses their minds!

This is an us thing. We are the prudes of the developed western world. “Omg a boobie AAAAHHHH my child is scarred for life!“

[-] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

If there's one thing I know about the US, it's that everyone is afraid of boobies.

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[-] ivanafterall@kbin.social 43 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

One of the best examples of U.S. government PR is the rebranding of the Department of War to the Department of Defense, even though its function didn't change. People don't like war, but call it defense and you're golden.

[-] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

"Defense companies"

[-] p_cells@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

To be fair, every nation feels good about themselves. Be proud of the good things, neglect the bad things. Who would want to be the bad guy? This is how human mind works.

[-] Gabu@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Except that's not the case at all. Lots of people in lots of nations will gladly tell you their country is shit.

[-] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

Including the us. Correct

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[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

many Americans looked up to the Nazis

And the Nazis were looking up to Americans! House on fire and all that...

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

we had no plans to do shit until the Axis, already steeped in conflict, decided to attack us directly from half a world away

This is not accurate. "We" (specifically FDR) were already keeping Britain afloat financially in their war with Germany and were already literally fighting German U-boats in the Atlantic prior to Pearl Harbor. Even as far as Pearl Harbor was concerned, we were waging economic warfare against Japan by cutting off their oil and steel in response to their depredations in China - which embargo precipitated their sneak attack in the first place.

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[-] franklin@lemmy.world 54 points 11 months ago

Stolen from another post felt relevant

[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago
[-] ColonelSanders@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago
[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Let’s be honest here. That’s a good episode, and I’m not judging you. But Sisko KOing Q is easily the best moment in the show.

”I’m not PICARD.”

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[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 53 points 11 months ago

The Boston massacre was basically an anti-police riot that turned into a police shooting. The police were acquitted of the murder, which lead to more protests and an eventual revolution. Anytime someone says "real Americans support the police," I point back to that.

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[-] Buffaloaf@lemmy.world 43 points 11 months ago

points to Great Britain

I learned it from you

[-] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago
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[-] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 32 points 11 months ago

Just because America hasn't lived up to its values doesn't mean that the values are wrong

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 37 points 11 months ago

Dude. Our constitution said black people were 3/5ths of a human.

[-] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Exactly, thanks for supporting my point.

Does it still? Or did we change the Constitution to better reflect our values?

[-] Nudding@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Does it still say you're allowed to use slavery for punishment as a crime? Do you still do that for non violent offenders? Does your country have more non violent offenders than any country to ever exist? Your country started with shit values and continues to push its shit values onto the rest of the world.

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[-] CaptionAdam@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I mean the constitution is the backbone of the system and it used to be updated, but now people treat it as this perfect monolithic unchanging thing. If any modern politician tryd to add amendments it would not go well(also Canadian here)

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

So our values can change over time? How do we know which values to live up to?

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

So our values can change over time?

What a strange question. Of course they can and they do, all the time.

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[-] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

I use the Declaration of Independence's preamble as a good baseline:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,..."

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I see. So one of our values is given to us by a god. That's what we have to live up to? A god's values? That's American? I don't even believe in a god.

And why is the Declaration, something that happened before America existed as a nation, the thing to look to and not the Constitution?

[-] porkins@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You have a lot of catching up to do in school. The declaration and constitution heavily pull for Locke’s Treatises of Government and even older texts. It is not necessarily speaking to a god. In fact Locke brings up Spinoza in making this point. It is moreso that we exist in a universe that functions with certain parameters that are the baseline for our current situation. It’s very generalized. Basically, Locke’s philosophy, which was inherited by the framers of the declaration/ constitution/BoR was that civil society only exists as an agreement among people in order to better their quality of life. If it does not live up to these expectations, people can abandon government and go back to less civil times. Government helps prevent the breakdown of discourse with war being the ultimate opposite of civil society. Basically, the government exists by the people and for the people. The Declaration of Independence is an important founding document in US history for many different reasons, but one of them that is of importance is that is marks the foundation for a unified set of values that would be further codified in the follow-up documents. It was made very clear to all present that when the Constitution was drafted, it would have fast-follow amendments and then continue to in order to reflect the basic foundational values as society and technology progressed over time. This flexibility was intentionally added. The founding documents don’t speak much about the financial system. That came later.

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[-] Mamertine@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

It was only enslaved people that were counted at 3/5ths. Free blacks were counted as a whole person.

From Wikipedia:

Although the three-fifths clause was not formally repealed, it was effectively removed from the Constitution. In the words of the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins, Section 2 "abrogated so much of the corresponding clause of the original Constitution as counted only three-fifths of such persons [slaves]."

So it's technically still in there, but moot with slavery being banned.

[-] Nudding@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Slavery isn't banned in the US lol

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[-] 4lan@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Our values are changing. The speaker of the House says that the separation of church and state does not exist. Second in line to the presidency.

Our history is being rewritten. Just look at the reinterpretation of the 2nd amendment after Reagan.

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[-] Surp@lemmy.world 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Opens history book on Europe/Asia/Africa/South America, etc. insert literally any place in the world. Wow! I'm funny on Lemmy! So dumb, good people in every country in the world. And just about every country has done unspeakable things to get to where they are today. Most of the time it's not because the good people even want to be involved it's because the rich make it happen. Blame the rich...they are the problem in every country.

[-] Heavybell@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago

You're not wrong, every country has done fucked shit. I think the point of this meme is to bring Americans down to that realisation that applies to their country too, tho.

[-] scottywh@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

With an insulting title like this post has, I don't think that's the point at all.

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[-] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

Everybody knows. There's nothing new under the sun

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[-] stress_headache@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago

This tweet is banned in Texas and Florida.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago

As an illiterate American, I could not read that meme and it's only by chance through random mashing of the keys that I was able to craft this response.

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[-] linearchaos@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

And the textbooks have been marginally sanitized even then.

[-] thorbot@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

There is a crazy amount of cognitive dissonance in this thread. Show me a single other modern society that didn't have serious and deeply ingrained racial and societal problems from the start. We can only move forward and do better, which is happening slowly. Put a magnifying glass on any country's past and you'll drum up all sorts of nasty shit. But people just love to shit on the US so here we are

[-] kureta@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago

conservative attitude is to deny or diminish anything wrong with history. same can be seen in Turkey. I think what is criticized is that denial, not that there was anything wrong. because as you said every country has their skeletons.

[-] Gabu@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

You only missed the point by an observable universe's length.

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[-] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Oh, so I'm the only one who gets in trouble when I start referencing Malcom X?

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[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago

If Americans told the truth*

They can read it was about taxes but they won’t get to read about the colonies being pissed about fair treatment to the Natives for their help in the 7 years war (fair is relative: read it as respecting their borders and claims to America)

[-] pascal@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago

So, in order, taxes evasion, war, secession, wars, racism, wars, poor labour laws, wars and racism again?

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[-] dx1@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Joshua Fit For Battle - Contents Of An American History Class

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP862vW9WJE

Relentless imperialistic fucks

Eye glassed with drugs of power and conquest

Greed kills

Establish a history relationship

And turn around and stab them in the back

Guns and disease destroyed a whole culture

Victims on their backs, rotting

Seeping, suffering

Suffering, suffering

Suffering

This is our fucking history

This is our fucking history

History repeats itself and always will

[-] helixdaunting@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago

Thank you for transcribing the lyrics, because I couldn't understand them in the first 30 seconds and I wasn't willing to continue listening after that.

The message is good, the instrumentalists are proficient, but the vocals are painful. It was less "Rage Against The Machine" and more "Tantrum Against The Melody".

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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
1556 points (100.0% liked)

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