I’ve been thinking about this amped up conservative rhetoric that liberals and leftists hate America. We all know that’s BS. Right? Except it’s not, and we should respond to it for what it is.
“I love an America I grew up in. I love an America I believe in, that I lived most of my life in. Now, the idea of America that you’re fighting and “winning” for is killing that America I live in, that I love. So you’re right. I hate what you imagine America to be… because it is trying to murder the America that I love. And I don’t use the word “murder” lightly, and I apply it to you. And if that means to you that I hate America… then you’re right! The America you believe in isn’t lovable.”
That’s all.
Other than being part of the army, lmao. Didn’t know all of the citizens of the US served in the military, you learn something new every day.
“I’m not ashamed I contributed to and participated in the oppression and domination of most of the world” is not the good reply you think it is. The American military just weeks ago finished helping Israel strike their neighbors to allow them to more easily continue their genocide. Rethink your pride.
I had literally nothing to do with that. I haven’t been in the army in almost 30 years. But also, oppression and domination isn’t all the army does. Or even mostly. I fixed mine detectors, and mines are a particularly horrific form of warfare, particularly to civilians. And you have the whole corps of engineers. Plenty of jobs in the army are just jobs.
But insofar as I was part of the big stick that enabled speaking softly to succeed, yeah I’m proud of that.
…
“I was proud to be part of the vast apparatus of violence that America threatens everyone with to get their way”
If it means diplomacy over war? Yep.
You are from a country that has been at war almost continuously for as long as anyone in it can remember.
Same as every other US citizen. Not ashamed of that either.
The constant warfare? You should be.
Thanks for your opinion. It doesn’t affect mine.
At the beginning of this conversation, I felt considerable empathy towards you. Every time you reply I feel it less. Maybe try imagining the lives of people who end up under the American boot, people outside your country are also human beings.
You don’t seem to have any capacity for shame
“I’m not ashamed of being from a country that constantly starts wars by invading other nations and committing genocide directly or by proxy”
So the complaint is that I was a soldier. Keep up.
No the complaint is that you were a soldier in a fascist genocidal army and are proud of it, plus not being ashamed of the fact your country is a ravenous genocidal warmongerer.
Diplomacy is when you force Haiti to lower its minimum wage so your monied class can get even richer
Fought against how we treat Haiti.
You fought as a soldier against your own government?
Like with guns? No. I fought in ways that aren’t going to get me dismissed as a loony because those are losing strategies.
So, you didn’t fight against it. You just quietly disapproved and then went back to serving the machine that was doing it
Let’s hear these winning strategies then.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” is a reference to Teddy Roosevelt and his military-backed coups, invasions, and threats to control and disrupt Caribbean, Central American, and South American countries and people. Teddy Roosevelt himself was deeply racist and did his best to finalize anti-indigenous American genocide campaigns.
The kind of things you helped with, just not written about correctly in the history books yet.
So, which wars did you assist by “cleaning”?
For a brief shining second I thought you had said “not proud”. Was Fallujah “speaking softly”?
Voted against that administration.
And then fought for it
As opposed to the other party that destroyed Libya.
Let me go check my map, but I’m pretty sure Libya is still there. Also pretty sure their government was horrific to their own people, who were the ones who killed Gaddafi.
Like America has done some bad shit you could call out, but Libya?
Also, to withhold my vote from Obama would’ve been a vote for someone even worse in respect to foreign policy.
America turned Libya from one of the most prosperous nations in Africa to a place with open air slave markets. It’s clear that you don’t know anything about the actual impact America has on the lives of people in the third world.
Yes, that’s the point, both “sides” are bad because they’re actually fundamentally on the same side.
I’m not going to not vote or throw my vote away on a third party—I did that every year I’m until 2008, and it was a mistake.
And sure America is responsible for a lot of bad things in the this world. But that history isn’t the responsibility of the administration at the time that needed to clean it up. America has done plenty of bad things. I can’t change that history, I can only hope to influence the future.
“America is responsible for a lot of bad things in the world but this isn’t the responsibility of the administration which helped cause the bad things or exists to serve the empire which causes the bad things.”
Not even history too. Did you know that the zionist puppet state’s current genocide in Palestine is mostly funded and supplied by america, for american dominance in the levant as a beachhead to harass countries in the Middle East? The genocide would stop immediately without american support.
The administration stays the same despite the figureheads changing.
I can vote, and I can agitate for change for the better, which is what I said in my very first post. We are betraying the diversity and inclusion that is central to the things that made this nation better.
Voting has no tangible impact on the fact that whatever figurehead you elect will serve the same capitalist system and will continue to enact the same overall agenda of american imperialist domination by any means necessary, including genocide. Your rights as a worker will still be slowly eroded and your country will still fall apart as your ruling class strips it for parts. Wake up. Your nation was never great, never inclusive, always a white supremacist shit hole, every victory of civil rights and minority rights has been against the best efforts of your civil societies. It’s over.
It’s not over until we stop fighting. You have a very defeatist attitude.
If you love America, and you think voting will be able to “fix” it, you have always already been defeated. That’s what we are trying to tell you. Your idealism of “America” is not real. And you being proud of that ideal in spite of all the very real death, exploitation, destruction in service of capitalism that “America” exists to maintain is you defeating yourself publicly.
No you don’t get it. It’s over for any delusions about america being a force for good or for the possibility that faith in its institutions can ever lead to positive change for humanity. America has always been a genocidal shit hole. End of.
“Listen I wasn’t the one doing the oppression! I was just fixing stuff used to oppress people.” Is not exactly a flex homie
Ah yes. Mine detectors. A famously oppressive tool.
“Anyone seen any mines!?!?!”
Not a picture of me so…
No, just the picture of the empire that you support and lick the boot off
That is homophobic/mysogonistic, please correct.
Wanting to make it better isn’t… look… nevermind. This is clearly an unserious conversation.
Making it better by helping my commit atrocities
Instead of helping the local economy make them themselves they have to come from america lol
Instead of? You think I was going to go make mine detectors in Cambodia or Vietnam? Or are you advocating that we tell those countries to fuck off and deal with their own problems?
Yes actually but not in the way you think, I’m advocating for america fucking off and leaving the world alone instead of genociding people and ruining nations for profit. Everyone comes to America for “help” solving problems america or it’s allies caused in the first place. America makes money from causing the problems and then makes money from selling the solutions, ensuring dependence on America.
For sure. Of anything good comes out of this administration, it will be cutting the world off the illusion there is anything particularly good or moral about America. But then I think any government that serves its people is fundamentally at odds with the rest of the world. The American government is for the benefit of the American people.
Of course, shitting all over the third world, creating poverty and misery and terrorism is ultimately not serving the American people, and we have fucked that up. I’m hopeful that we will be able to see that we are part of an entire world of people and that serving ourselves at the expense of others is not really serving ourselves.
This is an astute, humane realization and it would be great if taken to the logical conclusion given what the american military does to the rest of the worlds people.
Where were they used?
This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever read, so congrats on that
You need to read more. Fuck, I’ve said dumber things than that.
Only time you’ve been right in this entire thread.