Kind of getting tired of America. Is the grass any greener elsewhere? (lawsuits, linear)
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I'm not a huge Trump fan either, but the great divide we have in our nation actually started when Obama was elected. We became a very divided and racial country, and I would blame the media for most of it, but Obama didn't do much to help the issue. In fact he did the opposite.
Biden vs Trump. It's almost comical for a country of our size and strength that these two men are our choices. And this coming from the wealthiest and most important country in the world.
Yes, it’s a real pity that Biden and Trump are the ‘best’ the country can muster. I was kinda hoping that the election of Trump would spearhead the nation into evaluating this whole bipartisan crap that’s been plaguing politics for decades, but has only gotten worse in recent years. Trump is a sign that there’s a lot of discontent with how politics in the nation are run, and should have been a catalyst for the need for real change, yet it appears that once again the upcoming election is being played along dated party lines.
Yes, it’s a real pity that Biden and Trump are the ‘best’ the country can muster. I was kinda hoping that the election of Trump would spearhead the nation into evaluating this whole bipartisan crap that’s been plaguing politics for decades, but has only gotten worse in recent years. Trump is a sign that there’s a lot of discontent with how politics in the nation are run, and should have been a catalyst for the need for real change, yet it appears that once again the upcoming election is being played along dated party lines.
Part of it is that the US has among the oldest intact political systems without major revisions of process in the world. Its system does not do two parties or particularly direct democracy particularly well or the idea of disentangling different issues from each other rather than making two large tents with issues that have almost nothing to do with each other. Unfortunately, a lot of major political reform in some countries over the last century had come from some pretty devastating internal or external causes, but it certainly isn't a *necessary* factor by any means as there are also countries that have been able to successfully implement reforms in fairly peaceable ways including mostly peaceful mass protest.
The other part of this is how into the weeds on mystical thinking of sorts the US is compared to other developed countries. We have a lot of devout religious people who are devout in ways that sort of are counter-productive to a lot of practical matters and with particularly odd snake oily leaders. Even when it's not really religious, we also then have a lot of people who accept some pretty bonkers conspiracy theories and often as an entire slate of them at once.
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Anyhow, if OP wants to, experiencing living abroad for even a bit really isn't a bad idea. Of course, I'd recommend thinking it over in terms of what you are looking for and want and what you're looking to avoid as well as reading up on practical issues for the area you eventually try for.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-31-2020 at 08:57 PM..
I'm not a huge Trump fan either, but the great divide we have in our nation actually started when Obama was elected. We became a very divided and racial country, and I would blame the media for most of it, but Obama didn't do much to help the issue. In fact he did the opposite.
Biden vs Trump. It's almost comical for a country of our size and strength that these two men are our choices. And this coming from the wealthiest and most important country in the world.
It's probably more of a longer simmer from Lee Atwater and his contribution to how campaigns are done with about any dirt or ridicule you can muster and careful insinuations to strike as much fear as possible while the policy parts are crafted for marketing but could be dropped over diversions real quick. I think that helped with the media shifting a bit with not Fox News but most other television news media barreling towards a larger mixture op-ed anger and stringing together random factoids to make a narrative. It's a shame, really! I think with that, it's sort of understandable why the OP might want to take a breather.
Right now I'm listening to a Japanese rock song, on a Chinese website, 90% of the movies I watch these days are Korean (or Italian since I like the language but Italian cinema is kinda dead too these days...).
I even checked who owns the tvs/newspapers in my country: local, Russian, Swedish, German - not one major media is owned by US company.
Video games: cd projekt red, ubisoft, konami, ea games, tencent out of all of the major world creators none of this is American excluding Microsoft and they aren't the biggest.
"Fast and the Furious" is the only American media I'm gonna consume in the forseable future, just to kill time while eating popcorn and kill a few more brain cells but this doesn't make the world's media American.
1. Extermination of Native Americans.
(Google trail of tears)
The extermination of millions of Native Amerindians.
--------------------- 2.Forcing the old Louisiana territories to speak English by erradicating the French language.
-French language banned
-Francophones lynched
-Francophone children have their mouths washed with soap for speaking French and not English.
----------------------- 3. Invading the West and forcing it to speak English and erradicate the Spanish language.
- Kicking Mexicans out of their lands.
--------------------- 4. Hatred of black people… Slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, lynching, brutalizing, Hollywood demonizing black people, police brutality.
- This fits an encyclopedia!
----------------------- 5. Propagating the myth that only WASPS are white, other Europeans are BROWN.
------------------------- 6.Being terribly racist to German immigrants because apparently Germans were not white
A German portrayed by American cartoonists.
Quote Benjamin Franklin: Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Cartoon depicting Germans are violent, alcoholic, un-American.
Germans forced to change their names to sound more white.
Muller to Miller
Schmidt to Smith etc.
-------------------- 7. Being brutally racist to the Irish because the Irish are not white:
- Irish are not white
- Irish are unable to assimilate to the American culture
- Irish are a threat to the white American race
Ireland a nation of parasites living off America.
Difference between a WASP white woman and an Irish woman.
The portrayal of an Irishman.
---------------------------- 8. Racism against Italians for not being white.
Italians depicted like rats invading the USA
Italians lynched in America
---------------------------------- 9. Racism and banning of JEWS, SLAVIC EASTERN EUROPEANS, GREEKS.
In 1924 the US erected a ban on any one who is Slavic, Jew or Greek. They were considered undesireable and unwated. Sounds similar to the ban against Muslims Trump wants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
-------------------------------
10. Racism against Asians.
-------------------------------- 11. Fear of the revival of the Spanish language because of Mexican immigration into the old Mexican lands.
- Build the wall
- Mexicans are rapists.
-----------------
It is the NEVERENDING HISTORY of a nation that has convinced itself that it is far too great. America DOESN'T LEARN, it's like going in circles over and over and over again.
This country is a sinking embarrassing disaster.
To be fair, a lot of countries have done very racist things for a long while and still do. The US has had a lot of intersection of a lot of people for many reasons within recent recorded history. It, like all other countries, have been working through a lot of things and is not entirely unique in that regard. Parts of the US very vocally addressing such things and having it be part of the national dialogue today also isn't necessarily a bad thing in comparison to places that simply try to not have any discourse.
One other quick note: much of the extermination of native Americans was likely due to unintended consequences from the spread of Old World diseases which had a far more intensive history with animal husbandry and living in close quarters with animals and a much larger set of connected petri dishes going from Japan and Indonesia to the Maghreb and British Isles. There were extensive ****ty things done afterwards and even cases of intended infections, but much of it wasn't in conscious effort and also lead to why European settlers felt there was so much space and resources for the taking as the Americas were likely heavily depopulated and more complex organized societies as would be necessary to intensively manage land use had radically scattered and changed. Trail of Tears is awful, but the millions of deaths en masse weren't from that and happened well before the US formed as a nation. Doesn't excuse the Trail of Tears, but figured it's better to say things accurately.
The overwhelming majority of conservatives (at least) in America don’t think there is any justification at all for the rioting and looting that is going on in America’s cities right now. They are completely in support of America’s police and think they do a great job in protecting law-abiding Americans and cracking down on crime.
The people who are anti-police are almost entirely of the liberal persuasion.
The overwhelming majority of conservatives (at least) in America don’t think there is any justification at all for the rioting and looting that is going on in America’s cities right now. They are completely in support of America’s police and think they do a great job in protecting law-abiding Americans and cracking down on crime.
The people who are anti-police are almost entirely of the liberal persuasion.
The overwhelming majority are against rioting and looting though that's not the same as people saying the police are doing a great job. There's fairly little rioting and looting overall compared to nonviolent protesting--it's just what gets a lot of news coverage. It's like how people like to say there are just a few bad apples in the police department, but that doesn't mean all police officers should be condemned for the actions of a few. Plus, there's certainly variation in action among different police departments. Some have done great in diffusing the situation.
One good, tangible thing to do regardless of which side one is on is to contribute donations to businesses that have been burned or sacked so that they might rebuild.
You have protests over George floyd in Berlin and London
Something locally American and Germans and British protest.
If the same were to happen but in the UK or Germany, I guarantee you no one in America world care. Our media rarely if ever talks about Germany or the UK.
That alone shows you the power of the American media.
Germans are obsessed with us, they even use our lingo and try to sound American when speaking English as if they were American.
The British are even worse, you think we want to be a single political entity with you and brexiteers think we want to join you and make London the capital of America.
The reality is most Americans couldn't locate Germany or the UK on a world map
That shows your who controls who and matters more than who.
The bolded makes no sense to me. You'll have to explain why any in Berlin or London would care enough about police brutality in another country to actually organize protests about it.
The US controls the BBC? I don't think so. The US entertainment industry definitely dominates internationally, which could lead to American "stuff" seeming cool or trendy abroad. But there are Germans who are extremely critical of the US, especially of US militarism. I don't think the US controls the world's news media. Especially if you include Russia in your definition of "the world", haha.
One other quick note: much of the extermination of native Americans was likely due to unintended consequences from the spread of Old World diseases which had a far more intensive history with animal husbandry and living in close quarters with animals and a much larger set of connected petri dishes going from Japan and Indonesia to the Maghreb and British Isles. There were extensive ****ty things done afterwards and even cases of intended infections, but much of it wasn't in conscious effort and also lead to why European settlers felt there was so much space and resources for the taking as the Americas were likely heavily depopulated and more complex organized societies as would be necessary to intensively manage land use had radically scattered and changed. Trail of Tears is awful, but the millions of deaths en masse weren't from that and happened well before the US formed as a nation. Doesn't excuse the Trail of Tears, but figured it's better to say things accurately.
It's easy to blame most of the Native deaths on disease. Several facts stand out, though:
1) Once the colonies got well-established, especially after independence from Britain and during westward expansion, and ESPECIALLY once the reservation period began, people were more susceptible to disease, because they were isolated and starved on the reservations. Was that an intended, or unintended, consequence?
2) There was a period of Indian wars as federal policy, to complete the corralling process of recalcitrant tribes, and of course, it wasn't just about rounding people up. Extermination happened, whether by troops who got a little carried away with their mission, or by design.
3) The California Gold Rush was a holocaust. Citizen groups were allowed to ambush entire Native communities, while authorities looked the other way. This took place even in parts of CA, where there was no gold. (SoCal) The celebrated CA writer, Bret Harte, protested this in his books and articles at the time.
It's easy to dismiss genocide as the consequence of disease. That whitewashing of history has happened in other parts of the world, as well. It's a handy excuse. But there are conditions underlying the succumbing to disease, that tend to go unacknowledged, along with other forces at work that get glossed over.
It's easy to blame most of the Native deaths on disease. Several facts stand out, though:
1) Once the colonies got well-established, especially after independence from Britain and during westward expansion, and ESPECIALLY once the reservation period began, people were more susceptible to disease, because they were isolated and starved on the reservations. Was that an intended, or unintended, consequence?
2) There was a period of Indian wars as federal policy, to complete the corralling process of recalcitrant tribes, and of course, it wasn't just about rounding people up. Extermination happened, whether by troops who got a little carried away with their mission, or by design.
3) The California Gold Rush was a holocaust. Citizen groups were allowed to ambush entire Native communities, while authorities looked the other way. This took place even in parts of CA, where there was no gold. (SoCal) The celebrated CA writer, Bret Harte, protested this in his books and articles at the time.
It's easy to dismiss genocide as the consequence of disease. That whitewashing of history has happened in other parts of the world, as well. It's a handy excuse. But there are conditions underlying the succumbing to disease, that tend to go unacknowledged, along with other forces at work that get glossed over.
Part of the likely higher proportional attribution to disease is because the last few decades has meant that researchers have generally greatly revised upwards projections of pre-European settler native populations. This isn't to say that there weren't many people killed by much more direct effects and actions as what you've said with 1, 2, and 3. It's more about how the total number of native Americans and their cultures that were killed was likely much higher than had been thought among scholars and the general populace during the mid-20th century and earlier, and those deaths via disease were likely much higher than previously thought. It's also obvious that genocide and attempts at genocide, as in intentional actions in policy and practice, has occurred in US history in regards to Native Americans. It's also obvious that there were Americans who fought to prevent this and found this abhorrence--just as it was with slavery and later Jim Crow laws and today's inequities and barbarism.
Much of it is because ideas of epidemiology and the speed of spread as well as the building structures and agricultural practices of many indigenous populations were poorly understood for a long while. That makes sense since if the diseases did spread much faster than the colonists themselves did and those diseases caused the collapse of larger, more complex agricultural systems and the societies that live on them, then that means when settlers did actually arrive en masse, then there wasn't much in practitioners to observe.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 06-01-2020 at 10:46 AM..
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