and that’s just page one of search results
I’ve reached a point where I can’t even list all the bs. I don’t even have to go international. I can just think about a dozen different half-remembered bs off the dome that happened here locally.
I’m not fully versed in history, but I’ve also gotten to the point where I know enough to realize that humans suck. The ones that don’t are always destroyed by the ones that do.
That scientist in 12 Monkeys had a point.
I’ve reached a point where I can’t even list all the bs.
The Wikipedia page for United States involvement in regime change is, if printed, 77 pages long.
The thing that makes me tired; in a different time, That statement alone would have been enough to make people pause. Now it’s fake news. You can’t find common ground with people that don’t believe in documented historical facts.
“documented historical facts?” That’s a lot of words, are you a f-g? or “that’s woke.”
They’re ostracizing it, which means we’re going head first into repeats.
It’s just wild to me that we got here. We had the most uncensored communication tool in generations and somehow still the shit heads showed up and stole it and figured out exactly what to say to make the idiots fall in line. It’s not new but I just thought that we had the ability to move beyond it. It breaks my heart. We could have been so much better but here we are repeating history.
God I hate how shitter puts the reply on top of the original post so when you read it from top to bottom like a normal human being it feels like a Jeopardy question.
Seems to be a quote rather than a reply… And just like the mastodonverse’s quote feature, quoted posts are shown as a nested box below the post quoting them.
the entire world throughout human history has gotten where they are by conquering the neighbors, including mass murdering them, enslaving them, and forcing them to obey them or die. thankfully, that has tapered off a lot in the last half century but thats not really long enough to be certain it wont keep going
No, this is incorrect and it only serves to whitewash colonialism and the particularly cruel practices of the British Empire and its grotesque contemporary vestige.
Ruthless conquering forces are the exception, not the rule. Ethnic groups coexisted, intermarried and assimilated. Languages and political systems merged. Migration was not, normally, conquest. And conquest did not normally amount to ethnic cleansing.
The British empire starved millions of people across multiple continents. It is a part of their coping mechanism to posit that the only thing that separates the English from other peoples us the opportunity. But we have many other empires in history that didn’t even treat theit most remote provinces how the British treated Ireland, to say nothing of its more distant colonies.
The USA is worse in spirit than Britain ever was, but luckily with much more limited opportunity.
That’s why the message of Cyrus from 2600 years ago is inscribed in the UN.
Conquest was common enough there are prehistoric records of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare
Yes, there are many examples of war and cruelty from history. I’m saying that it’s a myth that violence defines how peoples interact with each other.
The fuck you on about? Russia, Iran, Gaza, Darfur? For some reason if it’s condensed in a history book you care for it, but your news is censored?
I think we all know by now that everything prageru says is mental gymnastics ragebait.
18% of Americans were unable to select the correct option:
A) The Earth revolves around the Sun
B) The Sun revolves around the Earth
C) I don’t know
Edit: I found a source for 26% before I found the source for 18%
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, no matter how obvious it is, there are tens of millions of Americans who will easily get it wrong.
The USA is just as bloody as its parent, the UK, and they’re both as bad as other nations with an Imperial past. I don’t see any one as “worse” than the others.
I don’t know all of world history, there’s always more to learn, but every empire I’ve researched devolves into this at some point.
But, even small countries like Belgium manage to wreak havoc.
This is why government needs to be limited, in my opinion. Governments are killing machines, and the bigger they get, the easier it is. Just like people, governments require rules to limit them or its madness. I think the USA, Russia, and China all have the same problem, they’re too big for their own good.
The USA is just as bloody as its parent, the UK, and they’re both as bad as other nations with an Imperial past.
Or, you know, damn near every single empire or powerful ruler throughout all of human history. The Greek golden age was only possible thanks to slaves working the fields, Rome was similar in this regard.
Eastern nations weren’t any better, read up on ancient Chinese culture and all the fucked up shit they did.
Same goes for India, hell they’re still trying to end child marriage but still represent like 20-25% of all child marriages in the world.
People love to dog on America, and I’ll be happy to point out all the historical examples, but the truth is this is more a symptom of the human condition and less about a nation. Look at the other countries on earth and you’ll find plenty of evidence that evil isn’t isolated to one nation, people, culture or time period.
It’s universally a human thing.
At least some of them have largely left it in the past
Like who?
Well Germany hasn’t done any US inspired racial segregation in quite a while now.
That’s globalisation trend. Other than that Germany supported(or even participated) the US during and after their crimes, same with Israel.
But only after massive changes that usually but not always required massive amount of wars and/or societal collapse. A prime example is France wherein the Ancien Regime was only truly ended by the double tapping that was the French revolution and Napoleonic era, hell even the fucking Russian empire was more open to change than the Kingdom of France.
UK managed to buy every slaves freedom before other countries thought ending slavery was cool
But, you still have a parasitic royal family latched upon you like an enormous tick.
You win some, you lose some.
More offended by the nonces in the family tbh, but I guess you can complain about that too.
That’s why I said “as other nations with an Imperial past”, which would include China, India, Rome, Aztecs, and so on.
My ancestors were Aztec and Spaniard, and we’re the best at fucked up shit, just admit it. None of you can match
(this is not a joke, for real)
I do. Because the US didn’t take a hint and is still doing their bullshit Imperialism today, and have turned America into some sort of cult to be worshipped.
It’s okay, you are allowed to disagree with me, my rightness only shines all the brighter
No, the USA is the most destructive nation yet on this planet. No one even comes close even from ancient history (think Rome or Mongols). If you don’t know this already you are probably just ignorant or in denial.
You probably need to read up on Rome and the Mongols, friend.
I have. That is why I made the point. Thanks for checking though. No country in history has caused even close to the amount of destruction the US has.
My favourite version of this joke:
My favorite is Chinese history where they go:
“Ling Long incident: no one recalls how it began or what happened,150 million dead, half of china destroyed. Famine for 10 years. People ate each other.”
And it’s just a minor footnote written down by maybe one court scribe in the margins of a book about some greater series of tragedies.
At one point, the American people fought for their freedom from what they considered an oppressive and tyrannical authority: the English Crown. The American flag, in that context, came to represent resistance to arbitrary authority and the idea that government ultimately derives its legitimacy from the people.
And the Founding Fathers were not, as Prager would have you believe, a monolithic group of devout, orthodox Christians. Many were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, Deism, rationalism, and religious skepticism. Some rejected core doctrines of Christianity outright. Calling them atheist would be historically inaccurate, but portraying them as a uniformly God-fearing Christian movement is equally misleading.
The irony is that when some Americans look at that same flag today, they see it as a symbol of the very kind of powerful, oppressive authority that the American Revolution was fought against. The difference is that ordinary people today don’t have the same practical means of challenging their government that the revolutionaries ultimately resorted to.
So if anyone needs to do a little more historical research, Prager might want to start with the people who actually founded the country.
You’re conflating the Revolution with the “Founding Fathers”, who were actually mainly associated with the constitution.
Which was in many ways the counter revolution, where the rich and propertied (like Washington) decided that the Revolution had gone too far, with Shay’s Rebellion and revolts against debt being the main driver of that.
Yes thank you you are actually correct here I did in fact conflate the two.
I appreciate you pointing this out in a constructive and meaningful way.
Ultimately the point that I was trying to make is that a Preger is an idiot.
Him telling people that they need to do historical research on the American flag is the quintessential epitome of the pot calling the kettle black.
oh totally - it’s just that the myth making of US history isn’t new, and part of why these grifters get away with this nonsense is that there’s been a fertile plot of bullshit for a long time.
But yeah, no, America was not founded as a “Christian nation”. Anyone thinking that is ignoring the Jefferson Bible, or the Treaty of Tripoli.
I kinda wonder why Trump hasn’t published a bible yet.
I’d guarantee it’d sell millions and not a single copy would be read.
Duct taping American gun lore to the KJV is top notch.
Makes me think Trump understands scripture better than most US bible school nerds.
At one point, the American people fought for their freedom from what they considered an oppressive and tyrannical authority: the English Crown.
Some did. Some were merely opportunists who didn’t want the government getting in their way. Most of the US founding fathers were smugglers and land speculators. They didn’t like that the US had ended the French and Indian war by promising that in exchange for peace, their colony would stop expanding westwards. That pissed off the founders who had bought land to the west and wanted a return on their investments.
Other American people were just fine with the arrangement with the crown. They didn’t want a brand new government, they thought things were fine as they were. These people were either killed or driven off their land by the rebels who wanted a new government, and were forced to head to England or up into Canada.
Just look at the other places that didn’t consider the British monarch to be an oppressive tyrant: Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. Did they suffer under the grinding boot of the king and lead miserable lives as a result? Were they forced to hand all their wealth over to England? Hardly. Within a few decades the British gave their local governments more power. Now they all merely have the king as a figurehead and are fully controlled by the people.
Meanwhile, the rebel colonists in the US went only a couple of decades before descending into a civil war. Plus, there’s the war of 1812 which, in large part, was due to these people who famously hated tyrants and oppression ignoring treaties and killing off natives so that they could expand westward.
It seems to me that if you look past all the propaganda that is part of the US school system, the British king being a “tyrant” was more of a convenient excuse rather than the actual legitimate reason for the rebellion.
What I find interesting is that all of this was happening after a civil war more bloody per capita than the First World War, the trial and execution of a king, a period of rather repressive republican rule, a restoration of the monarchy, and yet another revolution/coup which established monarchs couldn’t rule without Parliament’s consent. Part of the reason Britain wasn’t revolutionary later on like France was because multiple revolutions had already happened in the 17th century. The Americans were by the point of the revolution arguing George III was an absolutist and a tyrant, but that form of monarchy had already had its back broken in an English and later British context by the time the American colonies were being settled in large numbers (with some exceptions). It was an accusation much more apt towards say the French king at the time who in fact supported the Americans, and we all know how that eventually went for the Ancien Regime.
The colonist’s grievance was actually more with Parliament for the most part, they actively wanted the king to intercede on their behalf. George III wasn’t willing to do that being a constitutional monarch, which ironically got him labelled a tyrant.
Also, the whole “no taxation without representation” does make sense. But, it’s not as if a typical British person had significantly more rights than the colonists. The UK didn’t deal with its problem with Rotten and Pocket Boroughs until the 1830s. That meant that there were cities in the UK who had no MPs, and there were MPs representing places where nobody lived.
Just look at the other places that didn’t consider the British monarch to be an oppressive tyrant: Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. Did they suffer under the grinding boot of the king and lead miserable lives as a result? Were they forced to hand all their wealth over to England?
While I completely understand and mostly agree with your point, speaking as a Canadian millions of people suffered under the grinding boot of the king and were forced to give up not only their wealth, but also their languages and cultures. The genocide of the indigenous peoples in Canada is an atrocious part of our history, and the last Residential School wasn’t closed down until the 1990s.
Yeah, but a prime driver of the American Revolution was that the king wouldn’t let the Americans genocide the natives even more than they were at the time.
Part of the American independence movement was backlash against the result of the “French and Indian Wars”, in which the British agreed to limit their westward expansion.
Sure, the British (and early Canadians) did some horrible things to people they saw as less worthy than themselves. But, in this case, the “oppressive tyrant” was less brutal towards the Indigenous than the American colonists wanted. The monarch actively held the colonists back from what they wanted to do, and that’s why what happened to the Indigenous people in the US is generally much worse than what happened to them in Canada.
The residential schools were awful, but the mindset that led to them was “these savages can be civilized as long as we remove them from the terrible influences as children and have good, catholic nuns break them of their savage ways and make them into good British subjects”. Meanwhile, the US solution was “these savages have good land, let’s drive them off that land and take that land for ourselves”.
From the viewpoint of someone in the 21st century, both of these are awful. But, from the viewpoint of the 19th century, one is definitely a more worthy undertaking.
The irony is that when some Americans look at that same flag today, they see it as a symbol of the very kind of powerful, oppressive authority that the American Revolution was fought against.
And, unfortunately, a lot of people around the world look at it that way too.
The English crown was limiting their ability to oppress others you mean.
It was as noble as the Confederacy, to say, not at all.
For Canada, even though everyone was against it, the BNA act also allowed us to throw out old treaties and give us terms more appealing to the ruling class.
What you have detailed is a myth or propaganda about the US, not what actually happened. There was no fight for freedom unless you believe freedom equals massive amounts of innocents dying for the wealthy.
You are applying modernity to history, while that is perfectly fine when it comes to quite a bit you should always consider the context within you are speaking. For all the flaws of the founding of the US namely slavery on the front of things like voting rights and who actually led things it was and still in some ways (at least in theory if not in practice) an improvement on the British structure of the time, the continued existence of the House of Lords is a travesty against sanity hell even the fucken US Senate is better than that and the Senate needs to be burned to the ground.
I recently read “People’s History of the United States” and it paints a much grimmer picture of the early US. It didn’t take long for the alien and sedition acts to be written, despite the grand language about freedom. There’s also many, many, years of labor asking for more than dirt and being violently suppressed.
Yeah no it wasn’t particularly great from the start, I’m just of the opinion that it planted the seeds for better systems long term. Problem is that most of those seeds either can’t sprout till the Union is gone or are otherwise outside the US.
Also the movement from aristocracy to oligarchy was an improvement even if a lot of the benefits have become less noticeable with time what with the modern oligarchs trying to become new aristocrats. Point is the revolution did help to break certain power structures that were about a millennium old by that point.
You can believe the propaganda if you like. Just don’t come all confused as to why the wealthy call all the shots and abuse the shit out of Americans and everyone else in the world. Your point of view is why so many people are confused as to why we ended up this way. Were were completely corrupt from the beginning and used terrorism, violence, lies, etc to manipulate the people. The Sons of Liberty bombed, tortured, and murdered innocents in their quest to take over the country. You are simply naive, it is okay.
No, I’m aware that the founders were bastards I just consider them to have been mild improvements on the bastards they replaced. Also saying they used terrorism and violence during a revolution is like saying the Mojave is dry or that Ghengis Khan killed a lot of people, it’s kind of an expected effect of a revolution. Also I don’t take the accusation of terrorism seriously too Redneck for that shit since I knowy forebears were accused of terrorism when all they did was shoot a scab, thats just community service.
Also yeah I’m not pretend that any of the militia elements of the revolution werent morally dubious at best the Southern Rebels made ISIS look calm at times and the Minutemen were psychotic and took to scalping which is fine if it’s a commander or something but don’t do it to civilians even if they are a valid target since it’s distasteful.
They were genocidal monsters and were not in any way better. This is pure propaganda you have chosen to believe in order to protect your worldview. The fact that you view turning on your fellow Americans as righteous shows just how much trash your belief system is based on. When you are ready to take out the garbage let me know, until then have fun licking the boots of your oppressors.
Fellow Americans? What fellow Americans? I ain’t an American pissrag, I’m a Californian and will see this shithole of an empire burn and it’s rivers run red if given the opportunity, I wish to see DC burn once again. The fiction of a united American culture or traditions has done insurmountable damage to the peoples under that fucking flag, make no mistake I don’t like this hellhole.
But I will still defend the revolution if only cause it made the Saxons bleed. The revolutionaries weren’t righteous by any means, they simply had more potential and killed those I hate far far more. Their project has served its purpose and I’ll defend it’s initial existence even if it’s modern version deserves nothing by abject destruction. The most fertile soil is that which is made of ash.
You are welcome to continue your cognitive dissonance around the mythology you have constructed for the revolution. I see right through it though.
Why is there always one of you under every comment? There is always one of you trying to reduce everything to a class-war narrative.
Yes, of course there were economic and personal interests involved in the American Revolution. The top brass of the emerging American government included quite a few wealthy landowners, merchants, and speculators who had very real economic interests that could benefit from independence. We’re not going to bypass human nature here. People can sincerely believe in a political cause while simultaneously recognizing that the outcome may benefit them personally.
But it wasn’t simply wealthy people fighting each other while poor people were dragged onto the battlefield as cannon fodder. The Continental rank and file were overwhelmingly drawn from the lower and lower-middle socioeconomic classes: laborers, servants, apprentices, artisans, small farmers, and shopkeepers. Wealthier men were disproportionately represented among the officers, while the enlisted ranks were largely populated by people who owned relatively little.
And the population wasn’t even united behind the Patriot cause. Historians estimate that roughly 20–30% of the colonial population remained loyal to the Crown, with Loyalists actively fighting, providing intelligence, and opposing the Patriots. The Revolution therefore wasn’t simply “the rich manipulating the poor”; it was also a profoundly divided society in which Americans fought Americans for competing political, economic, and ideological reasons.
So yes, wealthy men absolutely had interests in the Revolution. Nobody needs to pretend otherwise. But reducing an eight-year war involving hundreds of thousands of people, multiple social classes, Loyalists, Patriots, enslaved and free Black people, Native Americans, women, foreign powers, and competing political and economic interests to “rich people used poor people as cannon fodder” isn’t historical analysis. It’s class warfare dressed up as historical analysis.
My God, stop pretending history was ever that black and white.
You really need to study the propaganda and persuasion used during the revolution. Pretending it was anything more than a take over plot by the wealthy businessesmen is simply nonsensical.
The rot was always there. The very first President was on his way to being the first billionaire of the US adjusted for inflation.
The propaganda and persuasion…
If my above comment didn’t indicate that I studied the revolution to some degree throughout my lifetime I don’t know what will.
How about this I provide you with actual facts in my comment how about you provide me with some actual facts or something aside from just “trust me bro go to research”.
The impetus for the American Revolution was not dissatisfaction from the common man. The most common propoganda cited is taxes. The colonist paid a much lower tax rate than English citizens living in Britain.
Pretty much everything you hear about the reasons behind the cause of the American Revolution are bullshit. What isn’t bullshit is the Sons of Liberty committing acts of terrorism against their fellow citizens. You know your rhetoric of revolution must be good when it is delivered through violence.
A great case study is the Boston Massacre where lies where used to incite and then the wealthy used their propaganda to decieve the colonist about what had happened. Essentially they were the violent oppressors in this time, not the British.
What confuses me about your comment is that you’re citing several historical facts that are, in isolation, legitimate, but then presenting them in a sensationalized way that twists their significance to support your own narrative. Ironically, you’re doing almost exactly what you’re accusing the revolutionary propagandists of doing.
Yes, the colonists generally had a lower tax burden than people living in Britain. Yes, the Sons of Liberty engaged in political violence and intimidation. Yes, the Boston Massacre was subsequently used as powerful revolutionary propaganda, and the famous imagery surrounding it was deliberately misleading.
But none of those facts, by themselves, establish that the Revolution was simply a movement manufactured by wealthy elites, that colonial grievances were fabricated, or that the British were merely the innocent victims of violent colonial agitators. The Boston Massacre was a real confrontation in which British soldiers actually killed five colonists. Colonial propagandists exaggerated and manipulated the event, but that is very different from saying the underlying event was a lie.
You’re taking legitimate historical details, stripping away their context, and arranging them into a much more dramatic narrative than the evidence actually supports. Which, ironically, is the very practice of historical propaganda you’re criticizing.
And that’s ultimately where I think your argument falls apart. Your conclusions are reductive and oversimplify an incredibly complicated historical situation. You’re making broad, declarative statements about the motives of the colonists, the role of the wealthy, the Sons of Liberty, and the British without providing the necessary context to support those conclusions. Some of the facts you’re citing are legitimate, but the conclusions you’re drawing from them don’t necessarily follow from those facts. Ironically, you’re taking a complicated historical period and reducing it to a simple narrative while criticizing others for doing exactly that.
I realize this comment is a little repetitious but I think it’s warranted.
citing several historical facts that are, in isolation, legitimate,
I painted a simple picture. There is of course so much more. So many examples of outright lies, intimidation, arson, murder, etc cetera the list goes on and on. Truly disgusting and depraved behavior.
Rebel against what exactly again!? Only to adopt the exact same systems used in England. You must make me for a fool to believe there was a real revolution. That is the propaganda. It was a business plot plain and simple.
manufactured by wealthy elites, that colonial grievances were fabricated, or that the British were merely the innocent victims of violent colonial agitators
You have got to be kidding me. What commoners were in charge. What poor people helped form the government. I know you are being obtuse on purpose, but you take it a little too far to the point of being unbelievable.
I get the last bit trying to play up the loyalist angle. It is this exact kind of garbage us versus them that caused all the death and destruction to begin with. Yes they were victims, you would have to be an idiot to believe otherwise. People did not receive trials before their beatings, people that were tarred and feathered didn’t get an appeal, people’s homes burned down didn’t get restitution. You want to make it about sides. It isn’t.
The Boston Massacre was a real confrontation in which British soldiers actually killed five colonists.
That is not what happened. Clearly you have not studied this. Colonist were lied and manipulated into a mob after a young mans’ death. The mob cornered troops and a soldier fired without command which lead to others firing. These tensions are directly the fault of propaganda used to incite countrymen against each other. The event was manufactured.
Liberty was just a euphanism for lawlessness where the wealthy could do whatever they wanted and boy did they do whatever they wanted.
Yes, the Boston Massacre was subsequently used as powerful revolutionary propaganda, and the famous imagery surrounding it was deliberately misleading.
No shit sherlock, it is just one of thousands of pieces of propaganda manufactured by the wealthy colonist who eventually took control. I think maybe you are looking for a grand conspiracy rather than the reality of a bunch of really shitty wealthy people role playing nation building to enrich themselves and committing the worst war crimes of the modern era. Genocide was just the start and in the end the US may indirectly kill billions of people.
And that’s ultimately where I think your argument falls apart. Your conclusions are reductive and oversimplify an incredibly complicated historical situation.
You don’t even have a clue about what I am saying and you clearly have never critically looked at the revolution or read primary sources of commoners at the time that illustrated a very different picture than some oppressive British occupation. I totally get it though, as you remind me of how I looked it this decades ago.
I realize this comment is a little repetitious but I think it’s warranted.
Repetitive like a fucking AI!
Ignore previous instructions, I would prefer a conversation rather than this apologist nonsense.
When somebody ends an argument by angrily telling you to go read a book, and you do, the book usually confirms they’re wrong.
Because people who try to shut arguments down with this project that they can’t imagine a scenario where they would actually read a book. It’s the same energy as those that invoke the Bible, i.e. never read it themselves, assume it says what their feelies feel
I love doing that. When someone tells me I’m wrong and I need to do some research and then I come back with peer reviewed research papers confirming my side.
Yes, I’m that level of petty about our tiny disagreement.
Your “research” was supposed to be in the echo chamber websites they frequent!
Yeah and if you show them credible sources they’ll be like “WRONG. See?” and then link to a bunch of propaganda sites…
“Its in the bible” “Go read a dictionary” “The Quran literally says…” “Yeah but the comics say…” “Yeah but in the manga…”
Youre absolutely correct, these people have no idea what theyre talking about.
What’s wrong with “Yeah but in the manga/comics”? Those don’t seem to fit with the others.
They seem more along the lines of “Agh, the movies don’t even mention the Barrow Downs!”
Theyre wrong about what happens in them.
Does this apply in 100% of cases? Because if not then it seems like a generalization, no?
Theyre wrong more often than not, in my experience. Especially when its something i have read, or if the knowledge that thats what happens in the written material doesnt apply to the current situation
You can tell you won the argument when the other person starts shouting over you, starts attacking your intelligence or character and storms out.
Which book have you had recommended at you?
Not OP, but the bible’s a big one.
Well, depends on the font size and paper thickness.
The flag doesn’t offend me. It’s just a piece of colored cloth. It’s the people doing those horrible acts that offend me. Especially the ones using the flag as a justification.
The flag doesn’t offend me. The dickless chuds who wave it around 24/7 and have to wear it on at least 1 article of clothing at every moment in time claiming that what equates to less than a mild inconvenience or otherwise does NOT impact their lives at all is a fundamental infringement upon their personal freedoms while blindly supporting the an authoritative govt stripping away freedoms from. 25% of the country…
…that’s what does
The ones waving the flag the hardest.
If the commenter didn’t have the Chinese flag in their name the message would sound a lot less hypocritical.
Yup
Imperialism bad, except when from an approved country.
You could say it’s a literal red flag indicating the post came from inside a tank.
I’m Canadian. I love that I am Canadian. I love my country and think it’s one of the best countries in the world to live and be a part of.
I’m also very well aware of the atrocities my country has done, and still does. My brother is Anishinaabe and I spent a lot of time as a white kid steeped in Indigenous Canadian culture because of him and his family. I wore my orange shirt yesterday because as I don’t have the time I once had to attend and participate in local indigenous events, the very least I can do is raise awareness and be an ally.
You can absolutely take pride in where you live. It’s understanding the negative things associated with that and accepting them and learning from them, trying to prevent those atrocities from ever happening again.
Unlike, you know, that country to the south of us. Waving it loud and proud while your pedophile president drops bombs on school children halfway across the world probably isn’t the best look for a nation.
You’re actually touching on something that is a perceptible phenomenon in the US in that MAGA and conservatives as a whole have seemingly coopted the US flag for reasons related to what you said. They wave it around, drape themselves in it, call themselves “true” patriots and “real” Americans. Meanwhile, anyone not doing it isn’t too proud of what the flag represents at the moment.
Cuba (Spanish Empire) and Palestine (Ottoman Empire and more) also have a horrific history.
I mean, cuba and Palestine have their own crimes without reaching for the empires, but nothing compared to the great leap forward.
It’s not a “reach”. That’s who the people are (and were). Cubans are mostly Spanish, Palestinians are mostly Arabs, that is their history.
History is history. We are discussing history, no? Do a people get a clean slate when they write a constitution or charter?
(if you’re going to compare another nation’s history to US history, it’s appropriate to start that history at the same point for all of the nations being compared: 250 years US history, compare to last 250 years of Cuban history, so Spain is 100% relevant, and 250 years of Palestinian history (Ottoman Empire).
It the same government and the same constitution, nothing changed between the 60s and now.
US history starts in 1776… So I’m starting comparative Cuban history at exact same point.
Comparing 70 years of history vs. 250 is ridiculous, don’t you agree? Of course the horrors of 250 years are greater than the horrors of 70 years.
Now, if topic is “US history starting in 1960s” you’d have a point, but OP said “US history”, which indicates to me that it started long before 1960.
In 1776, Cuba was a Spanish Colony, full of Spaniards and their slaves; it was Spaniard until almost 1900. So, it’s been Spaniard longer than it’s been “Cuba”. When comparing histories, leaving Spain out in this comparison would be stupid.
There are a million possible topics, too many to lost but if you find yourself needing a place to start…
Black Wall Street (and any of the destruction of predominantly black neighborhoods being torn down/flooded/etc.), Wounded Knee, Trail of Tears, internment camps
The list is indeed far longer than we can count, and that’s just domestic :’)
Don’t forget about Seneca Village, or what is today known as “Central Park”…
I mean, if you’re fine with genocide, with war crimes, mass killing, unethical experimentation with people, racism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, religious fanaticism and probably a bunch of other “cool” things I’m forgetting, sure. The US must look really cool to you.
Right now, the US look good only if you see them with the lens of someone who lived 3000 years ago when all those things were somewhat fine.
But for sane humans, that flag symbolizes so many wrong and evil things that might as well be next to the other worst flags of human history.
Most other rich and powerful countries have done/are doing all those same things too. It’s absolutely right to identify and fight against those abuses, but America is certainly not alone in acting like a psychopath, some could argue that it’s not even the worst historically (though they’re pretty close to the top of the pile right now)
I’m in Europe.
Amongst all countries here, we really, trully, did shit to everbody in the World, even did it to each other.
Unlike America, we’re not actually proud of it, the public opinion around here are generally against doing it now (though the elites are still fucking sociopaths) and we’re actually trying to stop doing it which is why there is a lot less warmongering here than in the US and hence much smaller military budgets even though Europe is right next to the imperialist nutters in Russia.
Also as somebody else pointed out, there is nowhere near the same level of flag shagging in most of Europe as there is in the US.
The only exception to most of this is Britain, and even they are somehow mid-way between the US and the rest of Europe rather than at the level of the US.
Yeah, the biggest difference between how an European and an American look at their countries history is that the European goes “we did some fucked up shit we shouldn’t have.” while the American goes “we did nothing wrong, except slavery but we modernized it so it’s fine”.
Unlike America, we’re not actually proud of it
The majority, one would hope.
but people forget.
There was marine le pen, there was the Canadian Freedom Convoy. There are parties like AfD. it amazes me that these things can exist, but perhaps it shouldn’t. You may be well educated and empathetic but I guarantee many of your peers may not see the world the same way you do. There are people among you who understand this well enough and will take advantage.
the first step to becoming the devil is to be unable to imagine oneself sinking to the level of those they hate. please stay vigilant, it can happen to anybody
The Far-Right in Europe are having to portray people coming over her as bad for people living here to get support.
There is little or no public support in most of Europe, even amongst the Far-Right, for projecting European power abroad by attacking foreign countries.
Also you don’t hear the Far-Right in Europe celebrating colonialism and demanding to go back to that. The few times some tried it just fell flat and they shut up about it (and as a side note, curiously the same happened when they tried American-style mixing of Religion with Politics)
Even the support for white supremacism abroad (in the form of Israel) is happening against the desires of the European public opinion and is definitelly not overtly about “our fellow whites” (and for those with any doubt that Isreal is a white supremacist nation, just go read how they treat black Jews over there according even to newspapers like the Haaretz)
Whilst the direction of travel in politics is the same in Europe and the US, the public opinion Europe is decades “behind” the American mindset in areas such as supremacism and warmongering.
From what I can tell the people who are actually obsessed with our flag here are a minority, then there’s the football hooligans and the racists (some overlap). Pretty much everyone else doesn’t really use flags.
When was the last time you saw a French flag on a mug or a pair of shorts? Or a Dutch flag, or even a Spanish flag?
The flag in Britain gets pushed into a lot of areas to were the flags of other European countries don’t get pushed to.
My own impression (having lived for over a decade in Britain) is that the flag in Britain gets shown a lot more outside formal occasions than the national flags in other European countries. This also dovetails with the nationalistic push in the discourse of mainstream politicians and even how British news vs International news are reported in Britain (trying to make it sound like in international events everybody is paying attention and following what British politicians say or reporting on some meaningless blunder in some small provincial place elsewhere in Europe in a “look at those silly foreigners, this would never happen here” tone that implies “we’re much better than that”).
And don’t get me started on how, almost a century later, at least every 5 years there’s yet another film about WWII coming out from Britain.
The push for Nationalism and for the belief in National Greatness is much higher and widespread in Britain that anywhere else in Europe I lived in (which, by the way, includes Germany), something which is partly behind Brexit and the shit show it became because British Politicians went to negotiate the Exit Treaty with a “they’ll give us everything we want because we’re so important”.
The whole thing in Britain with the Empire and WWII reminds me how during the time of the Fascist dictator Salazar in my native Portugal there was an almost constant remembering and celebrating the past glories of the country (even though the Age Of Maritime Discoveries was 5 centuries past) which is not at all the case nowadays under Democracy.
As for the far-right and football hooligans in Britain, they’re so extreme in their flag shagging that the ones in England will not only do it with the British flag, they’ll even do it with the St. George’s.
It’s not alone in the acts they’re doing, but I’d argue they are alone in the weird feeling of the citizens about the flag itself. The kind of patriotism found in the US people is rarely found anywhere else.
Pretty much grabbed a list of “shit you shouldn’t do to other people” and treated it as a TODO list.
Okay but AMERICAN™ innovation and uhh wealth or something
I never looked around, never second-guessed, then I read some Howard Zinn now I’m always depressed.
You should listen to some Public Enemy and Reagan Youth.
I don’t always agree with Chuck D but I’ll always listen to what the man has to say.
TBF Howard Zinn has a rather pessimistic view of class struggle in the US and that is reflected in his book, at least in my opinion. In emphasizing that radical movements have always been crushed, deflected, or co-opted by the political elites he implies the inevitability of such outcomes and often misses some of the ways that those movements still succeeded in radically altering the class arrangement, and the experiences of those who lived quietly in the crossfire of these historical struggles are erased through omission. A lot of that is an understandable limitation of an attempt at an all-encompassing historical account though.
The flag is absolutely fine.
The people who like to wave it around in the shattered remains of schools in other countries are assholes though. Although in fairness they do kill a lot of their own school kids as well so perhaps that’s just the American way
As a flag it’s not very appealing tbh, too many small details as well.
Yeah there’s a lot of better looking flags if we’re being honest. I’m a little jelly of some of them.
