How does the World view America these days?

  On 8/13/2020 at 9:54 PM, Nebraska said:

real life clayton bigsby spotted in rural alabama

 

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As a native american, I never understood how one can have such ridiculous pride about how we're better than another country. It's such an unhealthy mindset, since we're just one entire world. I don't believe one country is superior to another, there's tons of things I love about all sorts of countries with culture, food, media, etc and I've always hated conflicts, war and how all countries govern (including America).

^^^ yeah.. nationalism is generally shit that leads to more shit.  it's a tool that people in power often use to control people. america is full of it. 

  On 8/14/2020 at 12:32 AM, ignatius said:

  On 8/14/2020 at 12:20 AM, Roo said:

Weird how Americans seem fascinated with the alleged deadliness of Australian wildlife. Our largest land predator is a dingo, which is just a wild dog that in rare cases might pose maul risk to young children. Whereas they have fckin bears! We have crocodiles in the tropics but their alligators cancel that out. We have sharks, but they have Jaws.

poisonous animals arent as scary as man eaters

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i think part of that comes from various pseudo documentary things on Discovery channel for ages now...  about "killers in the midst" where they show all the poisonous snakes in every suburban neighborhood in australia and little kids playing ball and narrowly missing stepping on the 4th most poisonous snake in the world or some shit. as if around every corner in the local park is a pit full of vipers.

i went to australia/new zealand in 2005 and i don't think saw any wildlife but maybe when in sidney i narrowly missed stepping on a viper orgy on my way to the opera house. 

also, people, americans especially, probably don't realize how huge australia is.

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mf ticks & snakes scary every summer !

  On 8/14/2020 at 1:34 AM, prdctvsm said:

 

mf ticks & snakes scary every summer !

there's a tick epidemic on east coast USA. like nuts. there's a wasting disease caused by ticks that's in deer for recent years and they're trying to figure out if it has any effect when deer meat is consumed by humans since deer hunting is a big source of meat for some people. 

deer populations went nuts when all the natural predators were killed off.. wolves i guess?

hella rattle snakes and stuff on east coast.. and also there's pit vipers in florida as well as all the gators and invasive species of reptiles.. huge boa and pythons.

snakes gimme the heebeejeebees.

  On 8/14/2020 at 2:25 AM, ignatius said:

wasting disease caused by ticks

prolly sum variant of Lymes Disease .

^ got bit on the back o' neck last summer by nasty tick. gouged it out unconsciously while doing the dishes coz felt sumfing irritating there. neck blew up like a spare tyre. went 2 dr. & she said yeh/nah don't worry about it - have an early nite, drink sum water, you'll be rite mate.

wasn't all rite mate. neck all stiff, bloated like that NIN singer. nausea. went back 2 medical centre & saw another dr. & 2nd opinion; blood test, antibiotics. got better thankfully, but geez bad trip dem ticks.

won't tell u my snake story lol

  On 8/14/2020 at 3:56 AM, prdctvsm said:

 

prolly sum variant of Lymes Disease .

^ got bit on the back o' neck last summer by nasty tick. gouged it out unconsciously while doing the dishes coz felt sumfing irritating there. neck blew up like a spare tyre. went 2 dr. & she said yeh/nah don't worry about it - have an early nite, drink sum water, you'll be rite mate.

wasn't all rite mate. neck all stiff, bloated like that NIN singer. nausea. went back 2 medical centre & saw another dr. & 2nd opinion; blood test, antibiotics. got better thankfully, but geez bad trip dem ticks.

won't tell u my snake story lol

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shit. craziness. glad  your neck didn't fall off. 

snakes. nope. just nope. 

Im for america pulling back on being the world police. That would pay for health care and a better infrastructure. Half the country is nuts. Ill agree. 

But Europe would have to start spending money on their defense. And don't say from who. Merkel has already said it. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/13/merkel-joins-macron-in-calling-for-a-real-true-european-army

Usa, the country people love to hate. 

I kind of like Trumps attitude to foreign policy. i know it would throw the world into chaos in the long run. Also, like his approach to China. But it's really just his tit for tat attitude. Not a long term strategy

  On 8/14/2020 at 4:58 AM, marf said:

 

I kind of like Trumps attitude to foreign policy. i know it would throw the world into chaos in the long run. Also, like his approach to China. But it's really just his tit for tat attitude. Not a long term strategy

 

 

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there's nothing strategic about it though. or so it seems most of the time. it may benefit someone over someone else but as for america in general it's lot's of bad moves that are counter productive even if the issue is real he runs in the room and shits on the conference table as a response. 

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In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.

The Unraveling of America (Wade Davis/Rolling Stone)

  On 8/14/2020 at 7:13 AM, dcom said:

The Unraveling of America (Wade Davis/Rolling Stone)

hits like a sledgehammer

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COVID-19 didn’t lay America low; it simply revealed what had long been forsaken. As the crisis unfolded, with another American dying every minute of every day, a country that once turned out fighter planes by the hour could not manage to produce the paper masks or cotton swabs essential for tracking the disease. The nation that defeated smallpox and polio, and led the world for generations in medical innovation and discovery, was reduced to a laughing stock as a buffoon of a president advocated the use of household disinfectants as a treatment for a disease that intellectually he could not begin to understand.

As a number of countries moved expeditiously to contain the virus, the United States stumbled along in denial, as if willfully blind. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world’s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating, and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make.

Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent. As they stare into the mirror and perceive only the myth of their exceptionalism, Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country.

 

The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness.

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  On 8/14/2020 at 7:13 AM, dcom said:

The Unraveling of America (Wade Davis/Rolling Stone)

It's ridiculously easy to dump on the US nowadays, but for a Rolling Stone article this is exceptionally poignant:

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For the first time, the international community felt compelled to send disaster relief to Washington. For more than two centuries, reported the Irish Times, “the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity.”

I think "pity" is too often used in a sarcastic/condescending manner. Thinking about one Covid death per minute in the US is just saddening.

  On 8/14/2020 at 9:11 AM, dingformung said:

I think "pity" is too often used in a sarcastic/condescending manner. Thinking about one Covid death per minute in the US is just saddening.

the individual stories are heartbreaking. some news segments do a brief "here are some people we lost" story and it's always awful. i've read some in depth coverage of various people's plights and it's so pointless. all so pointless for this to be happening. it's maddening. 

It's important to understand these things in-depth but also probably not healthy for one's mental well-being to always read/hear/watch about this stuff multiple times a day. I guess it's enough to read the news twice a week to know what's up and not immerse oneself too intensely into the world of horror news. Only makes you anxious and unwell. Triggers bad sort of neurotransmitters that stir up the brain and depress you over time. Hits subconsciousness hard: Images, voices, vortex of terror etc. Keep helf

  On 8/14/2020 at 12:20 AM, Roo said:

Weird how Americans seem fascinated with the alleged deadliness of Australian wildlife. Our largest land predator is a dingo, which is just a wild dog that in rare cases might pose maul risk to young children. Whereas they have fckin bears! We have crocodiles in the tropics but their alligators cancel that out. We have sharks, but they have Jaws.

poisonous animals arent as scary as man eaters

Yeah, kangaroos seem pretty easy to deal with too

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A University of South Florida police officer was fired after an investigation concluded her racist Twitter bio could harm the reputation of the police department.

Garcia, 26, was fired last week, and said she felt let down by the agency. But more than anything else, she said, she wanted people to know she is not racist and condemns racism and the KKK.

“There’s all the talk of ‘Back the Blue,’ but not one person had my back,” she said. “I feel helpless and like I’m drowning. No one was willing to just listen to my story, and I feel like the university was just trying to cover their butts. ... That’s not something I believe in. That’s not how I was raised.”

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https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2020/08/13/usf-police-fire-officer-citing-racist-twitter-bio/

maybe she was a non-active/arm chair member of the invisible empire

  On 8/14/2020 at 11:47 AM, Blir said:

Yeah, kangaroos seem pretty easy to deal with too

 

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Love that stare down from the Kangaroo after the punch.

Kangaroos can be twisted in their outburst. When I was a little kid I came across a kangaroo attempting to drown a young puppy in a creek bed, saw them as evil for a while after that, they have that eerie human quality. Most you come across in the burbs though are harmless by nature, like those big flightless birds just don't piss them off and give them provocation to stand up for themselves and kickbox (hitting them with a car, dogs, kangaroo hunt, golf, etc.)

  On 8/15/2020 at 3:30 AM, prdctvsm said:

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that's a long list. lot's of worthy issues.. but i think it'd go better if we cherry picked 2. one being to save USPS.  picking one or two as a proof of concept would be smart. 

^ +1, Green New Deal pls murca

  On 8/15/2020 at 3:48 AM, prdctvsm said:

^ +1, Green New Deal pls murca

and Salisbury Steak on Thursdays pls. 

Sounds like a good ploy to activise potential Trump voters. Of course there will be radicalists at such events. So this will provide plenty ammo for the Trump squad to say "radical leftists!". 

And tbh, it doesnt even make sense to have this demonstration/strike with a demand and all these subjects. "Demands". The only things you'll get with all these demands is increased divisiveness and an even less effective government. Really, that's all your getting. What's the point of doing this a couple months before the election? Think.