How does the World view America these days?

I've been thinking about this a while since I visited the States. after being exposed to American (pop)culture most of my life, then witnessing American life first-hand, and reading all these first-person stories/watching videos in the Youtube era and whatnot over the years, I've come to some conclusions that I can't shake:

- "ordinary" Americans, i.e. the lower to middle-class, the vast majority of people, are exploited the fuck out of. the country is built on their backs (a healthy proportion of these being migrant backs), they get rewarded fuck-all (basic pay and leave/entitlements for the hardest workers are a joke, call a spade a spade already; let's not even start on healthcare), the fruits of their work go to those at the top, the country makes visible strides as a whole in terms of material development/economic growth, but the people who need their dues the most get the least of it. social progress is what really matters, and that's what seems to be at risk.

- the system, while it must have started with noble aims, has increasingly been engineered to facilitate this exploitation. blame the YOLO Reptilian Illuminati or whatever, but at some point some bad people got hold of the reins and they found some really clever ways to subvert the original principles underlying the country's foundation, to the point where many Americans brainwash themselves, autonomously, into submission. look at that fuck in the video above who antagonises the protestors with "I've got ma jerb, I work hard, hurrr". this is all there is for a lot of people, they cling to it with full pride, not knowing that there's more to life than working your ass off in low-paying labour for the rest of your life. this "make America great again" shit is a pure gyp along these lines.

- essentially, it's the same human story of the elite few in power controlling and exploiting the masses, repeating itself, as seen all over the world and throughout history. but at no time in the past has there been such smooth coercion, such buy-in from the masses themselves. talk shit about the Commies, but at least the flaws of their system were clear to see, and eventually the system was so insupportable that it collapsed and fragmented. I wonder if the Founding Fathers had any idea how subtly things would devolve by this point.

Americans are people like any other, with the same core virtues and the same core flaws, and I'm not singling them out for criticism. but as a country, shit is off track. edit: I should probably also make it clear that I don't pretend to be an authority on this, these are just my observations from where I'm standing and with my admittedly limited perspective (I've never lived in the States).

  On 1/6/2016 at 7:33 AM, chenGOD said:

Crackers and people involved in identity theft are going to find ways to do this regardless

excuse me, how dare you try to paint this as a predominantly white crime?

Nah Usagi, you nailed it.

So it's like a few extremely wealthy mob bosses running the show basically. And yeah our health care is a fraud. When I lived in Japan I was required to register for their national health care even as a foreign resident, and I don't think it costed more than the Yen equivalent of $15/mo.

This is all kinda why I'm hoping for Sanders' victory, come Nov. 8th. We need somebody to fix this income inequality bullshit for once.

pretty fuckin accurate Usagi & all underpinned by fear - things like fear of loss of job-based health insurance, fear of racial tension, a weary heritage (already), just throw in housing 'zones' based on specific educational privileges, which maintains social structures, a lust for global jurisdiction to exert national interest that makes even British colonial history look like a polite prelude of pillaging compared with certain things today. And guns. What an opportunity wasted. Rampant consumerism was the most blatant aspect imho, mostly due to the low cost of living (best pair of Nikes i've owned were $12 in a Nordstrom sale, so contagious too). And while i still think its a great place to visit, its not necessarily an ideal place to live if you fall outside of some of these entrenched boundaries.

"The Empire never ended"

- Horselove Fat in VALIS

  On 1/7/2016 at 3:00 AM, usagi said:

 

  On 1/6/2016 at 7:33 AM, chenGOD said:

Crackers and people involved in identity theft are going to find ways to do this regardless

 

excuse me, how dare you try to paint this as a predominantly white crime?

Sorry to put this here, but something positive...or what i think is positive and important...just got released.

It's an investigation done by members from the senate of the pricing and marketing strategies of a pharmaceutical company. The people investigating had a rare opportunity to look inside the workings of a pharmaceutical company. Even though the outcome wont be a big surprise, the fact that people actually had access to key players and key documents moves this discussion beyond the level of opinions into the world of facts, and better yet, politics. Yes, the world (not just the US!) is one (important!) step closer to solving the issues wrt drug-pricing.

  Quote

 

18-Month Investigation Reveals a Pricing and Marketing Strategy Designed to Maximize Revenue with Little Concern for Access or Affordability

Report Includes Landmark Release of Medicaid Data: In 2014, More than $1 Billion Spent by Medicaid Programs on Sovaldi Treated Less than 2.4 Percent of Enrolled Patients with Hepatitis C

Medicare Spent More on Gilead Hepatitis C Drugs in the First Half of 2015 than in All of 2014

source:

http://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-grassley-sovaldi-investigation-finds-revenue-driven-pricing-strategy-behind-84-000-hepatitis-drug

I don't think having facts will change how things are done in the world.

  On 1/7/2016 at 1:33 PM, azatoth said:

I don't think having facts will change how things are done in the world.

not sure what to do with kind of a loose canon comment like this, but perhaps an example could help lower your cynicism: how about the subject of tax avoidance?

lots of facts have been brought out in the open leading to more (internationally coordinated) initiatives to tackle with this issue.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/taxavoidance

another example, perhaps even more obvious are the snowden leaks. are you paying attention?

in general: lots of policies wouldn't have existed without facts supporting them. (hint: most policies actually are often outside of the public eye, because well people/media are only interested in pulp fiction)

It's more that things change very slowly, even when there are cut and dry facts on the table that point to glaring problems, even those problems that would need quick action (such as climate change). And that pharmaceutical companies are price gouging and doing other shady stuff is hardly news. Sure, now there is proper material showing that, but I am skeptical that there will be much action to change that.

not sure if i understand you correctly, but your skepticism is fed by the idea that things can change quickly? or that quick action is possible, regardless of what the action(s) should be?

the most difficult thing is figuring out what to do (without creating new problems), and yes that could take years. and there could be plenty reasons for that, which i assumed would be trivial to imagine. some justified (international coordination takes time), some less so (fossil fuel/coal industry hijacking political discourse fucking things up).

in the case of the pharm industry: with things getting more transparent, their wiggle room will get smaller and smaller. and when i say pharm. industry, i actually mean the banking and the pharm. industry combined. because the two a very intertwined (consider all the mergers and acquisitions).

i haven't read the report, but my bet is that banks have a huge influence on drug pricing. whenever pharm. companies need to buy their new innovative drugs by buying the innovators, the banks jump in to help and play investor. and because of this dependency, theres also a certain amount of power for the banks. or in other words: tackling this problem will be a bit more complex than one would think, given the way the industry is currently organised.

  On 1/7/2016 at 9:42 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

well said usagi!

  On 1/7/2016 at 3:44 AM, Audioblysk said:

Usagi, you nailed it.

  On 1/7/2016 at 3:44 AM, Audioblysk said:

Usagi, you nailed it.

  On 1/7/2016 at 3:43 PM, goDel said:

not sure if i understand you correctly, but your skepticism is fed by the idea that things can change quickly? or that quick action is possible, regardless of what the action(s) should be?

 

the most difficult thing is figuring out what to do (without creating new problems), and yes that could take years. and there could be plenty reasons for that, which i assumed would be trivial to imagine. some justified (international coordination takes time), some less so (fossil fuel/coal industry hijacking political discourse fucking things up).

 

in the case of the pharm industry: with things getting more transparent, their wiggle room will get smaller and smaller. and when i say pharm. industry, i actually mean the banking and the pharm. industry combined. because the two a very intertwined (consider all the mergers and acquisitions).

 

i haven't read the report, but my bet is that banks have a huge influence on drug pricing. whenever pharm. companies need to buy their new innovative drugs by buying the innovators, the banks jump in to help and play investor. and because of this dependency, theres also a certain amount of power for the banks. or in other words: tackling this problem will be a bit more complex than one would think, given the way the industry is currently organised.

Great that you think that things can change for the better, but I just don't share your optimism. I am a pessimist.

Chief Justice of Alabama Supreme Court has re-banned gay marriage:

http://gawker.com/a-state-judge-just-barred-gay-marriage-in-alabama-1751587881

We live in a time when you have to be polite, but if you look through all of history the leaders that actually accomplished anything, by far, were totally ruthless

  On 1/7/2016 at 9:16 PM, marf said:

We live in a time when you have to be polite, but if you look through all of history the leaders that actually accomplished anything, by far, were totally ruthless

I find this to be pretty interesting lately. We're taught about historical figures as if they were role models, but in order to buck the trends they had to be pretty savage and morally bankrupt some or maybe all of the time. Thomas Edison was a dick, Ben Franklin could be as well. I have no idea if Steve Jobs will be looked at in a similar way decades from now, but they'll probably fudge some inconvenient details. The ends justified the means for them.

  On 1/7/2016 at 10:23 PM, Candiru said:

 

  On 1/7/2016 at 9:16 PM, marf said:

We live in a time when you have to be polite, but if you look through all of history the leaders that actually accomplished anything, by far, were totally ruthless

 

I find this to be pretty interesting lately. We're taught about historical figures as if they were role models, but in order to buck the trends they had to be pretty savage and morally bankrupt some or maybe all of the time. Thomas Edison was a dick, Ben Franklin could be as well. I have no idea if Steve Jobs will be looked at in a similar way decades from now, but they'll probably fudge some inconvenient details. The ends justified the means for them.

 

Thomas Edison was indeed a dick, especially regarding his treatment toward Nikola Tesla, who was the REAL granddaddy of modern electricity. When they talked about how Edison was to credit for electricity in history class in school, I don't recall even one mention of Tesla in those textbooks. This is downright fraudulent.

I suppose I could tell the story in a nutshell, but some of you might already know. If not, Google can point you in the right direction.

EDIT: Holy shit, just realized today was the 73rd anniversary of Tesla's death.

  On 1/7/2016 at 10:23 PM, Candiru said:

have no idea if Steve Jobs will be looked at in a similar way decades from now, but they'll probably fudge some inconvenient details. The ends justified the means for them.

Hopefully history will remember Jobs as a monster who built a toxic, blood-soaked empire on the backs of exploited workers and shameful market maneuvers.

(History should look back on overseas cheap labor by monstrously-wealthy corporations as being just a notch below slavery, IMO. )

P.S. Usagi you nailed it, indeed

My father is the most elegant case study in this I've ever seen

He listens to right-wing propaganda and eats it up

He works his ass off and gets paid dirt by his lazy miserly boss

And yet you'll never meet anyone so pro-capitalism, pro-tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, anti-union, anti-minimum wage hikes, anti-socialism, anti-climate change (just for good measure)

All he talks about is the concerns of business owners

Never a peep about the workers whose labor brings said business owners all their wealth

(Like literally: not a single pro-worker sentiment since I was born)

So yeah the propaganda works like a charm, unfortunately

"AHHHHHHH" -Marilyn Manson

Hipster fucking central in here all anti-Apple/Tesla-praisin'

I'm mostly joking though y'all. Keep on.

sent using magic space waves

https://youtu.be/FW6yK4fjrlE

  On 1/8/2016 at 5:03 PM, auxien said:

Hipster fucking central in here all anti-Apple/Tesla-praisin'

 

I'm mostly joking though y'all. Keep on.

 

sent using magic space waves

Welcome to WATMM.

  On 1/8/2016 at 5:45 PM, Nebraska said:

https://youtu.be/FW6yK4fjrlE

NO MORE 1ST AMENDMENT

GO TRUMP

RAH RAH RAH!

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Make the sign out of sheet metal next time.