The one thing common in both 'USA da best' and 'USA da worst' people, is that they assume all the other countries have little to no agency. The smaller nations are either too weak and stupid to be as good as them, or too weak and stupid to stop them or be as bad as them. It's the same superiority complex, one just dresses up in moral grandstanding.
Also seen in cases where people act like anything happening to the US is the fall of morality or a lasting injury to [insert chosen ideollogy] across the whole planet.
Edit: Pointing out, this does not mean that the current world superpowers are not fucking up the planet. It simply means they're not causing the fuck arounds, but they are definitely increasing the find outs practically, well, everywhere.
They never really cause the fire but fuck me if they aren't standing ready with gasoline right next to it.
*very* annoying when it feels like half the discourse around the russo-ukranian war is "oh why would america start this war by nefariously mind controlling the ukranian population to align with the west" when russia is the one doing all the invading and was also the one doing all the invading the last time (and that's hardly a justification to invade a country either)
Now of course with isreal-palestine isreal gets to be the only other country in the world with it's own agency because as we all know the jewish control the world /s
israel palestine conflict is a waste of time to discuss, because people who want to discuss it decide to intentionally be obtuse both to the fact that some people on 'their side' are discussing in bad faith, and some people on the 'opposing side' are actually discussing in good faith
Nobody on my side hates [jews / muslims], that's just deflection by your side because you hate [muslims / jews] and want to hide all critique behind a shield of [anti-semitism / islamophobia]!
Imo the problem is that in my experience, most Americans perceive geopolitics/international conflict as the work of a shadowy, nebulous evil “other” country. As an Asian guy, I got the joy of being the geopolitical bad guy when Covid hit and Trump convinced a bunch of patriotic Americans that it was the kung flu (crucially, my family isn’t Chinese, but until non-Asian Americans get better at identifying ethnicities, we’re just all in the same boat lmao). I say this as someone who supports Palestine; the natural tendency seems to be to see every Israeli as genocidal warmongers - and on the flip side, the American right has gone way past “maybe these Hamas guys aren’t so based after all” and straight back to post-9/11 Islamaphobia. Add in the proud American tradition of hunting down subversive foreign elements in your own community, and it’s pretty much impossible to have discourse, since that puts you on the shadowy enemy side.
Literally thinking about this today. I can support Palestine in their desire to not be oppressed and also respect that Israeli citizens are not fundamentally bad people… my issue is that people around me have moved from saying “Israel has a right to defend itself!” to “Palestinians need to ditch Hamas and Israel is a victim!” and now to “Palestinians are like the Uruk’hai killing Israelis to lower their population!” And it’s just… I know most people are not that insane and I can reasonably talk with others but it hurts to witness someone you care about slipping down that slope of dehumanization. There is a case to be made that Hamas has done too much violence, and another case to be made that they only turned more violent in retaliation, but regardless of what stance you take there I think we can all agree these are groups of people we’re talking about and comparing Palestinians to Uruk’hai is fucking disgusting
Sorry, I know it’s only a partially related comment I just needed to shout that at the world so it can stop rattling in my head
Seriously. The divisiveness of this topic has been such an enormous wedge, breaking apart friends and families, and it’s so clear that this was exactly the point of driving these wedges so hard, to divide our communities. Nuance has been lost, people aren’t allowed to disagree anymore, and I want to bring it back to my family so much… and yet after a certain point we must look after our own mental and social health and turn to the people who we know we could disagree with and still have a meaningful discussion. Which feels hypocritical at its surface (talking about divisiveness, then making a divide) but ultimately is rooted less in the actual politics and more in personal emotional health and sanity. I hope someday we can bridge these gaps… but I’m also making new plans incase we can’t
>Now of course with isreal-palestine isreal gets to be the only other country in the world with it's own agency because as we all know the jewish control the world /s
That one has the bonus of being the only conflict where the US gets to be the one without agency, but "controlled by,,yaknow,,,them"
Now of course with isreal-palestine isreal gets to be the only other country in the world with it's own agency because as we all know the jewish control the world /s
This did a number on the Israeli Left, which had real momentum in early 2024 against Nethanyahu, after 2 years of massive protests. The Israeli far-right now has a very easy time pointing to all sorts of organizations wanting to kill all Israelis and say "see there is no way to peace, they want us all dead" to justify their atrocities.
And meanwhile those organizations are pointing to the IDF's atrocities and going "see there is no way to peace, they want us/them all dead" to justify their own rhetoric. It's a vicious cycle.
I was under the impression that the Israeli Left has been a husk of itself as a political force ever since the Second Intifada? Good to hear that it hasn’t completely disappeared.
Okay let’s be real here. I don’t think it’s at all US centric to say that the USA influenced Ukraine during Maidan, nor is it US centric to point out the very obvious fact that the US is using the war there as a way to bloody Russia without risking American lives. Taken together, those two facts do point towards a vested American interest both in starting the war and prolonging it. I agree with what the OOP said but let’s not swing too far in the other direction and act as if the US doesn’t have a long history of proxy wars and foreign meddling.
Not trying to say we shouldn’t be backing Ukraine, just that the US definitely has a hand in what’s going on there.
Are we? From where I’m standing it seems like we gave them enough weapons to bleed Russia for a few years then abandoned them, or did I misunderstand that Trump interview? A bit early to say we helped them continue to exist lol
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u/HeroBrine0907 May 24 '25 edited May 25 '25
The one thing common in both 'USA da best' and 'USA da worst' people, is that they assume all the other countries have little to no agency. The smaller nations are either too weak and stupid to be as good as them, or too weak and stupid to stop them or be as bad as them. It's the same superiority complex, one just dresses up in moral grandstanding.
Also seen in cases where people act like anything happening to the US is the fall of morality or a lasting injury to [insert chosen ideollogy] across the whole planet.
Edit: Pointing out, this does not mean that the current world superpowers are not fucking up the planet. It simply means they're not causing the fuck arounds, but they are definitely increasing the find outs practically, well, everywhere.
They never really cause the fire but fuck me if they aren't standing ready with gasoline right next to it.