Kind of a vague question. But I guess anyone that responds can state their interpretation.
Edit:
I guess I’m asking because everything I’ve learned about America seems to not be what I was told? Idk how to explain it. Like it feels like USA is one event away from a civil war outright corruption and turning into a D class country.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. As someone from a country currently going through civil war, the US is nowhere near close.
Sorry you’re going through that. Civil war is a tragedy no matter where or why.
The difference with America is, I think, that ours has already come and gone, but it never really did go away because we failed to stamp it out and rebuild properly. The rebellion was romanticized and whitewashed, sanitized and lionized. It’s always said that the south lost the war and won the peace. It’s probably never going to break out into a full-on fighting war like it was, but it exists very much as a bane on our social fabric, the integrity of our institutions, and our socioeconomics. America can never become as good as its advertising until it has reckoned with its deepest schisms.
To answer OP’s question: The America I was raised to believe in (this one, to put it succinctly) doesn’t exist. I emigrated with my family to the UK, my ancestral family home. Without America, me, my wife, and child probably could never have existed, coming together from different parts of the world as our families did. I’m glad of that, but we had to divest ourselves from its fate or remain complicit in tyranny and war. My process of disillusionment began before I was even fully grown, over 20 years ago, when the towers fell and I began to start asking questions about how we got to that point, and why we reacted as we did.
No matter where life takes me I’ll probably always stand for the enlightenment ideals of that mythical America I was raised to believe in, but it exists for me as a platonic ideal, a sort of mathematical absolute that can only ever be badly approximated in real world terms.
Every country is different.
I would say at least in the American civil war I know who to root for. In ours we’ve got a corrupt kleptocratic oppressive government turned military junta vs a genocidal militia headed by a rich and powerful warlord with ties to the Russian Wagner group. And oh by the way the militia was supported and enabled by the former regime as they used it to hold onto power but now it’s turned against them. So it’s like “pick your poison”. I thank my lucky stars I don’t live there but I also stopped following the news cause it’s horrible.
I agree America has some serious problems but they’re just not on the same level as the 3rd world.
I hate to say it but your description could be two or three different countries in the world I can think of. I’m going to guess Sudan?
That’s awful beyond words. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you’re caught in that, or that Wagner is so vilely prolific that what you’ve told me doesn’t even narrow it down to the continent.
Were you still living there while tensions rose?
What sorts of things did you notice?
I would say that the only thing that makes a nation genuine is that there is land that a government can control, defend and administrate.
Which also makes a lot of unrecognized nations still nations. And I’m fine with that. Taiwan is the most obvious example, but another would be Somaliland.
I find nations problematic because they are units that are too large and therefore are controlled by groups not easily overseen and almost impossible to make accountable by the population.
The USA is not only a nation but an empire, which is like a nation with an integrated, violently imposed pyramid scheme.
If only we could find a way to organize into independent smaller units that federate into larger units and remain tolerant of the differences of the smaller units. Ironically that is what the USA seems to have attempted to do with their united states thing?
To a degree, but recent years have definitely shown the flaws of the EU model as it currently is. I do have some faith that the EU can and will reform itself to overcome those problems, as it is still a very young entity in the grand scheme of things and is generally quite effective legislatively. Things like Brexit and Hungary’s obstructionism show that it is currently far too easy for governments within the EU to scapegoat it for local problems, and the Syrian migrant crisis really tested the unity of it.
A lot of that is politicians creating an ‘us - them’ situation and the news sensationalizing it because it makes people watch which is revenue. That said, the Republican party has gone completely off the deep end. I have some friends that are very worried. I have some friends who believe strongly enough in our system of checks and balances that they’re not terribly worried, just irritated and frustrated.
ETA- also, they have to fill the 24-hour news channels with something, so everything is documented and shown over and over. That’s why people on the right think crime is increasing and people on the left think racism is increasing. Both occur less, but are in your face more.
that’s not a nation, just 4 corporations in a trench coat.
It depends. America is really big, so it needs more corporations to fill a coat.
The Uk is just 1.5 corporations in a trench coat
France. Motherfuckers will go on strike at the drop of a hat. I wish, at least in Canada, we had the same kind of guts. Quebec is the closest but not nearly close enough.
I love the French for being the most outspoken people among the European countries and having a ton of good initiatives going on. But don’t idolize them, most of their population is just as braindead and complacent as the rest of us Europeans, and their general unwillingness to speak English like most other Europeans hinders the spreading of their radical initiatives in the rest of Europe. (Sorry for the blatant generalizing. Not every French, not every European, …)
The most fundamental aspect of a nation is to be able to enforce your sovereignty against anyone that thinks you’re not a “genuine nation” and the US probably does this better than most nations in the world.
So very genuine.
I guess that’s not what I’m thinking either. It just feels like the “image” of America isn’t what America actually is. Like there’s a marketed campaign to make things seem better than they actually are.
I mean, yeah stuff like “land of the free”, “the land of opportunity” or “the american dream” are just slogans. But I think most people realise that by now.
I don’t think you can have a single image of America. What applies in one place doesn’t apply somewhere else.
The Oregon Tourism department put together a wonderful campaign showing how different we are, you couldn’t run this even across the border in Washington or Northern California:
The image of USA is not good, at all, if that’s what you’re asking. I used to care, but some time around 2016 I simply gave up. Something about an obvious grifter and professional fuckwit, seriously considered to lead anything other than a burger to his fat face. The alternative, although infinitely better, is clearly suffering from some dementia. It’s just a shit show.
And that’s just the politics. But it mirrors most other fucked up things in the US. The obvious and effective approaches are not considered. So… best to not spend too much effort and hope the impact of it reaching critical mass isn’t too bad.
