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.
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, …)
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’m continually disappointed that America doesn’t live up to what I learned about in civics class 30 years ago.
I have clear memories of sitting in class as a kid, asking the most basic questions about checks and balances, separation of powers, equality under the law etc. and being absolutely mesmerized by the topics. I remember thinking, “wow, I live there? I’m so lucky.”
When my teacher said “not even the president is above the law” I remember some other kid really trying to grasp the idea that every single person is supposed to be treated equally by the justice system, regardless of their family, job, or religion. It wasn’t a concept that came naturally to everyone.
It wasn’t until high school and college that I finally understood that these were just ideals that we talk about but don’t fully actualize. America is not the unicorn we think it is, but we’re great at lying to ourselves from a very young age. Howard Zinn was a big part of my waking up to reality.
That’s not to say we don’t strive for improvement, but when one of the two political parties is hell-bent on dismantling the administrative state, taking away bodily autonomy for more than half the population, reverting our ‘culture’ and laws to the 1800s, destroying our planet, discarding science, fetishizing killing-machines in daily life and warfare across the globe, and so much more regressive bullshit, we’re not really setting ourselves up to realize those ideals.
So yeah, America is a genuine country, but it’s not what it should be or what many people think it is.
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.
The nation was built on ideals it wasn’t practicing at the time. It has made the country a hypocrite, but it also gives guidance on what the country should be.
That there is a conflict between the ideals of the country and the current practice of those ideals is nothing new.
This is a very good way to say it.
I love my country for its heart, its people, its ideals.
I mourn my country for its ignorance, its failures, and its systemic ills.
I hate my country for what it has done to most of the rest of the world in trying to ‘supposedly’ promote freedom and democracy.
It’s a very complicated thing, patriotism. And it means nothing if you have it while your eyes are closed to reality.
