All the time I hear about "the CIA will coup this", "America supported that", "These people opposed US Imperialism". A topic could have absolutely nothing to do with america and involve a place on the exact opposite part of the earth and Americans will find a way to make it about America. For example, people talk about Russian politics and Putin yet seem to support Putin wholeheartedly because his Russia "opposes american imperialism". This framing of the conversation seemingly ignoring how Russian people feel about his reign, how the EU has been having to drag america into the latest sanctions against Russia, and how for the last 4 years America had an ostensibly Pro-Russian president. I swear American Leftists don't care at all about Capitalism or Communism and just want to oppose the United States. Most of the world and people don't care about American influence, let alone to such an obsessive degree.

    • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Do you feel the same way about other countries? Would you say for example, when presented with the realities of Nazi Germany that the government is to blame and not it's people?

      Or is it just the US that is held to exception?

          • entrancefee [none/use name]
            hexagon
            ·
            3 years ago

            I don't think the change in regime going from the Wiemar republic to Nazi Germany or Nazi Germany to west/east Germany resulted in many people changing their deep-held political views and opinions. You can be anti-nazi and anti-nazi supporters without hating Germans and Germany. in fact, I think if the soviet union had a policy of hating Germans and demanded repent or whatever else we would see a very different East Germany than we saw.

            • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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              3 years ago

              You say there was no ideological change in Germany's people, but east Germany underwent denazification in the wake of world war 2.

              If the German people were free of fascist ideology and it was just the Nazi party that was responsible, that wouldn't have been necessary, right?

              • entrancefee [none/use name]
                hexagon
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                edit-2
                3 years ago

                I said there wasn't much change in deep-held political views not that they were free of fascist ideology and not culpable at all. I'd say within any given modern society there is going to be a group of people who want fascism and there's going to be an even wider group of people who under the right circumstances would be fine with or even support fascism. Even looking at nazi germany as the "evil society" the nazis rose to power with less than half of the votes of the country, a very wide coalition across germany (beefcake nazis, weimar hating liberals, military generals, etc), and coming off the back of a great depression. Donald Trump probably had more support in the united states and he wasn't a very loved president especially by the mainstream media.

                • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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                  3 years ago

                  Yet despite the low number of votes, they were allowed to carry out genocide with very little resistance.

                  Why should the perpetrators of genocide be treated with respect just because they have the potential to think differently at some point in the future?

                    • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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                      3 years ago

                      They aren't and that is my point.

                      You insist that people cannot be judged only governments, but we can and will judge people when their inaction allows atrocities to occur.

                      The American people are just as complacent in current US atrocities as the German people were for Nazi atrocities.

                      Yet you insist that America is granted respect despite its government, and you accuse those who judge America for its crimes of hating it.

                      • entrancefee [none/use name]
                        hexagon
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                        edit-2
                        3 years ago

                        why would I blame someone who has little power to change anything, has their own life and problems to worry about, and immense risk to counter the action of their government equally as much as someone who is an active supporter, funder, or planner in genocide? just seems like hyper-individualist and moralist thinking with no basis in reality. it would be very weird to hate americans and tell them to fuck off as genocider scum

                        • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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                          3 years ago

                          Well I say "fuck off genocider scum." To the English all the time. :)

                          And the people who are being genocided don't have shit to deal with as well? I'm not saying that everyone has to become urban guerillas and guillotine their Congress people, (though it would be great if they did).

                          But to turn a blind eye on US atrocities or even in many cases applaud them is to allow them to continue.

                          The Black Lives Matter movement shows that there are people willing to mobilise and plan where injustice occurs to US citizens but those that act remain within a minority and are often targeted for further hatred.

                          The American population had a majority approval for military intervention in Syria, Libya and Iraq, and every war of colonial expansion since the beginning of the 21st century. Don't you dare tell me they don't approve of this and expect me to swallow this shit.

                          • entrancefee [none/use name]
                            hexagon
                            ·
                            3 years ago

                            Thats so weird, outside of the small blairite war on terror troops that British person is probably multiple generations removed from even having a government doing major war crimes. Is there some sort of blood debt on them? Just seems so divorced from reality for me

                            • WittyProfileName [she/her]
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                              3 years ago

                              Well you don't live in Wales, where we are still recovering from the bullshit they pulled in an effort to pacify the population. People died just for the right to speak our own fucking language and the architects of Welsh oppression are celebrated by the English as heroes.