Both the “because” and the asymmetry are in your head. American citizens should likewise not be arrogantly giving advice to Canadian citizens as to how to fix their First Nations or druggie mayor problems. We are not in a position of moral authority or relevant expertise to do so.
Your previous post asserted that my “countrypeople” (with “few exceptions”) are “telling all the rest of the world what to do”. In fact, most of my countrypeople don’t give a rats ass about what anyone does outside the US, and couldn’t find “outside the US” on a map. My government, as the leading imperial power at this moment in time, has adopted the time-honored tradition of such powers of trying to tell other governments what to do, and some of my government’s leaders have weighed in as individuals on the political decisions in other countries, and even on the activity of ordinary citizens of other countries as the acted as citizens, and that is out of line (though again neither uncommon nor restricted to the US).
There is no analogy with Naomi Klein or BB posters criticizing ordinary citizens like me for not being more violent in our opposition to Trump. Hence the claim of non sequitur.
Philosophically speaking, there is no hope. Hope is not a valid category within the absurd. Accepting that there is no hope and still going on, still trying: that is what Camus thought and wrote about.
But this goes much deeper than the surface of current US-American politics. Existentialism quickly just becomes a vocabulary of buzzwords if you do.
BTW, I did a spit-take when I saw the Onebox for that CBC story. The article title is “Trump and Priebus: How to lose a chief of staff in 189 days”, and that’s the page title too, but buried down in the HTML is the og:title “‘Imagine merging Dumb and Dumber, The Godfather and Patton’: New chief of staff spells more discord for Trump”, heh.
Either I was unclear or you did not parse that correctly, but the few exceptions were Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Israel. I have amended the post for clarification.
I’m not going to bother answering the rest of it because, frankly, you make me tired and I’d rather just leave you with what you will see as an easy victory. But I will say that, correction excepted, I don’t agree with you.
It is always easier to see the flaws in other people and tell them how to fix them, then to buckle down and work on the flaws in oneself. I get that Trump seems to be a bigger problem for many people outside the US than their own leadership, but I have more tolerance for someone sharing suggestions if they represent things that they themselves have been using successfully in their own country.
It isn’t for me to say, that’s the point. I can, and have been, openly critical of UK decisions (like Brexit), and I’m quite comfortable pointing the finger at Cameron for stupidly calling the referendum just to appease Farage et al, but I’m not going to be a jackass and start Americasplaining to you how to reform the UK system to fix that, and for sure I’m not going to sit at the comfort of my keyboard and tell my former neighbors in Hull that they are lazy sods for not taking up arms.
Not that I know of, as you weren’t “wading in with directions on how Americans should deal with Trump”; I was just taking advantage of the presence of that phrase to reiterate why I often find the people who do it arrogant and hypocritical. (And, just to be clear, “wading in with passionate pleas that Americans should deal with Trump” is OK in my book.)
I can suggest outcomes, for example getting a new PM or at least one that doesn’t hold hands with Trump and give his Congressional supporters an excuse to believe he has international support. (We had the same problem with Blair’s public displays of support for Bush, thereby giving his claims of WMDs in Iraq legitimacy.) I’m not in a position to tell you how to do that. Since Germany has managed to do this, I’d suggest asking a German.
As for the rest, I haven’t UKSpalined to you how to fix the US system or asked you to take up arms. That would be other people.
I agree. A while back I had an argument (in another thread) with one of the people upthread who insisted that the solution was to replace our electoral system with the one in his country, and I’m afraid I let my irritation with that discussion leak into my position on this thread.
Quite right, but it is a fallacy of transitivity to move from “the US is bullying my country” and “US voters elected Trump” to “US voters are bullying my country”.
The transitivity is even shakier for those who – like some of the people on this thread – think that the US political system is broken and voters didn’t really want Trump. (I personally disagree that it is broken, and believe that we got the president that most Americans wanted, and accept my share the burden of responsibility in this regard.)
I’ll take apathy over outright Idiocracy willful stupidity anyday, Kimmo. Apathy denotes a certain level of blasé intelligence: “WOULD put in effort, but can’t be FUCKED to because I’m BUSY trying to make ends meet.” Whereas here in the USA, it’s “RAAAAAH FUCK OBAMA LIBERALS SUCK KILL THEM BEFORE THEY TAKE OUR GUNS ouch my last tooth fell out oh well pass the hot dogs and beans.”
Apathy shows grade-level reading. We are stuck on eating or not eating our boogers here. It’s so fucking sad. On the one hand I’m incredibly angry at most of this country for being so fucking dumb. But on the other hand, just extremely sad and disheartened that we are so mentally unable. It’s why I won’t debate anyone or discuss stuff with anyone anymore except maybe a passing comment to a family member. We are too far gone.
Unfortunately, the election fairly reflected the will of a slight plurality of the American electorate on the day. That’s enough. It is exactly the same system that elected Obama twice. (As for Sanders, I caucused for him, but he didn’t do what he had to to win the nomination, and Clinton did.)
The country is broken, the process by which our electorate is supposed to be educated about civic matters is broken, but the electoral system is not broken. Like any system, it needs improvement, and it is being tinkered with all the time, though not always by people on my side of the political spectrum.
Not at all (except for both being Canadian college dropouts). Ford had actual political experience.
Reading this thread, I keep muttering to myself “Is that why those arseholes win elections - because we continue arguing amongst ourselves, and not with our political opponents? And get exhausted, feel lonely and isolated, almost despair?”
Then, I think about the upcoming elections in Germany.
If I restrict myself to describing the situation as I see it, I am accused of promoting gloom and despair. If I offer suggestions as to what I see as a potentially effective response, I am accused of meddling or victim-blaming.
I am aware that I have a pessimistic affect. It comes with the territory when you’re clinically depressed. It is not a thing that I have the ability to turn on and off at will.
I regret that you find my posts distressing. I understand that your personal position renders involvement in street protest very high risk. I accept that it is entirely reasonable for you to focus on keeping your own family safe in a genuinely threatening situation.
But you are not the person who these posts were addressed to. Most of the BB readership are middle class, white, educated and male. These are not powerless people.
I genuinely believe that the current situation presents a very high risk of catastrophic war, on a scale that makes WWII look like a beach picnic.
I genuinely believe that the US situation has gone too far for business-as-usual democratic solutions to have a realistic chance of halting the slide.
And I genuinely believe that the American people themselves are the only ones who have a realistic chance of averting disaster. But that chance exists only if they accept the catastrophe and react accordingly before it is too late.
In common with the rest of the non-American world, I have almost zero leverage on this situation. The only tiny hint of ability I have to affect the outcome is by convincing Americans to act on behalf of all of us. The Americans here are the only such people that I have ready access to.
I’m not very good at it, but it’s all I have.
I do not enjoy irritating people. But when the alternative is millions of dead Koreans and Iranians, that factor seems rather insignificant in comparison.
I think the thing that may grate is the condescending disbelief that we haven’t descended into complete chaos yet.
The truth is that despite everything Trump has done, the system has been working. His overreaching has so far been countered by the courts or the legislature.
He’s still more of a buffoon than an existential threat to many of us. I don’t know what line he needs to cross to get the population out in the streets and the workers on general strike, but he hasn’t crossed it yet. He has most definitely stretched every boundary though.
