It happened when I was kid growing up in another country, as a US citizen, and then coming to the US to see for myself why I had heard so much trash talk about Americans.
We are arrogant, spoiled, dumb and racist. The world expects us to be better. We are privileged like a spoiled rich brat and are waisting our fortune. We have what other countries do not and yet still ignore our own poor. We openly shit on our own minorities and immigrants that want to come here and build with us.
Even dirt poor countries have free healthcare and education. Our education system has been ignored and allowed to fall farther and farther behind the entire world.I came here in when I was in the 6th grade and immediately was shocked that kids my age could barely read. This is richest country on the entire planet, ever! Multiple choice? You mean they give you the answer and just mix it in with wrong answers!?
Our celebrated values that we put forward in our popular media (how the world learns about us by the way) do not include humility or compassion, it’s all direct or veiled celebrations of military might. Every hero is fighting. Guns guns guns, fight fight fight. Our military power allows us to do nearly whatever we want and we do.
Every disparaging comment I heard or that was aimed at me for being American I learned to be true. They are tired of our bullshit. The world doesn’t hate us, they are deeply disappointed in us. Several generations of disappointment.
Thank you for sharing this, it puts my feelings there well. I don’t hate America. I’m disappointed in it too. We used to do great things, but we’ve had generations who have squandered that, and here we are.
Yes, but I would also say that an entire generation isn’t responsible for everything. It’s usually a few very powerful people in that generation that get an the influence.
Perspective from a mid-twenties American. I realized it was horseshit during the 2016 Trump election.
I was turning 18 just in time to vote in this election, and it was right around then that I started forming my own ideas about politics and what political “side” I stood on. Like a majority people with a semi-functioning brain, I thought Trump was an actual joke, a meme that had no chance at actually winning, like how we were acting when Kanye ran. Unironically, I thought that having trainwrecks of a leader was something that “other countries” did, obviously America wouldn’t let someone like this win because even though we make little mistakes here and there like Iraq and slavery we’re still the good guys and we wouldn’t actually let a moron like Trump become our president.
When it became obvious that he was more than a joke and an actual serious candidate with high potential to win, I realized that the only people consistently talking about how amazing America was at everything were the people voting for him, and I started dissecting the things I’d taken for granted.
You think slavery was a “little” mistake?
As an aside, my autocorrect wanted slavery to be Disney and I was a little tempted to let it stand.
America is #1 in production of aircraft carriers. America is #1 in the number of incarcerated citizens per capita. America is #1 in the number of adults who think angels are real. America is #1 in defense spending.
Also number one in american football
Or course they’re #1 in American football wins.
What’s remarkable is they’re #1 in World Series wins…
“defense”
For me it was when I was around 8 or 9 and met someone from Kenya. They could speak perfect English, wore normal clothes, and talked about having electricity. I’d literally never been told that those things existed in Africa - every reference to that continent only talked about tribes and jungles, save for Egypt which only talked about ruins and deserts. I asked around and found that most of the rest of the world has the same stuff we have, and most countries have a functioning government. I was so confused - why were we the country of freedom when everyone else has the same thing?
At the time I just assumed that there was something I was missing, or maybe the rest of the world just caught up to our idea, but eventually I came to the conclusion that they tell us we’re the country of freedom - and keep our studies of other countries to a minimum when we’re young - so that we can internalize the rhetoric that our country is the best before we find out that most other countries about the same, and often better in certain ways.
When I graduated from college. I was fed the, “work hard, go to college, live well” spiel. I worked hard, I went to college, graduated with honors.
All I have to show for it is debt.
I work a job that’s… Fine, but I also cry most days because of the misery of it. I haven’t gone to a doctor in years because I can’t afford it. I can barely save (I have, like, $100 in “savings”). I will likely never be a home owner, and I will most likely have to work until I die, which breaks my spirit the more I think about it.
On less personal note, when I got to sit at the “grown up” table in regards to politics, I quickly realized that (most) people in government either don’t give a shit or actively work against the peoples interest. I hear of other countries with their free Healthcare and education, workers rights, pensions, and I weep with envy. America is like a third world country in a first world mask.
Keep your head up. I know it’s Reddit but maybe you can escape. Be one of the lucky ones.
Thank you. Saving the comment.
the healthcare shit in the US still baffles me. there’s literally no material reason for it to be that way other than disdain for people. even countries you’d consider “shitholes” have better healthcare (and things that contribute to healthcare like sick days and paid leaves) for the general population.
i always knew it was bad there but i was still baffled when i saw one video where someone breaks their leg (or something i don’t remember well) but they were begging people around them not to call an ambulance… i thought wtf why not. then i learned that not only do they charge like some fucking Uber drive but they charge insane amounts.
'richest" country in the world and in history. unbelievable.
The distain for people isn’t the reason, it’s the side effect. The goal is profit, profit above all else. The problem the US (and most everyone) has is it’s very hard to put the cat back in the bag.
After WW2 many countries were decemated and people banded together to help each other. This became the basis for social healthcare. They didn’t have huge corporate interests to fight against as so much was already dismantled.
The US however came out on top with healthy industry so there was no “start from scratch” point. Because of this any attempt at socializing healthcare comes at the cost of destroying the profits of all the companies that have been built on the back of the current system. Capitalism is built on investment and investors do NOT like losing profits. Therefore maintaining the status quo so that investments remain stable is priority #1.
The sad truth is that things have to get bad, really bad, before people consider a complete reboot. Up until recently it’s only been really bad for the poor, now the shrinking middle class is starting to feel it. Eventually it will become to much to bear, but until then there’s still more sweet profit in the next quarter.
When they had us stand up in grade school and pledge allegiance to the flag. Nope, no thanks. If we’re that amazing we wouldn’t compel children to worship nationalist symbols, we’d give them reasons to be proud of their country rather than trying to compel worship.
On the other hand we’re #1 at a lot of things, like medical bankruptcies, mass shootings and incarceration per capita. So, go us and our amazing country?
Same for me, stopped doing it in high school ~2011. Felt weird and culty to me, so I sat for it. My critical examination only continued from there, and I grew up in a very conservative/nationalistic household.
So everyone should try not to worry about conservatives having all of the kids, lmao. Conservatives birth future leftists too ✌️
I’m not an American but seeing that bit from The Newsroom was kind of a hammer on the nail. America is not the greatest country in the world
I wanna know at what point America was the greatest country in the world when he said we use to be. Excluding one set of ppl America pretty much sucked for everyone else that lived here since its creation
One could argue America was a straight white man utopium in the 20s. After the first World War America was the saviour of the western world. The economy was booming and the capitalist society we know today felt love opportunity and wealth.
But again, this was definitely not the case for everyone.
I think ‘the greatest country’ really rather depends on the metrics by which you judge these countries. It would stand to reason that the people in the video would see America as the greatest country by metric of wealth, power and freedom (for some). Skating over gender oppression, race oppression, poverty… For some people it would be better to be in America than anywhere else in the world.
And the 20s were not the only decade this was the case. The 50s had many of the same appeal for wealthy, straight white men. And the 80s. Since then it’s been downhill.
On the other hand… I wouldn’t wanna answer the question what is the greatest country in the world right now. As a European, I like to look at Scandinavian countries as a model for a great country. But I wouldn’t really leave the Netherlands for Denmark.
It’s a pretty subjective question really. If you mean greatest country for rich white guys then the US probably qualifies as the best for a reasonable chunk of its history.
For everyone else, not so much.
Its kinda hard to ignore the healthcare problem. That always stank of corruption.
When I was having my “what’d you learn at school today?” check-in dinner conversation with mom, and I learned the European settlers did not, in fact, peacefully move in and fairly share the land with Native Americans. :|
Wait till you learn that most of them weren’t “settlers”, more like “the fuckin weirdo religious nutjobs that got turfed out of Europe” lol
based mom
I’m not American, but I grew up there. I knew the US was a little off when I realized it was over-the-top religious which spilled over into politics. I had this idea that whatever country was the most progressive and secular would naturally gravitate towards good policies. I think my gut feeling was right. The best countries are indeed irreligious and don’t have entire communities that lose their minds over pop music that when played backward sounds like Satan speaking. That’s about when I discovered the liberal vs conservative dipole and how the Republicans try to dismantle everything good going for the country. Combo that with the low wages, the racism, the glass ceilings, over-policing, lack of public funding, lack of open public spaces*, and the injustice that I saw. I quickly realized the American dream was a mirage enjoyed by a select few and I left.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the US as my second home and wish it the best. But to call it #1 is crazy talk.
- Maybe it was the cities I was living in but I could not go out and spend $0 and sit at a plaza without being accused of loitering. I find that ridiculous for a first-world country.
Reading A People’s History of the United States put that on my radar. I hadn’t given the idea any thought until a college course assigned this book. I was educated in a standard American public school during the Reagan and Clinton eras, complete with Pledge of Allegiance. The standard schoolbooks omit a lot of atrocities and smooth over the ugly reality.
Whatever legitimate criticisms you lay on it, Zinn’s takedown opened my worldview and intensified my pre-existing anti-authoritarian streak.
9/11 happened shortly after and by then I considered Bush an illegitimate president. I watched him wage an unjustified war, and with the whole of our bloody rampage across the globe that clicked neatly into place. “America #1” is a sick joke.
6th grade I really started paying attention to the pledge of allegiance in really what something like that meant. I question why I was pledging my allegiance to a flag every morning. It wasn’t my choice I was told to do this. And that didn’t feel right to me until I stopped.
In high school. Noticed the various branches of the military would never leave and were always trying to recruit. I noticed in the kids around me behavioral differences, as they were hyped up to join the military. But my great-grandfather who is in the military and was on Normandy Beach… He wasn’t hype about the military. My uncle who is in the Navy barely speaks of it. And my other uncle who was in the Vietnam war… Seemed rather traumatized by the whole experience. And George W Bush and everything surrounding 9/11, the definite WMDs that totally existed.
Also in high school I got to meet foreign exchange students. Made friends with a bunch of them and got to learn about how things are in various parts of the world that really didn’t add up to the things that I was being told.
Then in college and post college, thanks though like early YouTube and even early Reddit, I got to learn a lot more about the world than anything grade school had ever taught me.
Your path is similar to mine. It also almost identical to my religious path too. Essentially I was born into something, told I was supposed to respect and obey it (without a reason for why), and realized there are so many competing groups saying they’re also the best/correct, but that can only be true for one of them. This means most people have to be wrong, if not everyone.
I was also in boy scouts and am an eagle scout. One of the requirements for that is the belief in a god of some kind (usually the Christian one, but not strictly required), and it has tons of nationalism involved. I still finished with the rank of eagle, but it’s fair to say I was faking a lot of stuff by the end of it. (Tangent: I really like the idea of scouting, but it really needs to get rid of this stuff. There are alternatives, but none are as good.)
When Bush 2 assumed office. Or, if not then, when all the bullshit about Iraq got going. I was for sure ashamed of my fellow citizens with the gd Freedom Fries and rah rah bullshit.
When I was living in Japan and felt more “free” than in the US. “Land of the free” is such a load of shit.
It’s not a lie, they just didn’t say the competition is for the strongest empire instead of the best place to live.
