Lemmy has a strong tendency to criticize the US, and a lot of the critiques of certain issue with the US are valid. However, I started getting really tired of opening comment sections in innocuous and non-political posts only to see that someone somehow found a way to criticize the US in it. At first, I started thinking that maybe some Lemmy users are really unhappy and find criticizing a something stronger helped them feel better as if standing up to injustice was a passion of theirs. But, we don’t see them do that with other targets, just the US. The more I notice and think about it, I’m starting be suspicious that some of those users and comments aren’t authentic, but made to create divisiveness in the West and reject the US entirely. In other words, they may be Russian, Chinese, et al. agents working to feed a stream of propaganda in order to further cause chaos and lack of unity in the West as we have seen them do before.
Anyone else think about this?
This is what I’m thinking the game plan is:
- Criticize something obviously unjust that the US has done. Ignore that all other major powers have also committed atrocities.
- Link and liken it to other US matters & behaviors
- Paint the US entirely as evil so that nothing the US can do is just
- Attack anyone that supports anything out of the US (we are between here and #3 above)
- Create a black-and-white model of geopolitics: US vs everyone else. EU and Russia on the same team lol
- West fragments as US and EU relationship dwindle from pseudo-populist movements (e.g. MAGA)
- Pick specific countries in the EU to start alienating and repeat the cycle
- ???
- Profit in special economic zones
As someone who would probably qualify as one of these anti-American Americans on Lemmy I can say this: A big factor for me is the despair I feel (having genuinely believed the myths for most of my life) as I see the facade falling away. The genuine awfulness and inhumanity of not just our government, and our economy, but also of the culture, the people themselves, is just overwhelming. These forums are one of the outlets I’ve been using for my rage. I can only speak for myself. I’m not a bot, or a Russian actor, or an edgy teen. I’m a disillusioned middle aged American.
Arguably, disillusionment is the facade used to keep people in line
I’m allowed to complain. I live here.
Honestly, most of it seems like edgy kids who learned about communism from a YouTube video and are now convinced they have the secret to a better world that nobody else understands. So many of the comments display a substantial lack of understanding about the real world. Many other comments are completely disingenuous, blatantly ignoring or attacking anything that doesn’t support their singular argument. They’re the viewpoints of inexperienced teenagers, not adult discussions.
There are certainly propaganda posts and communities, but I think the majority of the work is done by actual people who are just echoing what they’ve read or heard. Filter out a few key communities and a lot of it will disappear.
But, to answer your question more directly, yes, I do feel what you’re saying and it gets annoying. Sometimes it gets overwhelming and I consider just deleting my account entirely. I’m so very tired of only seeing the extremes of either side of the pendulum online, rather than having a place for discussion with people of all viewpoints. I’m tired of the polarization.
Lemmy was founded to be where anti-American Americans would go after a lot of their subs were quarantined on Reddit.
That said, it has a major American focus because a lot of users are angry with the American system and don’t have a ton of experience with others directly. They’ve developed an echo chamber here and only got interrupted by the Reddit exodus.
as an american, i whole-heartedly support anti-american sentiment. we fucking deserve all of it. we voted in a clown shitshow of a government and of course the world should laugh
And this isn’t even the first clown shitshow of a government we’ve voted in this century
of course. and dont forget the whole fucking over the globe by forcing our version of democracy everywhere. or that our biggest industry is generating human killing devices we spread across the planet under the guise of ‘defense’… or that our country was founded by genociding almost an entire continent of humans.
i find it beyond funny that we support israel because ‘they were there first’, but if you mention that maybe the american indians should rise up and take their country back you get very different responses. america is the land hypocrites.
I don’t think we’re the only land of hypocrisy out there (like, listen to Russia talk about how they’re the real protectors of human rights, or China say other countries are threatening their national security, or Mexico complain about cartel violence while letting their police do whatever they want, or Israel do so much shit I don’t know where to start), but, yeah, a lot of us are brainwashed as hell, and our government is completely full of shit whenever it’s scolding anyone else about human rights, international law, the climate, etc.
i find it beyond funny that we support israel because ‘they were there first’, but if you mention that maybe the american indians should rise up and take their country back you get very different responses.
Yep, and also the fact that there’s such a vocal anti-migrant movement here after almost all of our ancestors in immigrated here is completely absurd
As an outsider (not american and don’t live in the US) I just want to add that I’m not “anti-american”. The problem is that you guys built a “bully” reputation while at the same time we see the hardships the regular american have to go through without healthcare, education and labour laws, and nobody really cares.
Nearly half the electorate didn’t vote for the reactionaries. I’d also add that this regression isn’t an exclusively American phenomenon, we’re just unfortunately at the vanguard.
it wasnte even half… 88 milllion eligible voters didnt vote at all. not voting is making a decision. people that do not vote at all are complicit
Hard disagree, Republicans wouldn’t do so much voter suppression bullshit if it didn’t have any effect. People who don’t vote are almost always being oppressed in a variety of different ways.
I waited in line for five hours to vote, and I don’t even live in a place that does voter suppression bs. I can understand why some people threw up their hands and went home. Then you’ve got the people who did vote but had their vote invalidated by bureaucratic nonsense. The deck is stacked against the people
they suppress the vote because if all eligible voters voted, they would never win another election. i stand by the fact that if you did not vote at all, you are complicit in letting democracy die at the hands of conservative extremists.
The best thing you can do with your free speech, while you’ve still got it, is to exercise it as much as you can. Call them on their bullshit. Call EVERYONE on their bullshit. We need more people aware of the absurdity of the world we live in.
I’m less worried about the anti-American tendencies than about the pro-Russian and pro-Chinese ones.
There are cases where they legitimately offer something better so they are viewed favorable. Especially China for some regional investments.
These are in my opinion good reasons and you have to ask yourself what the West can do better to change it.
We could always emulate China and start rounding up our minorities into camps and arresting any citizens who speak out. Would that be better?
Because how could anyone support the country with a higher living standard than America changed in the time frame of one generation, right?
North Korea really is amazing isn’t it?
!If you don’t get it, North Korea allegedly is a wonderful place to live with very high living standards but obviously isn’t. Closed communication countries like China, North Korea, and increasingly Russia’s claims about “how good things are” must be taken with an absolute grain of salt. Unfortunately, this list could even come to include the United States soon given Trump’s desire to silence critics.!<
A grain of salt? More like a truckload.
How is China is any way closed communication? Don’t answer.
Don’t answer.
Because the CCP will come arrest you if you do?
Because they’re just dealing brain dead slop
Don’t answer.
Exactly, you’re getting it.
The great firewall exists. They have to use euphemisms to get around the censors.
Yes that doesn’t equal closed. Tiktok is censored but a lot of recent US movements have spread via the app
If you can’t criticize authority I don’t find that to be an open Internet. TikTok doesn’t exist in China. Try to say Trans rights are human rights on Douyin and see what happens.
Try to say trans rights are human rights to any American official. Stop with the whataboutism, red scare, racism. Just say you’re stuck in the Cold War. Any liberal when you say anything about China positive acts like a child.
Your wasteful sarcasm aside, what China has done for its people economically and for standard of living is unbelievable. Continue your whataboutism though
That may be true as long as you are on party line.
Bro thinks 1.1 billion people work for the government.
True, we’ve already seen that right wingers are paid off by Russia to spout about inflation and other brain rot. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnJ6Ttaiu9M ) And a lot of people who are from the US compare their country to EU countries and find glaring holes in their society, like a lack of socialised healthcare, streamlined government services, ect and rant about it like Lemmy is twitter. Keep in mind that because Lemmy is majority English speaking the vast majority of post will be about the US, because its the defacto empire of the 21st century. For me I go out of my way to include communities from my own culture so I’m not out of the loop. The kinds of people who post politics to !Menes are the same people who take the definition of “meme” literally, and suck to talk to at every party they attend.
There’s no evidence this happens on Lemmy though. You don’t need a conspiracy to explain the fact that the site was founded by people with a certain viewpoint and it has and continues to attract more such people as it grows.
I would say that there’s cross-section of users from different instances whose community have different expectations regarding netiquette. .ml or .grad users posting about how they hate america or (insert country here) is fine in their instance, but is annoying/insulting for other instances users. (.ml and grad are just examples and not exclusive to them.) There is no evidence of governmental interference for many reasons ranging from: its not actually happening, to, no one is looking for it, to, its too hard to detect. Imho most people are influenced by the ziteguist of opinion. And a little embellishment here and there on Twitter, is enough to spread the “general knowledge” that the world is so bad and there’s nothing we can do. Even better, platforms promote this content to drive more engagement making the general opinion even worse.
American here. When you elect a man—twice—whose character and policies have led to a fractured nation, a failing education system, crumbling infrastructure, and a healthcare system that leaves millions behind, it’s no surprise that the world views us with disdain. When your citizens are struggling to afford basic necessities like rent and groceries while a handful of individuals hoard wealth that rivals entire nations, we’ve earned every ounce of criticism.
Buckle up, because the descent into this nightmare is far from over. The worst is yet to come, and it’s going to be a long, suffocating fall.
I find it a little frustrating that you think any of this started with, because of, or will end with cheeto.
This:
a fractured nation, a failing education system, crumbling infrastructure, and a healthcare system that leaves millions behind
has always been the case, and it is a feature, not a bug. Always has been.
And it will never change as long as you continue to focus on the things the system tells you to focus on (like team red vs team blue, or the clown at the front of the stage) rather than on the system itself (a state mechanism built on slavery and genocide from day dot, and designed and enforced by and for the rich and powerful, who are the ones actually pulling the strings) and abolishing that.
And before OP gets their underwear in a twist - all states are oppressive and should be abolished, but a country founded on and with the biggest hard on for capitalism on the planet, and who has the power to, and has been since its founding, loudly and aggressively dragging the rest of the world on a race to the bottom (if not directly with war mongering and political interfering, then with profiteering off of their enemies war mongering and politically interfering), deserves all the criticism it gets, and the fact that it’s easier for you to create a straw person to dismiss the perfectly valid and long overdue criticism, than it is to hear them and sit with the mild discomfort it causes you to hear the truth and confront reality, is a you problem, not a lemmy problem.
Don’t forget one of our largest cities is currently on fire because of our own man made climate change that we are (I believe) the number one cause of, but those same leaders are telling us to shrug and say “who knows why”
I was listening to NPR a few days ago and they were talking – in the context of Jimmy Carter’s passing – about the global community having to grapple with two different sides of the United States. The side that is incredibly generous and has contributed an enormous amount to the welfare of people throughout the world and the side that is a basically a bully that uses it’s vast power and influence as a means to further it’s own selfish interests.
Both of those things can certainly be true. The US has contributed a lot of positive things to the global community and at the same time, the US is effectively the most powerful and sophisticated empire in human history. Empires cannot maintain their power without oppression. Over the last 249 years, we have created some truly horrific disasters, at home and abroad, in the name of acquiring and maintaining power. That deserves criticism no matter who’s doing it.
How insanely American to think America being criticized a lot must mean propaganda.
Lemmy.world may have the least of this since they neolib gobblers
I’m American. I love where I live. There’s a lot of great people, food, experiences, and places. It’s a vast place where a lot of great, forward looking things happen.
However, the government allows billionaires to control it and prevents it from serving its people. We are fucking angry.
And nothing will change through voting for nothing candidates like Kamala or Trump
What’s lemmy.selfhostcat.com known for?
Based on this thread, sucking off China.
We all have hobbies.
Nice pussy.
lol, liking cute wittle putty cats I guess :)
I understand the concern and certainly believe that troll farms are slowly creeping into Lemmy as it gains traction. However, I think most of US bashing is authentic as it reflects the enormous impact of US political life on the rest of the planet. Moreover, other countries receive a constant flux of information about the US, to the point where it seems that US news is as important as domestic news. The fact that Trump remains omnipresent in the media doesn’t help either.
I get this part, and I agree with a lot of critique. What I’m noticing is that it seems that I’m seeing more hate than valid objective critique. It seems to me that a lot of the anti-US comments are merely to criticize the US out of hate than to criticize a behavior.
Imagine it were people instead of countries. This is like being at a party with friends and Marcel is not present. Marlon shares that he likes coffee without creamer. Martiza says she does too. Misty then says, “Did you know that Marcel uses raw milk instead of creamer in his coffee? What a piece of shit. It wouldn’t surprise me though. Everything he does is terrible. Remember, he cheated on Mariah in 2006. He’s probably cheating on Merced right now.” That’s completely unnecessary and irrelevant.
That’s what it feels like to me. It’s not just critique. It’s hate in discussions that are irrelevant to the US. That’s been my observation at least, but I’m bringing it up to see if maybe I’m a bit too suspicious or paranoid.
Martiza says she does too. Misty then says, “Did you know that Marcel uses raw milk instead of creamer in his coffee? What a piece of shit. It wouldn’t surprise me though. Everything he does is terrible. Remember, he cheated on Mariah in 2006. He’s probably cheating on Merced right now.”
I don’t think those are good analogies. US foreign policy has really screwed up some other countries. It’d be more like “Remember when Marcel burned Mariah’s house down? And that time Marcel got Misty fired from her job? And that time Marcel stole Merced’s car?”
The US has had some very positive effects on the international community, but people tend to remember how the world’s only remaining superpower screwed them over.
I’m American. I’ll jump on the criticize America bandwagon any day!
So, no, we suck in the worst possible ways. That is really all there is to it
As a French guy, I can say that I suck way more than you. America has the American dream. France has the “we suck, we complain about it all the time, and we’re proud of it” vibe.
France also has the “take my rights, we take your head” attitude. I like that.
Everyone talks about how fun chopping up the Bourbons was and then leaves out how shitty the Reign of Terror was in the wake
Nowadays it’s the modern version: “we don’t like that, and we’ll complain very loudly about it.”
Mais oui
You mean lemmy, the platform created and maintained by staunch marxist-leninists? That lemmy strikes you as anticapitalist and antiAmerican?
Weird.
I’m American and the main reason I don’t aim the same criticism towards other countries is that I’m American and don’t know enough about them. Maybe some people are agitating for malign purposes, but how much does that matter to a responsible netizen? No one knows who anyone is - maybe idiot takes are made by idiots or bad actors, it doesn’t change much. Lastly, one quote stuck with me after the last election season : " the reactionary is always right about what is wrong but almost always wrong about what would be right"
