Turkey is one of the easiest countries to identify on there (I mean to be honest I didn’t know that much geography till “saaaave ukraaaaaaaaine” so it’s more about how developed your geopolitical awareness is.)
I’ll be honest, my geographical knowledge is lacking. Unlike most Americans though, I’m trying to change that.
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The main chunk left I need to study are the African countries, since they aren’t really talked about specifically (even on leftist news channels), so I need a more proactive approach.
it’s surprisingly quick and easy to learn with a repetition learning tool like seterra. the time consuming part is succumbing to the resulting urge to read about countries after you are reminded of (or perhaps first learn about) their existence :)
Thanks for the tool!
Geoguessr is super helpful in learning the map
+1 to geoguessr if by geoguessr you mean seterra, which they recently acquired. geogussr’s main “game” i found more irritating than useful, but with seterra i quickly became able to locate every country.
i hope geoguessr doesn’t screw it up!
here is a custom seterra quiz: 21 countries where the US has operated drone bases (which will disappear if nobody plays it for 30 days)
I play it as a game and for educational stuff, I really enjoy the duels and distance BR in geoguessr, I’m a competitive person so I like pvp Geography battles, reminds of Geography Club in Secondary lol
Also I had never heard of seterra, I’ll check it out some more.
Nice. I was looking for an app or website.
Also sidenote: what is the best way to get Americans invested in geopolitics?
Combat American exceptionalism.
True, but is the trend of Americans caring about simple things or seeing it as boring more relevant to their unknowingly privileged world view? Or is that just a part of that?
I believe Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet. The education system (including expensive colleges) is atrocious. Not only is critical thinking ability not taught, it’s actively discouraged.
The media is so bad most people I know don’t even pay attention to it anymore. Class conscious amongst the working class here is virtually non-existent.
Americans need to be de-programmed. The good news is this can happen rather quickly, especially as trust in the institutions here is deteriorating.
(preferably in person) Especially concerning geopolitics or history, you can name specific events that go against the imperialist narrative, that they haven’t even been taught, to jump start their brains. Best with your average Yank, history bros are more propagated and hear about more events, so they are tainted.
For example with Ukraine, tell them about the civil war and the Donbass regions, and take Russia out of the equation. Mention a name like Bandera that they aren’t told about. Azoz and the obvious Nazi iconography. Hell after you get their heart strings mention the burning of communists.
I’ve actually been working on my mom (liberal boomer). She’s come a long way. She definitely sees all the problems with capitalism but hasn’t quite put it all together.
She watches MSNBC all the time and that shit is just as poisonous as Fox News. I’ve kept a lot of my beliefs from her because she wouldn’t understand at this point. But there have been many times where I’ve told her something and later she’ll say ‘I looked up what you told me and turns out you were right.’
That’s great to hear, so she’s a boomer have you mentioned Vietnam, cause that was controversial for the US(even if it was because it paid the bills for the media). You could really get in the nittie gritties if Vietnam’s experience with Imperialism.
My area of expertise are fellow school children so I’ll talk with them when I get the chance (I’m always talking to new people). luckily in my generation socialism is naturalized so you can speak of it, but not communism lol. Here people are showing signs of class consciousness but aren’t enveloped in politics so I can bread crumb them to ML without worrying about being called a tankie. Second thought’s position on the ML pipeline and the Deprogram doing exactly what is supposed to do, helps libs or commie-curious individuals, skip so much political nonsense. Those three are life savers.
Well I think people like Emerican Johnson and Luna can talk about this. Being American were taught that basically America and its satelights are the center of the world. And we are indoctrinated to have a world view largely disconnected with reality.
When Americans deprogram, gain class continuousness, and think more dialectically about capitalism and other things… Then maybe we can get past the nationalism.
I’m thinking something like this:
Oh hey Average American howdy do? Oh what’s that, you are starting to have issues with the Government and Capitalism? Well let me tell you about some guys who agree with you, and trust me they have stronger opinions than you.
(Pulls up map of Global South)
No but even talking about the Third World is what sets MLs apart in the West, I think internationalism is the best way to break American exceptionalism and solidify working class solidarity. Then here you can start educating them about imperialism and it’s effects.
After they recognize other nations that will crumble their nationalism.
Nobody would believe 100 years ago that turkey would go back from the sick man of europe, to the top army of europe, hillarious how losing their empire was better for them in the long run. Cant say the same over the french and the british tho…
Yeah, the Balkans were a black hole for the Ottoman empire’s resources for pretty much its entire existence. The middle east on the other hand, if they had held on to it they would be a superpower today. The British already back before WW1 were panicking over a planned railway line, a joint German-Ottoman project that would go all the way from Berlin to Baghdad.
The ottoman empire could have becomed something good as an muslin euro-asian superpower to make the westerners stay away from the middle east, but the last two ottoman braincells melted during ww1, they refused to become something new. They did the genocide with the armenians that was completelly based on hatred, and their childish desire to fuck over greece almost cost turkey the entire anatolian coast. God bless Attaturk, he was able of bringing an rotting dead nation back at its feet again.
This is a better take than libs who don’t know but do care for some reason (reason being self interest as they know the country doesn’t matter, only that America gets it to serve their interests).
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