You are mistaken, you are witnessing the fall of the US republic. At the same time you are seeing the rise of an empire.
This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applaus.
Sometimes I wonder if George Lucas had been a better writer how things might have been different.
Maybe if he had done a better job, perhaps it would have done nothing because some dumb movie plot doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things… or maybe it would have help to shift our culture just a bit more in the right direction… The prequel trilogy was meant to basically mirror the fall of the Weimar Republic to the 3rd Reich. You can’t tell me the “Execute Order 66” montage was not inspired by old “shlankily klankily’s” Night of Long Knives.
By the time he was making the prequels, George was basically God to anyone in his orbit. He no longer had anyone there to tell him “no” anymore, nor his awesome wife to save him in the editing bay, so we ended up with Jar Jar and…
It might sound silly at first, but Gore only lost by the tiniest of margins (and a garbage conservative Supreme Court decision). If even only a few minds had been changed, maybe there would have been no 9/11, no “war on terror” with Iraq and Afghanistan, no Patriot Act, and maybe real mitigations on climate change could have been instituted.
One of my favorite comedians said “The Star Wars prequels were great ideas… executed poorly… but the sequels were poor ideas… executed greatly.”
Oh fuck! You might be right 😯
It can’t end soon enough for me. It needs to die.
Classic trolly problem. 350 million of us vs 8 billion of everyone else.
Easy math.
To be fair a casual understanding of history shows they’re practicing Christianity as it always has been
They have always disgraced the name of Jesus. Taken it in vain, some might say.
Yeah, hard no there. Christianity in Europe is much more liberal, and I don’t just the mean the traditionally more liberal protestants
…you realize Christianity has existed in Europe for more than 50 years, right? Some of the most horrific things ever done to other people have been done in Europe in the name of Christianity.
Absolutely true, yet only looking at the crusades and the medieval times disregards that modern European Christianity is a far cry from what the American Christians are preaching.
If you ignore 1000+ years of Christianity in Europe then Christianity in Europe is pretty great!
American Christianity is far more “liberal” than how it has been practiced in Europe for nearly it’s entire existence. That’s my point.
At least in Denver we give enormous amounts of food away to poor people, and the policy at hospital ERs is to treat people regardless of their ability to pay.
But sure, keep pretending that we cut people off from healthcare and food. Gotta feed that narrative, regardless of the truth.
Bro I’m fucking living that narrative, like millions of others! Fuck out of here with that bullshit!
Like most Americans you need to travel more, and listen when you do.
you are not going to get the cancer treatment you need through the emergency room
… But you still charge everybody into debt bondage for saving their lives. Here I do not pay for health insurance and have never walked out of the ER with a bill. I legitimately fear my American friends getting hurt in a way that simply does not apply to my domestic friends because I know that their lives won’t be impacted financially long term. From what I have gathered from information about their wait times for surgery there isn’t that much difference except for joint and mobility related stuff and even then it’s not that far off.
The fact that employers are allowed to control what healthcare you receive and coerce you into staying with them or else you enter a dicey period where you have to cover you or your family yourself in any way just seems fucking exploitative and bonkers from a Canadian perspective.
the policy at hospital ERs is to treat people regardless of their ability to pay.
Have you ever been in that position? I have. It took me over a year to pay off the resulting bills.
Yes, they will still treat you regardless of your ability to pay. Yes, sometimes they can decrease the bill for those without financial means. However, that doesn’t mean the treatment is free (or affordable) - you will still be billed, and saddled with any resulting debt. That’s a huge difference between the US and almost every other country, and it’s a crucial distinction.
Do i think American hegemony is in decline? Sure, but this is c/LateStageCapitalism and they tend to overblow things. As with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, life actually still went on despite the Gothic invasion. For many Romans, it is simply being under a new management. Those from us and the future tend to look at history as if everything happened in a flash. The same is happening right now with the gradual erosion of democracy. Events happen not with a bang, but with a whimper. The real creatures in a simmering pot with gradual increasing temperature are not frogs-- it is us: the humans. Literally and figuratively as we head into the slow descent into unknown of post-climate change world, civil strife and oligarchy. Some things may be better or alright, but the overall picture for humanity will be ugly.
Love some T.S. Elliot with my morning coffee, cheers
Don’t worry, it’s obvious from the inside too.
I love that Gladiator, the 2000 film, showed us Commodus a rich emperor who was insanely obsessed with getting everyone’s attention and the US has Elon Musk showing everyone that he wants to be at least knows as the best digital gladiator of video games while we have Nero/Trump watching the city burn.
It is like we are working on The Decline of an Empire: Greatest Hits! double gate fold album for 2025.
Well, hopefully you can avoid Poilievre. Otherwise, you might be joining us on the crazy train.
If Carney wins leadership of the Liberals, then wins the election, we should ok.
Still a big hill to climb tho.
a big if. as it stands, the Liberal party has the trudeau ick to it, and I would be floored if they did any better than 3rd place.
Normally hate political memes in this kind of tone and format. The bland “Occupy Democrats” type ones, you know. Can’t really find fault in this one though.
It took centuries for the Roman Republic to fall. At some point in time, they were past the point of no return without themselves even realizing it.
I think we are in that position now. We have been on the decline for more than a decade now, and have had several opportunities to correct or reverse course, but the wrong decision is made at every opportunity because it’s far easier for powerful influential people to increase their power, wealth and status at the expense of everyone else and suffer no consequences for doing so than it is for them to sacrifice their own power, wealth, and status for the benefit of the collective. Are we past the point of no return? I’d say an argument could be made for either yes or no, but we are undeniably closer to the precipice than we have ever been as a nation since the Civil War (which never truly ended).
The US has been on the decline since the 80s. It’s been propped up on a strong economy and tech domination, but it’s losing its lead, and late stage capitalism is rotting it from the inside out. Reagan really got this crazy train going
Nah we’re at the part when Rome when from Republic to dictatorship
This sums up how it feels to me as well. To me it was pretty much the eighties with deregulation and lowering taxes and globalization.
I can’t understand why there isn’t a large group of people with marshmallows hanging out in DC. It’s just. What does it take?
From where I sit on Canada’s western end, I honestly expect America to never have a legitimate/meaningful election again.
As in, over the next 4 years the GOP will erode the election system such that it becomes equally as meaningful as elections in Russia or North Korea - theatre and a thin veneer of legitimacy, but nothing more. That the GOP will work things such that they will never “lose” another election, making America a permanent one-party state, no matter how many people would want them out of power.
The scary thing is, Canada risks much the same if “PeePee” (Pierre Poilievre, of the Canadian Conservative Party) gets elected. The man is a snake-oil salesman who is always eager to tell you what the problem is and who is to blame, but who almost never had any solution for the problem. Even his “axe the tax” shtick is a “solution” in desperate need of a problem to solve, will hurt working-class Canadians far more than it will help them, and is only meant to reduce taxation on the wealthy.
It was decided in 2010 with “citizens united”
It was decided in 2000 with “Bush v. Gore”
It was decided in 48BC with Ceaser vs Pompey
This is scary as they already win elections they should not because of lessons learned from the hanging chads. gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement was always a thing but it was a bit more local and sporadic before then but after that it became part of national agenda.
The average life of an Empire is about 250 years. It’s just about time.
Plus, they still have slavery! In the constitution it says slavery is not allowed, “except when incarcerated”. There are states where incarcerated people, convicted by a corrupt justiciary system, are forced to work without pay.
Plus, they just elected an autocratic hate and fear spreading idiot who is a puppet of Putin and does everything in his power to make the US an even worse oligarchy.
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
To be fair some are looking for ideas, the Americans are not the only ones with issues.
But they are one of the most influential in the world, and THE most influential ally we have.
We have slavery in our everyday lives without being incarcerated, we are debt slaves, we are wage slaves without freedom of movement.
Plus, they just elected an autocratic hate and fear spreading idiot who is a puppet of Putin and does everything in his power to make the US an even worse oligarchy.
Oh sure, but we do that with every President. Trump’s a Putin Puppet. The Clintons Shill for China. Biden bent backwards for Israel. They’re all deeply in the bag for the Saudis.
That’s before you get to Musk or Gates or Bob Iger or David Solomon absolutely leading our national leadership around by the nose
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
They’ve been watching since Nixon. But they still keep cashing our checks, so they can’t be that upset.
Guys like Starmer and Truduea and Shultz were lining up to kiss the ring as soon as the election results came in.
They’ve been watching since Nixon. But they still keep cashing our checks, so they can’t be that upset.
It’s the other way around. The US national debt is more than it’s GDP. Where do you think they borrow that money from. We just don’t want the US as an enemy because we want our money back. And so far the US has been the only country fucked up enough to drop not just one, but 2 nukes, not to wipe out military targets but 2 entire cities.
The large majority (73.1%) of US debt is owned domestically. US foreign debt is well, well below GDP: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/
26.9% still is a lot of money.
I didn’t know the fact above. Assumed more. But for a familiar scale that’s like a $13,000 auto loan of an average income household.
That means the big scary national debt could be paid off fairly quickly with only a marginally higher tax burden to the biggest corporations. We may need to do that if, for example, a bunch of political grifters wreck our credit.
NOOOO! NO NO NO NO NO! Only tax the poor. How dare you speak those words.
As if the US will ever pay off its debt. They only want more money. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Not to wipe out military targets but 2 entire cites.
We call that “for funsies” in the States. You ever hear of the Amchitka Island Nuclear Tests? Those seals had it coming!! /s
The American people voted a traitor into power that actively works for a hostile foreign power to destroy their country. And yet they can themselves patriots. Pathetic.
That traitor is capitalism. And until people stop supporting that trader it will only further degrade
Well, I didn’t vote for that bag of shit
Not enough people voted, period.
It’s not just the US, but they are the fastest on this path
If you ain’t first you’re last! - America taking its notes from Ricky Bobby
Other are looking and taking notes of what works and what doesn’t.
Bigly.
It’s a yuge problem!
