I want America to go back to being as it was before
Or maybe 20ish years before that when we violently restructured the government or Iran at the behest of supposed allies?
Or how about when we sold our industry overseas because a steel mill who's pollution we can't control on the other side of the world is better than one in Ohio?
It boggles the mind that people cannot grasp that the sum total of bad and shortsighted decisions of the past are what created the present conditions.
The trouble is that everyone chooses their own favorite bits from the past and ignores the rest, plus succumbs to unrealistically positive stereotypes about the past.
Sorry to break it to you, but heads in sand doesn't make history not happen...
Vietnam is still suffering from agent orange.
I'm in vietnam sometimes and have friends there. How is it suffering? because it's news to me.
Before that the USA was aiding and fostering violent dictatorships, helping them to perform coups all around if they were amenable to the US's interests (aka: they were anti-commies) like in Latin America, Iran itself, etc.; bombing countries where their right-wing coups failed like in Vietnam during its independence period after French rule, for example.
See for yourself compared to the past https://youtu.be/X6GRMdn8ZD4?t=6
And now tell me it's all the same as before and I'm burying my head in the sand.
I say that as a person who is out in the streets in the US doing what we can against the current government. But to be honest, we were out in the streets before. The difference is that you were at brunch and didn't notice.
> But to be honest, we were out in the streets before.
Who is "we"? Do you remember your past lives? If you are fighting against every government when you will realize you should maybe just move to another country?
I'm not american or from US but this reads like mental illness
Just like the invasion of Ukraine became the most important topic globally for years, and made everyone virtue signal about how important sovereignty supposedly is, whereas sovereignty somehow didn’t matter in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, South Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, and I don’t know where else.
The big difference before was that america commit war crimes, but it did so in a socially acceptable way and was able to keep a polite face in important company. It's like how being a manager at tech companies is 95% speaking affluently and sounding like you know what you're doing (and also like 80% being white). We used to sound like we knew what we were doing. Now we don't.
The fact that the US is not as powerful as it used to be may actually make it dangerous. "On a smaller scale" doesn't mean it cannot destroy the world's economy, as we are seeing now.
What do you think the memes are based on?
When there'd be UN resolutions before the armed intervention, a casus belli with (non-fake) evidence of genocide, a peacekeeping force with troops from 39 countries, and captured leaders tried. And the peacekeeping force was able to deliver peace reasonably effectively, instead of bleeding troops and money for decades on end.
And although to some it seemed like an American president trying to distract domestic political attention from his sexual misdeeds, it was just a consensual blowjob from an adult woman.
Peace had just come to Northern Ireland, western relations were improving with Russia (newly democratic) and China (sure to soon adopt democracy as they open up to the world). The first parts of the International Space Station had just been launched. School shootings weren't a thing, the one a year later would be shocking and the cause of major soul-searching. Also Half-Life was game of the year.
— Agent Smith, looking out the window at a circa-1998 American city skyline
The problem, as always, isn't the technology. Rather it's how people with power use the technology. Today that technology is"AI". But several decades ago it was the replacement of human judgement with financial modeling and line-goes-up über alles.
(note that even though I'm critiquing "capital" I'm not what you would call an anti-capitalist)
Such comments either are propaganda or they play into the hands of propagandists.
There is a huge difference in the degree of corruption and malfeasance of this administration. Implying that the current regime is so similar to prior ones downplays the critical importance of restoring competence.
Meh
for the societies all over the globe that have been the targets of such policies for more than a century, I think it's better to call a spade a spade. the non-American politicians and aristocrats that benefit from US imperialism get to hide much better if the Americans are "the good guys"
This is of course what we're seeing today, where Trump is just discovering his taste for utilizing American military power to achieve his whims.
Hopefully we get bogged down in Iran enough not to continue, but obviously as soon as we started the Iran conflict, the GOP was already talking about "Cuba's next" etc, which is obviously the start of an infinitely long list of places to "liberate."
This situation is far worse for everyone than the one where the US is mostly benign (despite mistakes) relative to its incredible power.
The only difference is that Donald Trump doesn’t care about plausible deniability at all, unlike previous presidents,which is why the American public remembers (the demons) George Bush neutral or slightly positive. They should both have died in prison.
I understand that it’s true that the USA has been problematic in the past but in this case, the story being sold to people about the US “always” having been bad exists to convince people that there is no other way, and you either have to accept it or tear it all down. Interestingly both benefit the current administration
The USA has not been “problematic”, it has enforced a particular ideology on the world with the rest of us unwilling participants.
The USA has repeatedly overthrown diplomatically elected leaders(Iran ironically being the best example, a democratic government toppled because it was stopping American business interests and democratising its oil resources) so the USAs ownership class can make their fortunes.
Sometimes , it has stopped elections, exterminated millions, set their villages on fire, because the people were picking the wrong ideology.
Remove your rose tinted glasses.
Militarily, the US can trivially eradicate entire countries. It is “only” our leadership and their sense of morals (imperfect and spotty as they are) that prevents this.
Your equivocation is beyond naive.
Do you not remember Abu Ghraib, or Gitmo?
When it comes to war crimes, this administration is no worse than those past.
can you point me to some sources?
take a look at this though, in the interest of examining past US actions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...
But all of those things are the awful things that happen during war even with a military, political, and legal apparatus that tries to mitigate it.
We are now dealing with a regime that claims and will make no such efforts. The only reason the Iran war hasn't so far yielded the same horrors is because so far we haven't attempted to occupy Iran.
If we do, I absolutely promise you that a military populated by people who know they can be court martialed, jailed, or even executed for crimes against the local population will be significantly better behaved (even if imperfectly, per your article) than one that is told – from the very top – that they will be accountable for nothing except maximal brutality and lethality.
It's not like the US has never e.g. openly threatened NATO allies with war: There is quite literally a standing law that allows the US president to invade the netherlands if any US military personnel is ever detained by the International Criminal Court. This law has been on the books for over 20 years and has the publically announced intention to prevent the US from being prosecuted for all the other atrocities committed in e.g. Iraq. This bill was supported by both democrats and republicans.
The reality is that the US' stance towards the rest of the world has not changed with the recent administrations (nor would I expect it to: Trump does not happen in a vacuum). What did change was willingness of the rest of the world to act on the US' actions.
The previous presidents were just more competent stewards of these activities.
In some ways, not being from the US, I don't dislike Trump. He may be a senile buffon and apparent pedophile, but at least he laid bare what the US truly stands for. He was elected twice after all, and still has substantial support.
At least other countries can stop pretending the US is in any way friendly.
Then again as a Brit I am a bit biased
The government should give away its excess land to me, not sell it to their cronies.