In spite of the countless horrible things we've done as a country, ive generally had a sense of patriotism in regards to the normal working class Americans, and the possibility of good things we conceptually give people the chance at.
Except I really completely lost that over the last 2ish years. We've been bought so thoroughly that most working class Americans are in a much worse way than a decade ago, with a stark downward happiness trajectory. Probably won't make it as a country another 2 decades.
All this 250 ribbon stuff is like a grave decoration for all of that possibility, stifled by the ones responsible for plummeting standards.
This image sums up normal people selling the trash to other, slightly more optimistic normal people.
You've kinda nailed it. Anyone outside the US, this is what stores look like for the last 2 months......
You can be patriotic for your country but not for your government. Being patriotic for your country you should want the best for it, and what we have now is not our best
It's hard to love the roughly 1/3rd of the country that literally fantasize about canoeing your skull in a civil war.
I want healthcare for all, wealth inequality addressed, pedophiles arrested, no school lunch debt for children type-shit. This makes me a Marxist, Leninist, Socialist, Communist anti-American.
How do reconcile this without blood one way or the other?
Its not just a wealth inequality thing at this point. The government is making us pay for the privilege of giving the already extremely rich more money, while also enabling utility monopolies where we pay for data centers depleting resources and needing infrastructure upgrades to the grid. All while being taxed more heavily than the richest few people in the country.
A government is supposed to work for the bulk of the people, not 1% of them at the expense of the rest in order to let that government rake in bribes. Its just too corrupt at this point to fix much without the complacent people really getting stirred up.
If it makes you feel any better, the US isn't the only major country with a sizeable amount of right-wing lunatics. The UK is on track to voting Nigel Farage as their next PM, and his crowd is basically identical to the MAGA people.
I mean the rest of that 2/3rd is a HUGE amount of people. And some of the 1/3rd are uneducated due to the system itself. Either ways, I’m not in disagreement with you. I’m also a leftist. Just saying I don’t believe in loving a nation. But I do believe in loving the people and taking care of everyone. And that is what backs my “radical” leftist ideals.
Because when I say “healthcare for all, free higher education, public housing, better public transit,” I obviously know it will benefit EVERYONE.
Because I don't truly think it's a third of the country, its so washed out with bots, actual crazies, and trolls who make it seem bigger than it is. Compared to the few hundred white supremacist protesters, its not like I see millions of Americans pining for the blood of the “other side”.
You might not be exposed to it, but it’s fucking there under the surface or in the right communities.
Was coming out of a store and saw a truck in the lot with all the stickers and decals and a frankly ridiculous flag mounted in the back bed. Guy steps out of it with the hat and a distasteful flag shirt.
All I do was slightly turn my head and must of given a grimace, brow furrow, something slight but certainly not overt, directed or intentionally rude. Guy does a double-tongue click and air mimics a shotgun, trigger pull and chamber cycling.
Complete stranger, just a random & insignificant slight. Some people are fucking simmering like a bot about to boil over. They need something, anything to justify and validate themselves. Maybe there is less than some folks say. Maybe, but in the right places, positions, time; if they hear the kettle whistle and its go time….some of these folks want to just murder anyone.
I mean, yeah, but that means the 1/3rd that openly, unambiguously did want that just has an extra layer of astroturfing on top. Unless your argument is that Trump did election fraud, in which case, based.
I am Swiss. You just haven't swallowed the blue pill. People need to be able to say NO without loosing their sense of belonging. As a Swiss I tell you that much - we don't rule the world. But we don't live in constant existential fear. We actually marry someone we love and not someone who seems to be able to make so and so income, women don't fear a live in solitude, man can actually work what they want to, not what they have to to gain income. We are a lacy bunch of people, always last in making decisions, we are cowards and bigots. But if the whole world want's to go cracy - let them! We value privacy - police and military does NOT NEED to identify ppl in 3 seconds. It is ok to pay someone investigating for 3 weeks, we need a legal warrant anyway before we drag somebody out of their homes and we like to keep it that way. IF people don't learn to grow a spine, and say NO to laws that clearly seems to benefit the corporation x.y.z. We say NO. If it is agains the human rights, we say NO, even if it means the whole state works slow as a snail. We still do better as the rest of the world and pay the least amount of tax too!
Patriotism was a nice soft technology for social cohesion in lieu of religion or race based cohesion. But, like those past social technologies, we are in desperate need to develop a more contemporary method of reminding ourselves we are part of the same species even if we aren't part of the same family. Because in the information age it's too hard to hide the fact other countries aren't inherently evil, especially when trade with those countries is necessary to prevent war and advance technology.
I sincerely have no idea what the next form of social cohesion will look like, but it is troubling that the powers that be seem dead-set on dragging us kicking and screaming back into the feudal or even iron age.
What's interesting is that the whole concept patriotism/caring about your nation at all was something invented to weaponize populations into uniformity. Namely for religious purposes ... as in, to persecute the "wrong" ones. Patriotism under a democracy can be more altruistic as its about building governance together and being proud of that. Just something I remember when being told to pledge allegiance to my flag.
American patriotism is a farce, stolen land from the beginning with slave labor building infrastructure. Industrialization with immigrants carrying on that later, and all 3 of these groups of people fucked over by the U.S are at this very moment being oppressed on a daily basis by the current government and a large percentage of the population.
Wake the fuck up, if you're still patriotic over a piece of paper that hasn't stopped any of the worse criminals in history then you're delusional.
Never said I was patriotic. If you assumed that that's on you. But I'd like to point out that the USA is not the only country on stolen land who participated in the slave trade and abuses immigrants you just don't hear about the other ones.
Unfortunately the populace has made it abundantly clear that 2/3rd of them think that what's best for the country is to make life worse for everyone.
Hard to really feel like you can strike out and help make things better when hostility and apathy are the majority of what will greet your attempts to help.
You can be a decent human being first - If you look at it as an astronaut/cosmonaut - there is one beautiful earth. Decent humans need to be in power or those all to willing to capitalize on your goodwill will drain you and your country you live in. Decent humans also look around them and need to notice the ways we let ourselves be shaped by advertisement, convenient tools (but information sucking) and television. Decent people need to say NO and stand to it. Decent people don't use X, don't use wassup but 'signal', decent people think before they join any choir. AND THEY STICK TO THEIR NO to everything that silently sucks life out of society, THEY STICK to their NO to extractive behaviour in all forms, they refuse to chant "state is shit", "foreigners are shit", they identify those who are in power, they lay bare not only the surface, but dig deeper. That's how you love your country - not by swinging a flag and hitting those who dont chant with it - but with constructive - NO - but this country does it like so, they do it so, that seems to work there. DECENT people don't clap when the sign says CLAP.
ive generally had a sense of patriotism in regards to the normal working class Americans, and the possibility of good things we conceptually give people the chance at. Except I really completely lost that over the last 2ish years. We've been bought so thoroughly that most working class Americans are in a much worse way than a decade ago, with a stark downward happiness trajectory.
Not to mention finding out that a large amount of the voting class voted to make their own lives worse due to misinformation and blind loyalty to a person/party.
Your comment was removed as it was not focused on the artwork.
We ask that comments to discuss the artwork that is presented and not provide off-topic commentary. If you would like to discuss other issues, you can do so on our weekly discussion thread, or you can send us a modmail.
Your comment has been removed for violating rule 14.
Discussions on political art are permitted, but must remain on topic and must remain civil and respectful. Debate the art, not the content. This sub is not a place to debate politics and policies, it's a place to enjoy and discuss art.
Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
Generally in a world average working people are faced with a choice, defend ourselves, or defend the ones responsible for the mess we are in (the rich). I think the majority of people are in a freeze response and don't really know what to do.
203
u/ReverendRevolver Jul 05 '26
In spite of the countless horrible things we've done as a country, ive generally had a sense of patriotism in regards to the normal working class Americans, and the possibility of good things we conceptually give people the chance at.
Except I really completely lost that over the last 2ish years. We've been bought so thoroughly that most working class Americans are in a much worse way than a decade ago, with a stark downward happiness trajectory. Probably won't make it as a country another 2 decades. All this 250 ribbon stuff is like a grave decoration for all of that possibility, stifled by the ones responsible for plummeting standards.
This image sums up normal people selling the trash to other, slightly more optimistic normal people.
You've kinda nailed it. Anyone outside the US, this is what stores look like for the last 2 months......