Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
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@quinn IIRC it was Republicans in the 1970s who decided that an educated population would be too much of a hassle (and not likely to vote conservative)?
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@aerofreak @quinn Oh yes. The whole world is turning right. Pretty hard, I might add. Everything with empathy, care, or equal rights is being marked a target.
@gimulnautti
Yes, and we must seize every opportunity to nip these efforts in the bud. -
Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn I would like to tell you that a lot of Europeans can understand you very well and therefore make a difference between your government and the people.
I'm a German emigrated to France, with family in the USA, fleeing from Hitler already in 1923. Those who didn't flee had to work hard on their responsabilities, their blind spots, and how to avoid such a horror another time. It's our heritage, more relevant than ever, with the rise of fascism in Europe too. Democracy is hard work.
I could -
@quinn For me, the reason that is hard to understand is that information is easily obtainable if looking outside. However it seems more like an unwillingness of many (not all I know ofc) to do so, so they actively choose the gaslighting.
And yes, this also happens in my country and Europe among some groups. -
@quinn I would like to tell you that a lot of Europeans can understand you very well and therefore make a difference between your government and the people.
I'm a German emigrated to France, with family in the USA, fleeing from Hitler already in 1923. Those who didn't flee had to work hard on their responsabilities, their blind spots, and how to avoid such a horror another time. It's our heritage, more relevant than ever, with the rise of fascism in Europe too. Democracy is hard work.
I could@quinn see a thought shift in my US-family up from the 1980s, when the system crashed some of them (poisoning incidents in factories, no healthcare system etc.), and the evangelicals did what Talibans do now: They offered straightforward help and a new community, at the cost of total brainwashing. When the first one converted and started praising Trump on Facebook, I thought it was just an isolated case. Today I’ve cut off all contact because they’ve all gone over to the other side.
It is not
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I often cite this article you wrote in 2013 to show the dark side of the U.S..
I guess things are even worse, now.https://medium.com/quinn-norton/the-values-of-money-f3db7e13e6e3
@GustavinoBevilacqua @quinn
thanks for sharing this! Parts one and two were great reads. Did a part three ever come to be? 
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@quinn see a thought shift in my US-family up from the 1980s, when the system crashed some of them (poisoning incidents in factories, no healthcare system etc.), and the evangelicals did what Talibans do now: They offered straightforward help and a new community, at the cost of total brainwashing. When the first one converted and started praising Trump on Facebook, I thought it was just an isolated case. Today I’ve cut off all contact because they’ve all gone over to the other side.
It is not
@quinn just family ties that teach us about the USA.
We have excellent investigative documentaries covering the historical background, people’s everyday lives, the crimes and life-threatening ideologies of the super-rich, right through to the living conditions of the poor and marginalised. I remember one of an investigative reporter visiting his MAGA family for a big intergenerational meeting, talking with the people ... these personal insights were more horror than every news!
We see that -
@quinn just family ties that teach us about the USA.
We have excellent investigative documentaries covering the historical background, people’s everyday lives, the crimes and life-threatening ideologies of the super-rich, right through to the living conditions of the poor and marginalised. I remember one of an investigative reporter visiting his MAGA family for a big intergenerational meeting, talking with the people ... these personal insights were more horror than every news!
We see that@quinn many aspects of life resemble those of a developing country, not a “rich superpower”. And at the same time, we can hardly believe how this leads people to take the completely wrong side.
Educated people in Europe know that very well.
But the disgust and rage against a rogue state which is destroying everything in the world we fought for for decades, is growing rapidly. So we're back to the lessons of history ... -
@GustavinoBevilacqua @quinn
thanks for sharing this! Parts one and two were great reads. Did a part three ever come to be? @nicksilkey @GustavinoBevilacqua @quinn
Remove the admiration for the self-made man and the other part is painfully true for any European country I've lived in.
[The long admired idea of the “self-made man” isn't self-made because he's built the strong and loyal social connections that will support him, defend him, and turn to him for wisdom and affection throughout his long and social life.]
Here we just hypocritically pretend it doesn't work this way.
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I often cite this article you wrote in 2013 to show the dark side of the U.S..
I guess things are even worse, now.https://medium.com/quinn-norton/the-values-of-money-f3db7e13e6e3
@GustavinoBevilacqua thanks for the link! @quinn
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@NickSchwanck @quinn It's very hard to put into words. We all grow up here in a system that continuously every single day all day for all our lives gaslights and lies to us, telling us evil is good and good is evil, hate is love and love is hate, etc etc. A whole Orwellian nightmare. We're taught from day one not to recognize or accept this system for what it is despite all the warnings (we're supposed to reject the warners as biased.)
As I said, it's a whole system.
@nazokiyoubinbou But you also have the wonderful people resisting in different ways, often in dangerous situations ... don't these people give hope or the idea to start connecting with such a community?
Even we in other countries can learn a lot from them!
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@quinn IIRC it was Republicans in the 1970s who decided that an educated population would be too much of a hassle (and not likely to vote conservative)?
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn I've been saying this forever; the defining characteristic of Americans for a while now has been fear.
It only dawned on me after a conversation between a bunch of photographers talking about equipment when shooting solo at night. Little old English ladies talking about tea flasks and 30 year old ex military in the USA talking about how many guns.
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The rest of world never sees the poor and desperate America, they mostly stay in the decently rich bits of New York or California, and have no idea what a "food desert" is.
@quinn Americans also often don't travel within our own country.
One of my current neighbors thinks she would need pepper spray to travel abroad and she's disinterested in traveling more than a state or two away from home. She's so extremely angry but the other neighbors are so sweet to her. The fear has her trapped in this small corner of life and the smallness of her life has her angry, resentful, and clingy.
Folks have ideas about the other states informed by tv and news.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn Long before this era, I observed how US Americans were pressed by a system that insisted on many ideals. Working late hours, every day of the week, to become wealthy, rich. Competing for a first place in any school or sport, because the second is the first of the losers. Eating, drinking, fucking, everything taken as an obsession.
I've seen all that before, then I'm not surprised of the collapse into this reality.
I'm just curious of what will take, if anything, to move you out of it. -
@NickSchwanck @nazokiyoubinbou @quinn
Convenience addiction
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@quinn Americans also often don't travel within our own country.
One of my current neighbors thinks she would need pepper spray to travel abroad and she's disinterested in traveling more than a state or two away from home. She's so extremely angry but the other neighbors are so sweet to her. The fear has her trapped in this small corner of life and the smallness of her life has her angry, resentful, and clingy.
Folks have ideas about the other states informed by tv and news.
@quinn The broader world is as foreign to many Americans as California is to Florida or Utah is to New York.
Its an important part of understanding and facing our challenges.
Most folks aren't so different but the belief that they are makes them coil up into tiny worlds and tiny lives, fearful of every possible source of joy and thus angry at every possible theft of joy that's within that tiny worldview.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn no, we do understand that. Because it’s constantly broadcast to the rest of the world.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn we see that America spends huge amounts of money to inject their culture into every society on earth. At some point sympathy runs dry
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The rest of world never sees the poor and desperate America, they mostly stay in the decently rich bits of New York or California, and have no idea what a "food desert" is.
@quinn What's a "food desert"? My wife has on business trips to the USA stayed in neighbourhoods where it's impossible to buy what we in Europe would regard as real food - the only thing on offer is (extremely) junk "food" that is completely incapable of sustaining normal life. Is that what "food desert" means?
