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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@TimWardCam @dalias @quinn I have family in places where the closest "local junk" is a 10+ mile walk away (meaning quality food is even further). We have massive problems with our food supply and infrastructure
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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.
Yeah like, I get enough to eat, and a roof over my head, and nothing else. No land, no freedom, no power, no influence, no friends, no community, no support, no family, no career, no skills, and practically no medical care. And I'm extremely privileged compared to most people here. (Except for family. Most people are allowed to have a family.)
But even the luxuries I have are very effective at making me invisible and robbing me of any power to fight back. If I rock the boat too much, I might starve to death! Like, literally!
I don't want to know what's going on in the rest of the world either, because it's always bad news. Terror and despair and nothing else.
Well, that's why I'm trying to claw friendship and community out of this stupid polyanna church... better than nothing, I suppose. -
@cy @TheQuinbox @quinn In some ways yes it is, but how much gasslighting do yo uthink went on tin the eastern block?
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@quinn I... honestly don't even think Europe is much better than that, it varies by country but as a subcontinent we're pretty much only ever a few years away from the US with regards to how bad shit is politically
If anything I often feel Americans are more compassionate, less passive, more willing to fight for their and their communities' lives
In my part of the world at least people have given up and are just willing to roll over for anyone who comes in with a bit of power because hey, if you lick the boot maybe it won't kick you? (it invariably does)
@hazelnot @quinn in my experience the average US citizen is either about as selfish as it gets or is too worn out to be able to actually be nice with regularity. What we project online or while abroad is almost nothing like I see day to day. We may have our moments (like the No Kings protests), but they're not even remotely common enough. I agree, Europe isn't too far off in terms of politics, but Europeans, on average (and there are exceptions, obviously), tend to actually get vacations, maternity leave, paternity leave, etc to actually rest. We don't and that lack of rest and constant anxiety is why we're some of the least empathetic people I've ever come across. We haven't given up...we don't even know there is a boot to lick in the first place.
I live in what is universally considered the most "progressive" and LGBTQA positive area of the US. The most hateful, spiteful, racist, bigoted people I've ever met were born and raised here. A lot of it has to do with our awful education system, being over worked (90 hour work weeks aren't rare here), some of the worst roads that we get packed into like sardines, not to mention generational trauma that gets loaded onto the next generation (god forbid you go to therapy like a "coward"). Americans are severely misunderstood, by even ourselves sometimes. And that's the problem. We can't take the time to chill out and have a conversation to break down those barriers.
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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 Greetings from California! When I visited other parts of the US, I experienced culture shock that I was not prepared to experience within my own country. Even in the poorer parts of California, lifestyles are dramatically different. Head out to other states and you see even more of it. The US is 50 countries in a trench coat
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@TimWardCam @dalias @quinn Instead of imagining a little town with bad local shops imagine that you live on the side of the A12. The nearest place that would accept money in exchange for any goods and/or services is a 45 minute walk away on streets with no sidewalk. You decide to walk it anyway, and cars stop to ask if you’re lost or in trouble. Your destination is a store that only sells highly processed food in massive packages. After you buy five things it’s far too heavy to carry home.
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@clarablackink @quinn I had a friend who lived in a major city in Texas who was afraid of NYC and convinced you'd be immediately mugged or pickpocketed if you went there. The man has traveled to many places including tourist destinations in Mexico but somehow had NYC framed as a boogie man...
@JessTheUnstill
@clarablackink @quinni live in houston and it's always funny to hear texans talk about the east and west coasts as these terrible places while turning a blind eye to all the gun violence that happens here
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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 understand because we seen it and we warned you for decade, but the majority of US are entitled and never listen to warning.
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@quinn Greetings from California! When I visited other parts of the US, I experienced culture shock that I was not prepared to experience within my own country. Even in the poorer parts of California, lifestyles are dramatically different. Head out to other states and you see even more of it. The US is 50 countries in a trench coat
i'll never forget the time my mother (who grew up in a poor farming community in argentina) told me about traveling in the deep south with my father. she was absolutely shocked at the poverty she saw
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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 was raised by wild dogs in Alaska, the whole world is fucking weird, to me.
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@JessTheUnstill
@clarablackink @quinni live in houston and it's always funny to hear texans talk about the east and west coasts as these terrible places while turning a blind eye to all the gun violence that happens here
@3am @clarablackink @quinn and it's not even a "oh there's brown/Black people there" necessarily. Whites aren't even a majority in Texas anymore. I guess it's just The Liberals
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@quinn Greetings from California! When I visited other parts of the US, I experienced culture shock that I was not prepared to experience within my own country. Even in the poorer parts of California, lifestyles are dramatically different. Head out to other states and you see even more of it. The US is 50 countries in a trench coat
@PepperTheVixen @quinn admittedly a little bit surprised Washington, Oregon, and California are still in the US at this point
but I guess I have Québec right there near me so that colours things
- Erin
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@cy @TheQuinbox @quinn Exactly. Over 60 years of gasslighting, before people in the comunist block found out just how bad it was for them.
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"I think most Americans don't know what complete poverty looks like. Or what being bombed or shot in your home looks like. Or what slave labor looks like."
i expect more & more americans are going to get a forceful education in this as things rapidly deteriorate here. no excuses. we let it happen.
@saltywizard @pixie @quinn yup. These things never stay limited to one group. If those in power will take food and labor and shelter and life from the most vulnerable, they will not hesitate to take it from you too.
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@saltywizard @pixie @quinn yup. These things never stay limited to one group. If those in power will take food and labor and shelter and life from the most vulnerable, they will not hesitate to take it from you too.
and when they finally run out of peasants to devour, they'll have to consume themselves.
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@cy @TheQuinbox @quinn Exactly. Over 60 years of gasslighting, before people in the comunist block found out just how bad it was for them.
It's a little different than brainwashing them into becoming mindless consumer drones. But yeah, they weren't exactly allowed to criticize their new benevolent police force. Though I've heard a lot of the current bullshit in the USA came out of behavioral manipulation techniques pioneered by the KGB... and of course North Korea.
CC: @TheQuinbox@dragonscave.space @quinn@social.circl.lu -
@quinn for decades your TV overwhelmingly presented an affluent white suburban middle class to be the normal way everyone lives. It took a very long time for media with a different perspective to reach us in any volume
@quinn @kyle_pegasus The longer I live in this walkable city, the more I outright resent and detest my suburban upbringing. Never again.
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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 think it's not necessarily out of grasp for a lot of Europeans, it's just that they get fed a lot of US propaganda about the US too. But I think plenty of Europeans have a basic grasp of the circumstances of the average working person in the Russian Federation, and that's not totally dissimilar? Highly propagandized, living under a deeply militarized security state, with a shockingly low standard of living because of frayed social systems and a gut-shot civil society, leading to many people withdrawing from politics and widespread deaths of despair.
Europeans would get much closer to understanding the US if they think in those terms basically.
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@quinn I think it's not necessarily out of grasp for a lot of Europeans, it's just that they get fed a lot of US propaganda about the US too. But I think plenty of Europeans have a basic grasp of the circumstances of the average working person in the Russian Federation, and that's not totally dissimilar? Highly propagandized, living under a deeply militarized security state, with a shockingly low standard of living because of frayed social systems and a gut-shot civil society, leading to many people withdrawing from politics and widespread deaths of despair.
Europeans would get much closer to understanding the US if they think in those terms basically.
@quinn If more Europeans understood that in the US every single police officer is armed to a military standard, there is no place in the US you can go where you will not encounter police multiple times a day, US police are encouraged to hide and lie as part of daily operations, and the US has the worlds highest prison population, like just that set of facts kind of explains a lot?
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@3am @clarablackink @quinn and it's not even a "oh there's brown/Black people there" necessarily. Whites aren't even a majority in Texas anymore. I guess it's just The Liberals
@JessTheUnstill @3am @clarablackink @quinn When I (native Texan) moved to California, friends/family were all like, oh you'll get red paint thrown at you if you wear leather, or you'll have to get your car's exhaust completely redone, or the taxes there are out of control.
What I found is that CA news is heavily spun in TX, and TX news is... just as bad or worse than presented in CA.
