Ardennes posted:

It very clearly wasn't the standard back in the 1990s or even most of the 2000s. Yes, there were rust belt cities and poverty in the US, but let's not pretend that suburbia was actually dominate at one point.

The Simpsons is just an example, there are a multitude of 90s family sitcoms out there with nearly the same set. If you want to say they didn't represent anyone fine, but I have a hard time believing they didn't show what was expected to be the average. They weren't supposed to be aspirational.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

i'm saying that you're a misguided-at-best liberal who read some anarchist literature in 2016 or something, felt a shock of guilt at your relative material luxury compared to the global periphery, and now thinks that if only you project that sense of individual guilt onto as many people as possible that will somehow lead to revolution in the first world. this is also known as jaxyon syndrome

The337th posted:

Stop using sitcoms as an example of actual life, lol, this is insane

I seriously wasn't aware that 'middle class America' propaganda was hitting this successfully on people who aren't even subjected to it domestically

yellowcar posted:

that is not even remotely close to what i was getting at

Ardennes posted:

You are making some assumptions. But no, America was not generally an impoverished country back in the 1990s, the average American was gaining from the system and they had no reason to rock the boat. They weren't powerless, they were content.

Ardennes posted:

You are making some assumptions. But no, America was not generally an impoverished country back in the 1990s, the average American was gaining from the system and they had no reason to rock the boat. They weren't powerless, they were content.

Nix Panicus posted:

Pringles are the result of a *years* long project to engineer the perfect potato based chip. First they came up with the perfect shape for a chip, the hyperbolic paraboloid, that maximized strength and stackability, and then spent several more years trying to make a potato based fried dough that could be shaped into the paraboloid not taste like poo poo. Legally they are not allowed to be called a potato chip in the US outside of the specific phrase "potato chips made from dried potatoes".

Jonah Galtberg posted:

okay, you're right, my bad, you just want to make people feel their original sin for the sake of it

Jonah Galtberg posted:

i'm not an american lol. thankfully. i hope you find peace within yourself.

Danann posted:

never knew i needed a codec call dedicated to the history and development of potato chips for mgs v

The337th posted:

Poverty rates in the US are, and have been, exceedingly bad by any metric applied to first world countries, or even many of those that fall below western first world affluence

it takes serious systemic issues, usually introduced by the same imperial power subjecting poverty on their own populace, to reach that type of distinction

but yeah, keep scoping out the sweet creature comforts of the TV family I guess

Jonah Galtberg posted:

look at this absolute turd of a post. not even the pretence of any kind of marxist argument here, just pure brainworms

The337th posted:

this country won't stop killing its own people and can pull enough levers along class, racial, gender, and regional divides to completely nullify any groundswell of resistance for causes that are much more self interested than foreign policy

being the cog in the machine is what it is, people are just being silly to treat it like there's even a vaguely realistic outcome where it's taken down by an entirely captured populace from the inside, when that population can't even win basic existential rights for themselves or prevent the continual erosion of what they do have

if this extreme of an imperial power can reach across the globe and casually destabilize and destroy the lives of a population, it's a weird logic to underestimate the power it holds domestically

the only remedy to stop the power of the american state and topple the whole evil system is going to have to come at the hands of other significant state powers because they're the only ones in a position to actually push back against that overwhelming dominance

at some point in that hypothetical collapse, that domestic grip of control will slip, but it's not realistically happening before then

xiaoren posted:

Maybe the spoils of empire can be used to manufacture an image of the imperial core as generally well-off both to its impoverished and outsiders to pacify the populace and further aid the repressive state machine

Orange Devil posted:

If we're going to view the US through the lense of a sitcom, can we at least use Roseanne and Married with Children?

I hear those *actually* depict real working class life!

For race relations can't go wrong with the classic, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air!

yellowcar posted:

well neither am i

lol why are we even disagreeing

Ardennes posted:

If the Ukrainians are expecting to just be able to push across a riverbed like that, it is going to be something else. There is going to be absolutely no cover across the route and probably still muddy/unstable ground, and the Russians know they are coming, and there are only going to be certain possible paths through it.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

we are disagreeing because you are an idiot with a point that would be entirely useless even if it were true, and i am not

fits my needs posted:

did the war end or something, what is going on

Ardennes posted:

Again, back in the 90s it wasn't the case except for maybe some northern European states. Americans had an enviable standard living for a reason. During the 1990s and 2000s, American life expectancy was actually fairly close to British life expectancy and then it diverged across the 2010s. It is actually a fairly recent thing.

Material circumstance is material circumstance.

Ardennes posted:

I don't think the post-war suburb lifestyle of the post-war period until 2008 was just advertising. For boomers to have it easier, at some point it had to be actually easier. Americans did actually get something out of the empire.

fizzy posted:

Worrying news for Ukraine - Ukrainian intelligence agencies have received information showing Russia is considering carrying out a “terrorist” attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant involving a release of radiation.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...f08c081c5bb5d61

10m ago

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday Ukrainian intelligence agencies had received information showing Russia is considering carrying out a “terrorist” attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant involving a release of radiation.

In a video statement on the Telegram messenger, he said Ukraine was sharing the intelligence with all its international partners.

yellowcar posted:

the american hegemon is perpetuated by americans (directly or indirectly, with or without consent, it doesn't matter) that's just the facts

i can't help it that some of you feel personally irked by that statement

yellowcar posted:

what part of it isn't true?

Jonah Galtberg posted:

we are disagreeing because you are an idiot with a point that would be entirely useless even if it were true, and i am not

fanfic insert posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgdxKgxJyuw

The337th posted:

American propaganda about its living conditions was enviable back when kayfabe was still alive, I'm sure

living in the reality of widespread poverty, not so much

The337th posted:

The perception of boomers being well off is built out of all the dead and dying boomers who didn't make it and left only the well off survivors to enjoy the spotlight of American affluence

just put any extra effort into not being worked this hard by literal propaganda about American exceptionalism

Ardennes posted:

That media wasn't considered unrealistic because its target audience was still a majority of the country at the time.

Plenty of boomers made it and they had their tax assessments frozen back in the 80s and have been coasting since. They simply had opportunities that younger generations didn't.

Turtle Watch posted:

Nix Panicus posted:

For me, its the implication that any of America's imperial client states have any less responsibility. If anything its easier to start a revolt against America from outside of the imperial core! The vassal states not getting actively bombed have less surveillance and more freedom to change poo poo than we do!

If the argument is 'but then they'll start bombing us' then yeah, that applies here too!

yellowcar posted:

that's fair, though i wasn't trying to shirk that responsibility from the client states either.

i just can't understand why it's so disagreeable to say "americans citizens are themselves, unwittingly or not, materially contributive to american imperialism" and why "lack of political agency" doesn't really excuse any of that

The337th posted:

The American dream was never real, not even the twisted version fed by imperialism, and it's okay to just confront that

It was always aspirational if you weren't coming into generational wealth

The only other factors is the specific debt costs to chasing the dream when it was above your means, which has continued to get worse, but was always a longshot and an extreme risk in a system that would eat you alive for losing a job or getting too sick

I get that it's deeply hosed just how much the US has robbed from the world with its imperialism, but you're still just feeding into a generous view of American exceptionalism to pretend the bloodthirst and cruelty was spared domestically by the same system that would destroy entire nations for neverending gains

stop making this demon nation sound better than it ever was, at any given point in time, lol

Turtle Watch posted:

yellowcar posted:

that's fair, though i wasn't trying to shirk that responsibility from the client states either.

i just can't understand why it's so disagreeable to say "americans citizens are themselves, unwittingly or not, materially contributive to american imperialism" and why "lack of political agency" doesn't really excuse any of that

Ardennes posted:

I am sorry, no it wasn't, the base of American imperialism was based on the fact that there was a buy in from the general population. It is just that buy it has been getting weaker by the generation. I think you are deflecting the fact, to be honest, that Americans by and large for generations had something to gain from the empire and now the situation has reversed itself.

It wasn't a demon nation that just came from the ether, it came from somewhere and its golden age wasn't even that long ago in the past.

The337th posted:

If you don't think it's a big deal to state, you could just leave it at that instead of trying to find weird exceptions to take offense at when people simply dig into the subject of just how prolific this imperial system and its control is

quote:

feels like some weird projecting about who actually can't reconcile the guilt of being trapped in the machine, when discussing the severity of the problem is verboten

yellowcar posted:

because we all know that poo poo already, man

nothing you've said was new or novel

wasn't trying to guilt trip you nor trying to stop you from talking about it and that's besides the point