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Much of American nationalism is simply tied into consumerism, the US flag is a logo just as much as anything else. If anything American nationalism is often rather vague because American culture is at the same time and if anything it is ever changing, and so it is difficult to tell where consumerism begins or evens with nationalism.
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Jan 18, 2015 21:47
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drilldo squirt posted:No it's not. How so?
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Jan 18, 2015 22:11
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drilldo squirt posted:Tell me how it is please. American flags in front of random businesses especially banks, American flags all over cable news channels, merchandise with American flags: it is a big part of marketing. How about "USA-brand" crap too, especially when it is extremely poor quality? Randler posted:Guess it's time for our "Europe is more racist than America" thread again. Don't worry that is every thread about Europe now.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:21
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drilldo squirt posted:While I agree corporate America cashes in on nationalism I don't see how they are linked. It is more that representative examples of nationalism (flags/eagles etc) are more prevalent because business seized upon them for marketing. There is plenty of old fashion nationalism out there as well but it is also caught up in broader mass market. Other countries have this as well but as lot of things, it is super-charged in the US. When I see a flag in Russia, it usually means something more than the US. drilldo squirt posted:You guys are super racist and it's really funny. I am American, so yes. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 22:27
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computer parts posted:And it was developed by a socialist. To sell flags. Pretty much, America is indeed a wondrous place...to sell poo poo to.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:45
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Mornacale posted:The USSR was a greater force for good in the world than the United States. The alternate universe where the I actually wouldn't necessarily say that, the Soviets actually did plenty of despicable things and the Soviet leadership was rather notoriously uncompromising. However, it wasn't necessarily a battle between good and evil either as it has been historically framed in the US. It would have been actually better for the world if the Soviets had slowly reformed but still have retained potent and socialist. We sort of got the "inbetween scenario" in which the US won but had no competition and thus no reason to really restrain or reform itself either. From a Polish perspective the Soviets needed to go down as soon as possible, but it wasn't necessarily actually the best thing for the world. It wouldn't have almost have been such a great thing for El Salvador if the US collapse on itself either.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:37
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:So rigged elections are not okay, but apartheid is? Basically, free elections aren't really free if you don't have equal rights for the population, it is a fair criticism of the US before civil rights as well. Also, the US seems to be moving back that way. Hey see it isn't just a thread for making GBS threads on Europe!
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Jan 19, 2015 04:01
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This thread is about as magical as I expected it to be. Also, yeah the amount given to charities includes religious ones. Polish and American nationalism do fit like a glove for now. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 07:18
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A lot of those war post-war European policies were driven by fear of communists taking power, France and Italy had a powerful communist parties. In France, they were were major party into the 1970s and if anything put leftward pressure on the socialists. The Italian communists were potent until the 1980s.West Germany was caught in a propaganda war (which they were winning with DDR) but that meant they had to keep social policies pretty liberal not to look worse. This isn't a history thread but a throwing around random poo poo thread though.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:35
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asdf32 posted:This is lazy post modern BS in my opinion considering how many things have gotten significantly better in the last century from civil rights to the middle class. Clearly major institutions have played a role certainly including the leading states. If anything in the last 60 years the working class and unions have been pretty much demolished and the middle class has been shrinking for decades. It is more difficult to crow about a system that starts to retreat on its gains when it doesn't face entrenched competition.
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Jan 21, 2015 06:25
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asdf32 posted:They were creatEd in the first place. Third world gains in East Asia while other regions have been languishing, and if anything the lack of balance of regional development has lead to greater instability. Also, it is looking like growth is slowing dramatically in China and that economic conditions there are possibly worst than their government admits. However, the "creation in the first place" is in a big part due to unions and government protection of them which leads back to the birth pangs of the Cold War. Cingulate posted:% of people in extreme poverty has gone down, life expectancy up, % dictatorships down, median income up. A good % of those dictatorships were ones we supported, especially in Latin America, and largely existed because of the Cold War. Furthermore, there is growing indications that the decline of poverty of the third world was dependent on a middle class in the first world which is continuing to disintegrate. If anything the argument is it is unsustainable, just very likely as "American era peace" looks is it might be. If anything the 1980s to 2008 might be considered a great bubble of growth depended on the middle class, but it didn't necessarily result in a third world middle class to replace it and if jobs return to the first world, they will be the ones with the most minimal pay and thus far reduced ability to spend on consumer products. Basically, the system is being squeezed dry. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 17:55
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Cingulate posted:A lot of this is irrelevant, wrong, or not in direct contradiction to the original statement - that, as you agree, the world has improved, tremendously, continuously. You probably should specific what is "irrelevant or wrong" then, and as for the world improving, it depends on who you ask. If you ask for someone form most of the former Soviet Union, it has gotten far worse, as from someone in the satellite states, it most likely has gotten better. In China it has gotten better, in much of Africa it doesn't seem to have changed much. Incomes have risen as a whole, fine but it hasn't "risen all boats" quite the same way or at the same time. The "prosperity" of the present also can very well disappear especially for much of the have-nots of the world, as wealth if anything concentrates in ever fewer hands and the climate destabilizes, many will be left on the losing end. Africa still remains impoverished and destabilized, and higher growth that the West (which isn't too hard to achieve at the moment) isn't much of a place for solace considering they may have missed a period of growth that may not return and are already facing dramatic crises. To be honest, your arguments remind me a lot of what you see in George Friedman's "books" or in the Economist. asdf32 posted:The USSR did plenty of good things. Usually empires lead to abuses of power even if they have theoretically (once) good intentions, if anything it could be said that the "imperial" parts of Soviet policy are what lead to some of the deepest hatred of it especially in Western Ukraine and the satellite states. You are probably thinking of anarchism or anarchist-syndicalism btw not libertarianism. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 18:17
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asdf32 posted:Yeah it basically has risen all boats. But let's hear more about how gains for poor people don't really matter and get back to focusing on the first world middle class. The issue is that growth came from the middle class in the first place, the middle class aren't important in a moral sense but an economic one. You need consumer consumption to support manufacturing. Cingulate posted:No. That's absolutely the wrong way of going about it. According to you, if anything I think it is better to break apart exactly what is going on. Those numbers on their own need to probably be explained by specific circumstances. Also # of dictatorships seems a pretty bogus criteria up to plenty of speculation. Median life expectancy is generally going to improve with medical technology and other technology. Median income and poverty are fine, but you probably need to talk about disparity of regions. quote:This is all true, and of course being realistic (optimistic) about the recent trend of the present always beating the past when it comes to humanist concerns must never keep us from being realistic (pessimistic) about the future. In a certain sense we will always "beat the past" unless we enter some type of technological dark age. Technology keeps on improving, it isn't a mystery in that sense. It is whether the current system can uniquely take credit for it, that is the question. If anything you could say that the "commercialization" of medical technology may be a net drag. quote:If we can, with all efforts, only maintain the current rate of progress in the face of climate change, growing inequality and the old enemies of racism etc., that would be something to be very thankful for. I think we already may have peaked in certain senses, technology will still improve but at the same time the "engines" of the global economy look like their are stalling again and it seems getting out of the shadow of the 2008 global downturn is complex. quote:Completely unfamiliar with either, but the relevant statistics are readily available. Really? Lucky you I guess, maybe give it 6 months?
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Jan 21, 2015 18:34
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Cingulate posted:Generally, I agree with you technology was a major factor in the world-wide increase of welfare. But first, the extreme technological progress has factually happened under this system. Second, I think it's not the only one; if (and I think this quite likely) the capitalists have discovered it is more profitable to allow the 3rd world some basic development than to brutally oppress them with whip and bullet, and that a peaceful Europe is more profitable than a nationalist Europe, and that has caused a significant increase in well-being, then that is better than Stalinism, aristocracies, and every other way the world has so far been organised in. Is a better world possible? Surely. But you cannot argue for this better world by obfuscation and false claims. You can say, we wish for a better order because we are concerned the current one, as far as it has brought us, likely will not bring us further (and I am quite with you on that one). But you can't say it has not in the past greatly improved global well-being, more than any other system so far. Tell me where I was bringing "obduscation and false claims", if you don't bring examples then you sound like you're full of it. Ultimately, the question is if we could have a better system than we do now and the question is obviously yes and even if things are technically improving because of technology, that doesn't mean another system could use technology or resources better. If anything it could be argued much of the technology we rely on is a product of the Cold War. Also, you ignore the impact of inequality of social relations and on societies, inequality in many ways distorts them beyond a few simple statistics. It is also plainly clear when you read the news what the results are even if life expectancy crept up a bit more. What is the point of pride when vast inequalities still exist? Also btw, I think you are actually quite wrong by the Soviets, you can point to Stalin and his murder, fine, but you can't also say that the real improvements didn't happen in the Soviet Union either. Life in Imperial Russia was significantly worse for most people, and silent starvation was a continual practice. It doesn't dismiss the Holodomor but something does need to be said about life expectancy and the quality of life readily improving for most of the population over time and electricity, public transportation and housing being built. If you want to say that Stalin's atrocities were unnecessary and a enormous waste of lives, I don't disagree but saying nothing came out of the Soviet Union is just revisionism. Even today many people miss the economic stability that was part of the Soviet Union. The answer isn't to bring back Stalinism, but to honestly look at what good state socialist societies did and see what could be taken out of that experience even if it was modified. In many ways Europe did this but it has clearly started to slide As far as consumption, at least in China it is clearly not enough to support the expansion of China's industries. The Chinese middle class has bought cars but they can only buy so much and so often and there is a reason Chinese growth is dropping and even the IMF is substantially lowering predicted global economic growth. A ton of trade was send to China but the profits of it were obviously spent very unequally. Some Chinese got a chance of a better life but many did not and it is a real question of what is going to happen to them. Oh yeah and as far as Eastern Europe, life there did increase significantly but it was quite clear that the 1990s were very hard on the population and that if anything Poland recovered the quickest for a variety of reasons. In comparison, Hungary had a far more bitter transition. In Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and much of the rest of the former Soviet Union things if anything life fell apart for many people quite a while. There were clearly winners and losers even if everyone got "theoretical" accessible to Iphones. Pensioners in Ukraine are still waiting for the great bounty that wild free market capitalism should have brought them. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 08:00
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