If it is to make the gaullist “troisième voie” thing again and again, being a polite friend with the US while ambivalently flirting with Russia and China in this anti-US ungrateful mindset, while beneficiating from all its billions dollars-worth security protection, why the US would like to care about us, while it can develop its own business and security network with the Five eyes, south-east Asia, south America?
We Europeans are much too proud of ourselves. Yes in the recent decades we did not make the American mistakes people generally point to. But what did we do?
The US owes us little, but the reverse is not true. So I think we should go low-key, and try to find first what we need to improve, not what the US needs to improve.
And now our politicians and journalists are even blaming the US for the aka “woke”, irrational, differentialist thing, while it was elaborated (in Frankfurt and) in Paris rue d’Ulm, by French guys who themselves disdained American academic culture (Derrida, in an interview with a US journalist)!
The anti-US sentiment, with its communist and gaullist source, which themselves may have more profounds roots, really has gone too far.
In fact registering to this website, I didn’t think I will talk about my sentiment for the US.
Due to automatic cognitive processing, seeing that the website was affiliated to the Dawkins foundation, I thought there will be mainly British people.
As a point of fact, my humanism is theoretically conjoined with my pro-US sentiment, and both developed conjointly over the years.
(so, to me, we are not completely getting out of topic by talking European/US culture, politics and diplomacy)
I want to take a moment to thank you, and coffee) for some excellent comments, very informative, exactly what this Forum is supposed to be about. We fall into our beliefs based on experiences and then decades fly by, and all those memories and direct knowledge of Europe, France, Germany, Switzerland becomes ancient and outdated. It’s been a nice refresher, not to mention the amazing trips down memory lane they’ve inspired.
Fox was a cheerleader for Trump in his ultimately successful 2016 White House campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton, a symbiotic relationship that continued up to the 2020 election.Sep 22, 2023
The self deception in social media thing has been around long enough now that the psychologist are catching up. Some of it is old fashion propaganda, but with more info now, it’s more complicated. It’s starts with people not liking what they are experiencing, then trying to find reasons, that’s not easy with too much info blasting us. Rather than continual education, people take comfort in distrust and hate and can find others who agree. Facts don’t matter after that, if you don’t feel it, you aren’t in their club.
This should have been posted under " Fascism education and social control ", but it would be very stranger to the ways the topic is turning.
Well. Ultra-right is winning everywhere in Europe and South America. It has won and can win again in USA. It can win in France in 2027.
The question is why?
Answer is multiple.
First, ultra-right plays on the fears and prejudices of people, creating myths. In France, one of the myths it created, playing on the fears of the common people of immigrants and the real problems some of them create, is the myth of the great replacement. According them, in one generation, the original French people would have been replaced by immigrants from Maghreb and Sub-Sahara Africa. Pure madness.
I let you tell us about the American myths. May be the myth of a universal conspiracy against ordinary people.
They play on the feeling of abandonment of ordinary people, sometimes crushed by successive crises. The rust belt is a typical example.
The left is largely responsible as it has forsaken them for promoting societal subjects and giving priorities to the minorities, cf. Hilary Clinton.
(I don’t say that one must not fight for minorities rights, but it must not be done to the detriment of “ordinary people”
I remember reading a paper some years ago about a study of the speeches given by the nominated democrat candidates for presidency, and the progresses of abstention from votes. The correlation is strong as the speeches are less and less left centered and the abstention progresses.
Having created false problems, negating the true ones, they promote false easy solutions, conform to the fears and prejudices of people.
Hitler ascension to power is a good example, and I refer you to the W. Reich book: The Mass Psychology of Fascism.
It does not treat the whole matter but gives interesting perspectives.
For sure we do not have the best of us running for POTUS but one of the two will set back our democracy decades, if it doesn’t destroy it altogether. The other candidate at least works toward keeping our democracy intact.
Additionally, we have a fragile democracy that does not elect based on majority vote. The electoral college is broken.
Yes, on everything you write here. I would add that the Democrats do a very poor job of showing the public the many good things Biden has done in the past three years.
Edit to add: The US conspiracies are many (thanks, FOX News) and include Hollywood stars and Dems involved in child porn and trafficking, The 5G system initiating a nanobot in the covid vaccine that turns you into a zombie. And so many more. The inmates are running the asylum.
Yes. And I have read some of those psychological studies. They say that the more “insane” an idea, then the greater your status in the group if you confess to believing it.
What on earth are you talking about?
Dems involved in child porn and trafficking? Nano-bot contamination of a vaccine? Zombies?
From what planet did you get that news?
Well, @morgankane01 wrote: “I let you tell us about the American myths.”
So I responded explaining what ridiculous myths Americans have produced.
You haven’t heard of these?? You haven’t heard of pizza gate?
Most of all, please don’t think I make this crap up.
