I am surprised at how many people do not get it. In military you cannot not comply with the orders, especially whan there is clearly nothing criminal with it. The guys doing sloppy marching is pretty much the only agency they have and the only way to protest and boycot that ridiculous parade.
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Malicious compliance
“They did in protest” is the funniest cope I have heard, ever I think.
It’s the entire discourse online, mostly stemming from veterans on social media. Literally saying the same as comment above you.
Yeah seppo veterans are rarely blindly patriotic and regularly offer genuine feedback for their country and its “servicepeople” (by this they only mean their boots).
I am hardly blindly patriotic, and I critique the US when is should be (Which is often).
Yes, this was a case of malicious compliance.
If you want to see evidence, here’s some normal soldiers (Not ceremonial guards) marching:
Wah. I don’t want to see the entire fucking world around me filled with evidence. Wah. Wah. Wah.
i don’t give a shit either way but it makes far more sense that it was in protest than that all of those soldiers are too incompetent to march properly. insisting it must be incompetence because you want to think bad things about the us military is the real cope.
Tbf, if enough of them are bad at marching it doesn’t really matter how good the others are
Or its simply that drill and parade are not really practiced outside of bootcamp because marching in lockstep requires quite some practice.
Marching lockstep is something that takes years to stop doing after getting out, though. Band kids have a similar problem. And even then you catch it sometimes, a desire to do it…
It bothers you for years when you walk hand in hand with your partner. Because you can’t hold hands and walk lockstep… you have to perfectly time the opposite step, so you can perfectly hold their hand.
It only takes one refresher, and you go back to it.
D&C is used daily by the US Army, to move personnel from point A to point B. During running. During inspections. During pass and reviews.
15 years out, and “9 to the front and 6 to the rear” is still drilled into my head. Even my “about face” is still solid, while needing some practice.
This depends a lot on your branch and unit. Many many people never do a pass and review or any type of inspection other than counting inventory. I disagree that marching skills are used during running, that’s freeform.
Anyone who has served longer than 3 years has done a pass and review.
Anyone who has been to a perm duty station has had a class A inspection.
Anyone who has ever served has marched daily, in formation, from point A to point B.
Double time is a marching speed, aka running, and you have to run in step.
Ok. I guess your perspective is correct and there is just one military that is all the same.
They probably did.
For better or worse, the people in uniform are good people, who believe they are doing something honorable, right or wrong that may be. GIs have a very strict honor code amongst themselves. Loyalty, Duty, Honor, Integrity, Selfless Service. Respect. Personal Courage.
Are there sometimes faults? Of course. We are humans, after all, and no human is faultless. And there are bad people, too.
Yes, this was quite obviously done in protest. Its a silent protest. “Malicious Compliance”.
There was a brass band that was resposabal for playing to state visits. if a foreign visitor came who was not popular they would play the national anthem out of tune and out of time. The visitor would have to stand or salute while seeing there song be murdered infront of them.
In military you cannot not comply with the orders
What i find surprising is that even after making this claim you still believe these people are down to protest and boycot their superiors.
I think the way they marched says more about trump than it does their ability to march. I very much doubt they forgot how to do it.
Like riding a bike. Those soldiers were doing their best to sham in plain sight and right in front of that bloated tangerine, I’ve never been so proud of the E-4 mafia in my life.
The E4 Mafia were the whole problem at the mandatory fun day?
No, the orange shit stain in the audience was
The way the marines, in particular, marched… no. That was sloppy and looked intentional.
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A real President, sponsorships notwithstanding.
Lol he did approach his problem with science and eventually was happy with the solution, but in the interim he also sentenced the person that proposed the scientific solution to death against gladiator and only changed his tune when someone illegally filmed the unexpected plant growth so 5/10
What we are seeing right now is how a society sleepwalks to that point.
Trump’s parade was sponsored by Coinbase.
That was my point. A president standing in front of logos with a world on the brink of collapse around him. The only difference in Idiocracy is that when everything got real shitty Dwayne was still willing to try “science” whereas I’m sure the fascists would rather drink brawndo until they died to “own the libs” than admit change was required so they could eat.
Well, it’s got electrolytes!
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I mean, if they’d been ordered eyes right and present arms, they would’ve.
But they probably didn’t plan for him to salute so no one knew what to do and just walked on by.
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Saw a short video of an ex drill instructor saying your first week in boot besides getting oriented and shit was learning to march. You dont ever forget it. That if it starts getting sloppy, the seargent or whatever starts saying left, right, left to coordinate again. The guy said it was very intentional .
I learned to march in basic in '96, I promise you it stays w you.
Yeah, I did basic training decades ago, and could probably do it right with maybe an hour-long refresher course. Even without that I’d probably be be fine just marching, it’s more the “eyes left”, “present arms”, handling turns, etc. that would need work.
That said, you tend to follow someone’s lead. From what I remember, they declare it like “by the left, quick march” and that means you’re marching at a standard “quick” pace and you’re lining up with whoever’s to your left, and the left column follows the person in front of them, so basically led by whoever’s in the front-left position of the formation. That means if people to your left, or people on the left-most column are out of step, it will have a cascading effect through the ranks.
But yeah, it’s pretty standard to call out the march, and they’d definitely do that if they cared.
What’s also funny is that at one point as the soldiers were marching past, they were playing “Fortunate Son” on the PA system. Now, that’s massively ironic given that the song is basically about Vietnam-era draft dodgers who used their family’s wealth to get out of Vietnam service like Trump.
But, making it worse is that the song has a slightly faster pace than your typical rock song at 135ish BPM. The US military generally marches at 120 BPM. It’s actually really hard to hear a song at 135 BPM and march at 120 BPM. That’s why generally marching music is at 120 BPM so you march to the beat. The result is that some soldiers kept marching at 120 BPM, others adjusted to match the song, and it all generally looked like shit.
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Given that Fortunate Son was playing as one of the songs…
Fucking of course it was.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they also played Born in the USA and Little Pink Houses to complete the missing the point trifecta.
Or they did it as protest instead of not caring. Some might have cared a lot.
Glad he owned up to the mistake.
From what I’m hearing from coordinators and people inside its not that they can’t march. It’s that nobody wanted to. They had to be there. So they phoned it in. Malicious compliance.
Like the squeaky tanks. That was a choice made in the motor pool. They could have greased them up and tested to make sure they were smooth. But they made a different call.
Lmao I didn’t think about that. Probably didn’t think it would be quiet enough to hear it squeak either.
Same, considering its age that thing is in mint condition and barely made any noise, really highlighted how much crowd noise wasn’t there
100%. I’m the most uncoordinated guy I know and even I learned (French army but the cadence/the mere act of marching is similar enough), like not even that far into basic either. Maybe not everything is lost for the common American!
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but i do find it hard to believe. I think most people that take pride in their jobs won’t half ass it.
Lol, half assing it is the default setting. Most people in the military are 18-22 year olds doing one enlistment contract and mostly hate it and want to get out as soon as they can.
Soldiers don’t take pride in being used as political pawns.
Here is another event they hate doing, yet they seem to know how to march:
They deliberately half-assed the parade because they don’t like the way Trump treats them. Trump calls them “suckers and losers.” He cuts their benefits Why would you show any loyalty (or enthusiasm) to someone who treats you like that?
More Trump quotes: “You fucking generals. Why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals?” 2017
On the burial of US Army private Vanessa Guillén: “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” December 4, 2020. Trump has denied having made the remark.
“We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.” August, 2018. Trump has denied having made this remark.
re: John McCain, who was captured and tortured for five years: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, okay? I hate to tell you.” July 18, 2015.
“But, you know, during the Vietnam War, I got very lucky. I had a very high lottery number.” November 9, 1995.
On the 1,800 US Marines who died at Belleau Wood in France during World War I “Suckers.” November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.
On US soldiers in World War I “Who were the good guys in this war?” November 11, 2018. Trump denies having asked this question.
“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” November 11, 2018. Trump denies having made this remark.
On disabled veterans “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.” September 30, 2019.
“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn’t look good for me.” Summer 2017.
I can understand why someone would ask who the good guys were in WW1.
It’s a question that shows a childlike understanding of war in general, but that’s how war is often sold. A team sport with body bags.
That said, WW1 is hard to pick a “good” side. It was a mess of a war, but no side was particularly vile when compared to the others…
But for a US president, there’s only one valid answer.
A US president can admit that Vietnam was not a shining moment is US history, but the world wars? No.
I had a very high lottery number
ah yes. that’s how lottery works
During the Vietnam War there was a draft, so you could end up being conscripted and shipped halfway around the world to fight it. One way to avoid getting drafted was a lottery where, if you picked a high enough random number, you could avoid being drafted.
The thing is, Trump never picked a lottery number. Instead, he got five draft deferments, 1 medical and 4 educational. A lot of rich people at the time were able to avoid military service alltogether by getting a doctor to sign off that you had a sketchy illness. In Trump’s case, it was bone spurs, which apparently healed right up after the Vietnam War ended. Trump kept his 1-Y deferments until after 1972, when he was reclassified 4-F (permanently ineligible for service). By claiming he got a “high lottery number” Trump makes it sound like staying out of Vietnam was an amazing stroke of luck. That was just another lie. Trump had powerful friends and family intervene for him. Luck had nothing to do with it.
Dodging the draft was the most moral action, after fragging your officer and joining the PAVN. Of course Trump only did it because it coincidentally happened to line up with what served him, but at least he didnt use his connections to pilot a bomber or something.
🏅"Could have committed more atrocities"
I’m a PATRIOTIC Republican who PROUDLY wears the American Flag on my Shorts and Truck and TRUMPS RIGHT! Our Soldiers are LOSERS AND SUCKERS!
Ok, but 1. fuck John McCain that ghoulish piece of shit is in hell lmao. 2. Trump’s point about soldiers who die on the other side of the planet, fighting for the profits of people like Trump, is absolutely valid. I have no idea what that thought is even doing in an imperialist’s brain.
I have no idea what that thought is even doing in an imperialist’s brain.
Making occasional anti-war gestures and comments muddies the water enough for Libertarian-minded types to support him. It’s the same reason Biden occasionally criticized Netanyahu, it’s all theater.
I was only in marching band. 25 years later, I promise I could still do it with zero practice. This was on purpose.
If you were in marching band, there’s a good possibility that you had more thorough training in marching than what’s given in basic training, especially if you went to competitions. Marching makes up like half the activity of marching band (it’s in the name). Marching is only one of a plethora of things that are taught during the few months of basic training, and once you’re out of basic, you may never have to march again.
I also think your expectations on how rhythmically-inclined the average person (or soldier) is might be on the high side based on your experience in an activity with a bunch of highly rhythmically-inclined people.
I was in army cadets for like 2 years about 17 years ago and could still do this with 0 effort and I have a very poor sense of rhythm.
Trust me, anyone that’s spent more than like an hour learning to march could still do it with ease decades later.
This isn’t true at all. Marching is really easy, especially when there’s music to March to. I did a bit of drill in basic, and we would get a bit of practice before something a lot smaller than this, and we would be ace in 20 minutes of practice. They are doing this on purpose.
They were “marching” to an instrumental of Fortunate Son. No way that’s marched at that cadence without being janky as fuck at best.
Also fortunate son while marching past amazing Trump they must have known
Amazing music choice. Very fitting. I wonder who came up with that.
That’s fair but they look shit and they should know how to fuxking March it’s not the changing of the guard it’s walking in time.
Marching makes up like half the activity of marching band
Marching makes up about 25% of daily life for a solider. We had PT formations, morning formation, weekend safety briefing formations, formations for training sessions, etc etc. If you have an element of troops, of any size, and they need to move from Point A to Point B, you’re marching there.
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100% and I can’t imagine the effect of basic training and what you learned there being forgotten until long afterwards.
In the British army, even regular non-guardsman, infantry will usually parade into towns. They love a bit on pomp and ceremony. For example, even now regiments like the black watch regiment would be bagpipes bearing, marching in perfect unison into some place and then roll off to war.
They didn’t want to be there and their imo their COs didn’t want to kick off at them in front of the cameras.
The entire thing screamed humiliation display more than anything else. And the anything else was like a half assed shitty commercial for military equipment. They had actual soldiers playing dress up for no fucking reason while wasting a fuck ton of money the VA could’ve used. Just despicable all around.
Story time, boys and girls.
When I joined the Army and went to basic training, one of the first things they did was show us how to stand at attention, at-ease, right face, left face, and about face. Then they turned the training unit and marched off.
And then stopped and screamed at us for marching like Nazis.
Turns out, you don’t see US soldiers marching like that because it’s stupid as hell, and you can’t do it for twenty miles with a rucksack. The US military for all their many, many faults, is real good at war, and marching like a toy soldier doesn’t help you do war.
So we learned how to march like Americans, which is much more casual. The only thing you’ve gotta do is make sure you match the stride length of the soldier in front of you, but even that is more of a suggestion than a hard rule. We got good, though, because we were assholes.
We would ease out behind someone who was walking somewhere and roughly the same height, and step slightly faster than the person in front of us, until we were close behind them. Then you perform a little skip at the last second to get back to the same stride and close the last few inches. The end result is that your chest is hovering about an inch from their back, your nose is an inch from the back of their head, and your hands are swinging right behind theirs. While walking at full speed.
You haven’t had a jump scare until you’ve marched two blocks, turned your head, and glimpsed someone’s face an inch from your own.
The US military for all their many, many faults, is real good at war, and marching like a toy soldier doesn’t help you do war.
The point of a uniformed service is to show your enemy that you have control and command over people who will follow your orders. Demonstrating this lowers your enemy’s will to fight back. It gets soldiers on the other side to think “If these guys are so organized that they march in unison, we don’t stand a chance.”
These military parades are no longer valuable except to authoritarians. Normal functioning democracies don’t use national military forces to project power. They do so using diplomacy and other political methods.
But Trump, Kim Jung Un, Modi, and Putin all use it to flex their authority to their base.
It will not surprise me if in the next year, a new division in the army is created for parade duty for the president’s birthday where next year their marching will be perfect.
All so that Trump can get his dick hard.
The USA absolutely uses military prowess to project power. It just happens to be that marching soldiers no longer does that anymore; that’s what Air Force flybys at college football games are for.
The point of a uniformed service is to show your enemy that you have control and command over people who will follow your orders. Demonstrating this lowers your enemy’s will to fight back. It gets soldiers on the other side to think “If these guys are so organized that they march in unison, we don’t stand a chance.”
Fair enough.
It will not surprise me if in the next year, a new division in the army is created for parade duty for the president’s birthday where next year their marching will be perfect.
That would just be the chefs kiss of silly bullshit on top of everything else.
The British can all do it for things like the Queen’s funeral.
It Follows…
…him through the train turnstile
At least Trump seemed not to enjoy any of it, so hopefully we can put this whole stupid episode behind us, and move on to the next stupid episode.
- Trump wanted this for a decade
- They put on this ridiculous thing
- Trump isn’t pleased; obviously uncomfortable
Why the hell did they do this then?
He didn’t want it because he thought he would personally enjoy it, he wanted it because he thought it would make him look badass to the other dictators he’s always trying so hard to impress and emulate.
A timeline where saying, “you’re no Kim Jong Un” is an insult.
During his previous term, I recall Trump and Kim Jon Un getting into a little spat (before they got buddy-buddy)…and Kim Jong Un came out of it looking like the sane one.
The next episode will involve him using an Executive Order commanding the Mint to make a Presidential Crown or something.
Fuck do I need to add this to my bingo board?
They can dEfEnD oUr NaTiOn against brown peasants, but can’t march in step because they apparent forget how to do so after basic training? Shit, it’s been over 20 years since my military service and I’m 100% sure I could still manage to march in step
That may be; but how many of those people just didn’t fucking care because of the dress and deportment of leadship?
I mean personally I think that’s more likely to be the real reason – they mostly looked they just didn’t give a flying fuck and didn’t want to be there.
I just find these justifications of “well they’re busy defending our nation so they don’t learn marching” idiotic
One of the ships I was posted had to have the entire crew practice marching before a parade for freedom of the city. But we had come off of deployment not long ago.
Go to a concert and you might hear people clapping along to a song. All they have to do is meet their hands at the proper time, at speed. Some people are a half second off, and they don’t have to maintain distance, stave off boredom, or consider their stride. Humans kinda suck without practice
I find the parade itself more than idiotic. It’s anti-American and counter to our very principles.
Fuck how they marched. You can have your comments but holy shit it pisses me off that you’re focusing on how they marched instead of on the abject evil forcing them to do it in the first place.
I just think it’s odd that they’re not wearing class A’s or even B’s
When I was in 20+ years ago they didn’t even want us stopping for gas off-post in our BDU’s on the way home from work
Wearing white parade gloves in that uniform also just looks weird
I would bet money that this was a protest of their own. They didn’t want to be shown as North Koreans and be used as a tool like that. I appreciate what they did.
I thought that was weird, too. I wonder why?
My assumption was to try and make the troops look more menacing as a message to places like LA, really hoping for an NK dear leader style ass kissing but just got to hear the squeaking of a Sherman instead.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last time they did a parade was back in '91 after the first Gulf War, they wore a combat uniform then as well but also wearing their LBE
But that was just after the ending of actual major combat operation, so it wasn’t entirely out of place to wear the desert uniforms that were worn for that particular theater of operation
I’m not sure why they chose combat uniforms for Trump’s parade, maybe Trump requested them or it was a bargaining olive branch to the troops from the brass to try to keep participation high since dress uniforms are much less comfortable to wear in parades and require more effort on the part of the soldiers to prep
I know we always did our best to avoid those kinds of events that required them
It’s been over 20 years since I was in marching band and I could absolutely do it. But not play a woodwind. That takes practice…
Even the most drunk idiots at any of our small villages folk festivals can do that for hours, without any training. It’s not hard ffs.
Same, but whacking stuff with a stick is generally easier
I can play a woodwind just as well as these guys were marching.
I was only in JROTC 20+ years ago and I’m pretty sure I can march in step.
Sounds like it was too loud to hear the cadence by the reviewing stand. I don’t think it was an ability jssue or an apathy issue.
Even then you’d expect them to be able to march in step with each other even if they can’t hear some cadence.
Like I said in another comment, I think it’s just more likely they did the bare minimum because they absolutely didn’t give a fuck about being performing monkeys for King Trump
edit: I was in the military for years. I don’t understand how some of y’all make marching in step and in formation sound like fucking quantum physics
You need some kind of cue to keep in step. If you can see the other guys feet, that helps, but often tinted you can’t. The sound of yourself matching helps, but without some occasional cadence, or other governing factor, the speed of the match tends to change in a collective sort of way. My BMT platoon would get faster as we marched, unless the DI shouted at us occasionally.
It’s certainly possible and even likely that there were people marching who just didn’t give a fuck or were purposefully marching like shit, but as somebody who’s served and marched plenty, you’d be surprised how quickly things get messy. It’s easy, sure, but it can get out of hand quickly.
If one person goes out of step, especially with no cadence cues, those behind follow the one who’s fucking up either consciously or subconsciously. Then the one who’s leading the out of step march shuffles to get back in sync, forcing everybody behind them to have scramble to shuffle back into step. It’s a domino effect.
Like I said, I won’t say it’s not possible that you’re right, but if you were to watch any marching group you’d see people out of step in almost every case. Regardless of if they wanted to sabotage Trump’s parade in this case, most of the people I served with wouldn’t want to intentionally make their unit look like a bag of hammers - which sloppy marching does.
I think a lot of people are over analyzing this but like I said, it’s still possible that what you believe is true.
Who fucking cares?
The band played “Fortunate Son”. They all knew exactly what they were doing.
If shit ever does hit the fan full send (I very much doubt it) he doesn’t have the army.
Got a video link? Sounds amazing.
Beautiful.
Imperial March would have been dope
They didn’t want to attract the worm.
No need, trump was already there.
Trump physically resembles Baron Harkonen from the old film.
“The Spice must flow”
It’s very important for soldiers to focus on doing “important work to defend our nation” (murdering brown kids) and that they’re “productive at their jobs” (bombing hospitals)
I came here for this but found people already pointing it out.
DeFeNdInG as seen by everyone else: going to places 5k km away and murdering every living thing there.
VeTeRaNs as seen by everyone else: steroid micro-penis assholes murdering women & children
The bravest and most honorable men in our nation are doing the hard, honest work of fucking all those military wives while their chud husbands are deployed abroad.
These soldiers spend their days doing important work to defend our nation.
The U.S. military has done nothing to defend their “nation” for over 100 years. They ONLY defend the corporate oligarchs’ ability to steal resources and use slave labor in third world countries.
Lmao yet Ukraine still stands thanks to American intelligence and military apparatus.
I’m not even an American but this kindergarten sentiment on Lemmy is so exhausting.
Yeah you get a lot of these ‘moral purity absolutists’ with all the nuance of an edgy teen. Some of them, or course, are edgy teens, but 100 years is a super odd choice even so. You’d think by the time they were 13 they’d have heard of at least one war that came pretty close to defense against a malign hegemonic power with ambitions of global domination…
It really reminds me how I felt when I was an edgy 16-year old but luckily for me social media wasn’t really a thing yet so it didn’t bother anyone.
And then promptly fucked right out of peace negotiations immediately after signing the resources deal. Fits perfectly well with
They ONLY defend the corporate oligarchs’ ability to steal resources and use slave labor in third world countries.
Lmao yet Ukraine still stands thanks to American intelligence and military apparatus.
Which they provide exactly as long as they profit exponentially from it. Dont pretend like the US would provide foreign aid out of generosity.
I am of the mindset that a good thing done for selfish reasons is still ultimately a good thing done.
Me too, but that still doesnt contradict the comment above drmoose’s
I never said it did, I’m just offering perspective.
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Are you suggesting that kindergarten political thought is somehow less valid? You must hate children!
It’s possible that you’re overestimating the US contribution
Looking at the conflicts they have been explictly or covertly involved in, it does seem like they are attempting to create a hegemony. That’s not to say that some good doesn’t get done along the way but it is more of a byproduct than the intent.
But… Ukraine falling to Russia would strengthen the US’s military (and cultural) hegemony over the western world. If this truly was the rationale behind the US’s involvement in Ukraine, everything we’ve done thus far would make absolutely zero sense. Strengthening Ukraine and spurring investment into the home-grown EU defense industry only serves to weaken our position as the lynchpin of NATO. A better justification for US involvement in Ukraine is that this is a great opportunity to starve Russia’s economy by forcing them into conflicts they cannot economically support (which was much the same strategy that lead to the collapse of the soviet union).
It’s also a great opportunity for Russia to starve the US economy by getting them involved in conflicts it cannot economically support. And the US is far more overextended due to other conflicts.
You might have a point if the US were fighting in Ukraine, but… we’re not? We’re advising the Ukraine army, sharing intelligence we’d be gathering anyways and giving AFU a bunch of export weapon systems we found by rummaging around in the pentagon’s couch cushions. This has been a spectacular opportunity for the US because it costs us almost nothing, yet what used to be considered our biggest opponent is teetering on the brink of cultural and economic collapse. Seriously, even if Kiev were to fall tomorrow NATO would be no-contest the victor. Nobody cares about the bear any more.
You might have a point if the US were fighting in Ukraine, but… we’re not?
Yes, we’re just sacrificing their lives for the realpolitic of weakening Russia, which is also bad.
we found by rummaging around in the pentagon’s couch cushions… it costs us almost nothing
Lmao, y’all actually believe this shit.
The US spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on the military, more than the next nine countries in the world combined. Every government program designed to actually help people gets cut to feed more money into the war machine. It’s no wonder we have “military equipment between our couch cushions,” because military equipment is what virtually all our tax money goes towards, when it’s the reason we can’t have things like free healthcare or higher education. Notice how we never seem to find money between our couch cushions for those things?
what used to be considered our biggest opponent
Did it? Who considered the Russian Federation a bigger opponent than the PRC?
is teetering on the brink of cultural and economic collapse
Looked in a mirror lately? The US just elected Trump, in part because people think he represents an alternative to the disastrous establishment policies that pour endless money into pointless foreign wars, and to an economy that is working for fewer and fewer people. Seems like “on the brink of cultural collapse” describes the US to a T.
But moreover, the whole American Empire is falling apart around us. Every year, more and more countries that are just as significant as Ukraine are choosing to make deals with China, to start trading and cooperating with them instead of us. Because the US is trying to rule the world through force and intimidation, while China is manufacturing consumer goods and building hospitals and infrastructure for developing and middle-income countries - the things we won’t even build domestically. Who would want to side with us when you can look at our domestic situation and see that it’s declining and awful? If that’s the best we can provide our own citizens, then what could we offer to other countries?
If I were an “accelerationist,” like people sometimes baselessly accuse me of, I would 100% support spending more on the military and getting involved in these stupid unwinnable conflicts all over the world, dumping endless amounts of money towards any situation we can use bombs and not sparing a penny for actually making anyone’s life better, because those self-destructive policies will ensure the downfall of the US more than anything else could. The problem with that being, the US is likely to start WWIII in that scenario, the more clear it becomes that the military is literally the only tool that we could possibly use to maintain hegemony, since it’s the only thing we spend money on.
Oh boy. Only have time for a top three, so in no particular order:
Who considered the Russian Federation a bigger opponent than the PRC?
… Literally everyone. China was aligned as a ‘follower’ of the Russian Federation’s geopolitical lead prior to russia’s utter stomping in Ukraine. Was it incorrect? Well, obviously. But the image of the great russian bear was the specter keeping the western world up at night.
Looked in a mirror lately? The US just elected Trump
A blatant whatabboutism but just to address it: The US will be fine (diminished geopolitcally no doubt, but still in a powerful position) after this all gets sorted out internally. We survived the last trump admin, we’ll come through this one too. This just isn’t the fall of the roman empire like oh so many people are claiming, politically it just doesn’t even resemble it.
building hospitals and infrastructure for developing and middle-income countries - the things we won’t even build domestically.
I… what? We opened half a dozen hospitals in my state alone last year. Additionally, you know the US has been the world’s largest source of charity and investment in developing nations for decades, right? Look you’re repeating lines from some seriously anti-china propaganda here and it’s a little weird. You know about trump canceling USAID and why that’s bad, right?
There’s lots of things to criticize the US on (and it’s something I do all the time, lets be clear) but you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.
(Okay, honorable mention because I just can't with this shit:)
when it’s the reason we can’t have things like free healthcare or higher education.
The reason we don’t have healthcare is fascism, not “military spending taking all the money”. We could 100% have free uni and healthcare without reducing a cent to the pentagon’s budget. In many states we even have (limited) free healthcare, entirely funded by state budgets. You’re just repeating bullshit right-wing talking points like they’re objective truth, but with a lefty spin on them.
Must have forgotten that Ukraine became a US state, these edgy kids
