Terrified for America

[Doberman38]

Hi everyone.

The sharp rightwood turn and constant political chaos in America is really having a impact. I'm getting more and more worried that in the near future it will turn into a dictatorship, with political purges and another Holocaust. I thought things would have calmed down since the last election, but it seems it's just been getting worse and worse and I don't see any signs that this can be changed. I try to think that surely people won't let all that happen, but I'm really losing faith. I'm increasingly feeling like there's no point being optimistic. It is seriously distracting me and sucking out all my joy.

[Mudpies]

Something to remember is that in any political brouhaha, it's a breaking point of people who have been shouted down and ignored.

A lot of TV News programs and their ilk thrive on filling panels with extremely contradictory individuals, because it's quite dramatic and drives up the ratings. It seems to normalise the sort of caustic, ignorant, intolerant and argumentative attitudes we see reflected everywhere in the world at the moment. I would personally suggest avoiding TV news and reading it online (or in a newspaper), instead - much more pleasant to go at your own pace, without some arrogant, know-it-all presenter and their hand-picked antagonists telling you what you should think.

While we cannot fix the drama in America or anywhere else overseas, we can stop it happening here. How? By listening to one-another, and when we disagree, being careful to think our arguments through, ensuring we don't carelessly throw around labels and accusations that almost-always fan the flames of frustration or interrupt someone else while they're talking. Examples being statements like, "right wing extremists," "loony lefties", "tin-foil hat wearer". These, and more elaborate phrases like them, far from legitimately questioning someone's opinion, are merely thinly-veiled attacks of character.

A lot of people, through isolation, rejection and a host of other reasons, have wandered down the rabbit hole of fairly fringe ideologies (there's a lot of them, although the irony is those on the farthest ends of the political spectrum are more alike than they realise). Rejecting and looking down on these people will not make them 'wake up', so to speak. If anything, it only spurs further radicalisation with predictable results. More than anywhere else, participants of this forum know all too-well what it feels like to be ignored, treated like your problems are imagined. Let's not perpetrate it. It might just make the world a better place 🙂

[Guest_1584]

l would've thought people would be a lot more saddened with Ukraine right now than worrying about the US as sad as their stuff is, it's mostly self inflicted. That place has always been an only in America thing and to this day l'm damned if l know why Australia seems so idolizing of the place or of allowing so much Americanism creep into our country and ways the way that it is these days. Why in Gods name would any Aussie, any country in fact want to take on anything American.

But yeah it is horrific what's been happening there but what gets out around the world isn't even a fraction of what really goes on there. There's been at least one shooting a day since that one that we don't even hear about, and something like 600 per yr, every yr, or something like that, look it up. And that's not including just their normal everyday murders, they're in the 100s of 1000s per yr,look those up to if you really wanna be shocked to the core. Sadly though, they make their bed, yaknow, just like they did with the worst Covid numbers in the world, and with everything else.lt's bc of the way they act, it's the people as much as their pollies l mean look at the way they acted through Covid, look at what they did when Trump was getting the boot, look at their crime, look at the 5 or 600 mass shootings they get a yr that the world doesn't hear about , look at how most of the population own guns. So as horrifying and sad as things that happen over there are, nothing will change bc it is the people as much as anything else.They don't want change it's their freedom as they call it just like being able to own guns normally used only in a war or the ways they acted during the worst pandemic in 100yrs.

So sorry op but l dunno how anyone falls for the rubbish that goes on over there tbh.

[Fiatlux]

Hi all,

I have mentioned previously that my daughter lives in the USA. Very near to D.C. 

So you ask the Question, Why are we so close to America? Well, it’s English speaking, mainly white and mainly Christian. A bit like Australia. But I must say that every American that I have met are thoroughly decent, good people. Very polite and extremely nice. It’s hard not to like them. My US family are just lovely. 

My daughter tells me that what we see is the extreme. That is not her every day reality. Yes, you need to be cautious and avoid the extreme at times but generally the majority are level headed. Normal people, just like her, an Australian.

However, Americans love their guns. I don’t know why, but it’s in their constitution. Unlike Australian kids, American kids learn their history and constitution thoroughly. So they grow up loving their Country and flag etc. They have had civil wars.

What part of American culture do we want to adopt? Nothing really.

I am a migrant to Australia, so grew up here but learnt very little about the History. I was taught to believe that nobody was here in 1788. What a massive lie that was.

Happy NAIDOC week to all. 🙏🏼🤗🫶🏻🪃

[Guest_1584]

You must've went to the wrong school sorry . We were taught all about Australian history and First nation history very thoroughly . As far as Americans well , my ex has lived there 20yrs she's also in the airlines so she deals with 10s of 1000s of people from all over the world and what she tells me, is exactly what l see too.

But anyway , ea to their own .

[Guest_1584]

ps , there's also one other very big thing about what your daughter might actually hear even living there. They don't even have or show all their murders and shootings on the news there, they don't in the UK either , unlike the Australia media whom seem so hell bent on forcing it all down our throats every night and that have just made our news here just too down right distressing to even watch any more. l've been watching news from all over the world for yrs , their news the way ea country presents it and the American news doesn't cover any of their crime at all , it's so common it's not even worth mentioning l presume . You can watch an hr of it every day until Christmas , try their different new's to not just one but still,mostly all you'll see is politics economy their latest tornadoes a few things going on around the world and that's about it.

[Fiatlux]

Hi randomx,

You are right about my lack of Australian education. I starting primary school in the very early 70's. So we still sang "God Save the Queen" as our National Anthem... that was the Australia I grew up in.

[That Other Guy]

America simply has too many murders to report them all, they just report the big ones.

[Mudpies]

I was at school in the 2000s. We didn't learn any Australian history, aside from white settlement beginning in 1788, the Stolen Generation and generally vaguely-implied shame that "we" had done something wrong in being here in this great place. If anything, we learned more about other countries than our own. My knowledge of Australia's history, its geography, Indigenous culture, the culture of the many groups that made up the later settlers ... practically nonexistent. 

The perils of the 5 miles wide / 2 inches deep curriculum that changes with the weather. This is how you wander down the path towards extremism.