Do you hate the United States...?

[Everymanalion]

Why? And what steps would YOU take to make it better? You have to think universally and whats best for the whole. I want to hear what you all have to think.

 

[ped]

You mean the government and it's systems and law, the morality of certain actions, the people and culture overall or everything as whole? I don't really care enough to hate as I basically keep to myself and my indulgences and don't want much to do with the world in general because it's all relative. The human condition... there's no utopia. Boredom or suffering. Not that I've ever lived anywhere else...

 

[ayyyjayyy]

Why? And what steps would YOU take to make it better? You have to think universally and whats best for the whole. I want to hear what you all have to think.

Yes. And I'm going to be useless and not list my long list of reasons because I am politically exhausted. Hahah.

 

[Damien]

I hate most of humanity as a whole, due to them being obsessed with things that are worthless.

 

[Repo Suave]

love yer country... not yer government. after seeing all this country has to offer from the desert wastelands to forest wonderlands... its hard not to!

 

[scatwomb]

love yer country... not yer government. after seeing all this country has to offer from the desert wastelands to forest wonderlands... its hard not to!

It's deserts and forests would still be here if it wasn't a nation-state. In fact, there would be more of each if the "Country" wasn't here.

I think we should distinguish between "Country" (with a capital C - nation-state) and "country" (lower-case c - the land and the landbase) and cuntry - all sorts of awesomeness.

 

[Kim Chee]

No, I don't hate the United States.

To some people United States is...
...people who inhabit a country.
...a place within borders separating this land from that land.
...a piece of cloth with markings on it.
...a ruling authority which gives guidance.
...a free place where people can express themselves without interference.

There are more answers to your thought provoking question. Hate is a pretty absolute word, far away from the other side of the spectrum where you can find love. There are things about this country that are displeasing to me, but in the big scheme of things who gives a shit about what I think? As for you telling me "how" to think? I am unwilling to express myself.

 

[Dmac]

i have been lucky enough to have had the privilege of going to many other countries(in the military), and we, most definitely, have it better here than they do, if you hate the US, please go to Colombia or Peru, Honduras, Belize even Panama! if you hate this country and have not been anywhere else to compare it to you are talking out of your ass. wa wa wa.

 

[ped]

Well I didn't grow up in Belize and Panama so if I go there I will always feel like an alien, an outsider. I will suffer culture shock and I will long to come back home where I am in my element after a short period.

If suburbs and mass produced food is your idea of what makes a country great you probably wouldn't think much of Tuscany.

 

[Thoreau]

As an european who never been there i should say that the point of view of a considerate number of us think that your government, police and military have mental disabilities. your institutions and social services dont seam to really assure you anything and your colleges, my god, i cant say how expensive they seam to be.
You do however create alot of good stuff and you seam to be always inovating. your high schools seam better than ours. We hate your gun nuts
xD
Big country anyway, so what you get to see is always litle, probably if you consider europe as you whole you see alot of fucked up shit too
as long as your happy <3

 

[Repo Suave]

It's deserts and forests would still be here if it wasn't a nation-state. In fact, there would be more of each if the "Country" wasn't here.

I think we should distinguish between "Country" (with a capital C - nation-state) and "country" (lower-case c - the land and the landbase) and cuntry - all sorts of awesomeness.

hahaha... its all in the phrasing!

 

[scatwomb]

i have been lucky enough to have had the privilege of going to many other countries(in the military), and we, most definitely, have it better here than they do, if you hate the US, please go to Colombia or Peru, Honduras, Belize even Panama! if you hate this country and have not been anywhere else to compare it to you are talking out of your ass. wa wa wa.

I've been all over the world, and, I think "better" is a culturally defined thing. Of course you're going to think we have things "better" in America - you're American! You probably value things like your perceived freedom of speech, the transportation infrastructure, our ability to buy anything you want, etc.

When I lived in East Africa, however, I was fucking amazed by the strength of peoples' communities, their care for one-another and the simplicity of a life without modern technology creeping into every facet of their lives. Same with other developing countries I have been to.

Personally, I love the subcultures in the USA - there are some amazing people with amazing ideas here. We are a nation filled with people on the fringes who have a brillant perspective on life and a contagious desire to fucking live.

I hate, however, mostly everything about its dominant culture and mostly everything the government does and stands for. Fuck them all.

 

[Oddman]

America is the place where the most insanely powerful institutions in the world came into being. Microsoft, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Exxon-Mobil, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, hundreds more. More have arisen in other countries (BP, Hyundai, Gazprom, RBS), but America is the spiritual home of the megacorporation. And megacorporations are what's behind practically all of the bad that's being done in the world today. Destruction of rainforests? Megacorporations. Dead zone in the ocean? Megacorporations. Global warming? Megacorporations. Undermining traditional lifeways worldwide and replacing them with sweatshop and mining jobs? Megacorporations. The absolute fucking plague of consumerism? Advertising on behalf of megacorporations. Poor health worldwide thanks to processed foods? Megacorporations.

But would megacorporations exist if America hadn't originated them? Probably. Once petroleum was discovered, it was probably only a matter of time. Human nature couldn't leave alone an energy source that rich, especially before anyone realized that burning it had bad consequences. And once it was possible to store that much energy in one place, it was inevitable that it would happen. The people who controlled massive amounts of oil became more physically powerful than anyone in the history of the world (see: John D. Rockefeller), and the first corporations crystallized almost automatically underneath them. The same goes for people who figured out ways to control that much energy in other forms, like when the first supermarkets became possible as a result of the oil-powered technologies of transportation and refrigeration. It's awful that it happened, but it could theoretically have happened under any culture; it's just that America had both tremendous amounts of natural resources and not much resistance to tapping them.

Not that America is off the hook. For one, even if it was theoretically inevitable for power to accumulate like it did, the people and organizations who made it happen are still responsible. And also, other awful things have happened at America's hands. The genocide of the Native Americans comes to mind.

These days I hate America passionately at the higher-up levels, because of all the bad that's been done by organizations with enormous power. But at the lower levels I'm much more discriminating.

Some people are all for the megacorporation mindset, and wouldn't give a shit if all of nature and all the heathen countries burned. I can't like those people, but I do realize they're like that because they've been infected since birth with an ideology created by the megacorporations.

But some people are doing all they can to resist that anti-life impulse that the higher levels have created. Anyone who's ejected consumerism from their brain gains points in my book. People who resist and try to live in a better world. The kind of travelers you find on this forum; hippies; permaculturists; the Amish; anarchists; plenty other people, a lot of whom I couldn't even begin to encompass under labels like the ones I just mentioned. They're America's saving grace, if it has one.

Man, I really need to learn to write shorter posts.

 

[ped]

But would megacorporations exist if America hadn't originated them? Probably.

Actually it could be said America exists because of megacorporations. That was all the rage in those days too. (Dutch and English east indies trading company)

 

[Oddman]

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that... I suppose it wasn't just oil that created the space for them to develop, but also globalization.

 

[DFA]

You know, I am mixed. I am traveling in germany right now.....after seeing the massive squatted complexes out here, I don't know whether I should be inspired or envious. Maybe both. Inspired because I can't wait to get back home and get back to work on my squat......envious, because simply, will the over militarization of the US police forces ever allow me or us to take over a complex and make it ours? Not to mention all the outside forces that fuck with our sub culture, the disbursement of drugs and narcotics into the US punk scenes by the CIA or what have you, to keep us from realizing our true potential and make sure we are nice and drugged (and OD'ing).

 

[Nelco]

hate
i started to type different things...but i don't see how anything would help, other than this country being swallowed by the sea

 

[billyriot]

I wouldn't say so much that I hate the United States, but I am very much unhappy with it. Mostly due to it's role in worldly affairs and the effects it has on the world in a negative light. I've been out of this country, and I've seen things that make me appreciative to be born into a country where I'm not stoned for having the beliefs that I do, though I wish for that right for every human being the world over.

I do not like the concept, however, of this American exceptionalism. That's my biggest problem with this nation (I refuse to call it a country). The United States is bigoted, ignorant, lazy, and egocentric; not to mention downright dumb a lot of the time. Not to mention extremely hypocritical in it's actions. "We want to bring freedom and peace to the world--one bomb at a time!" or the fact that we speak so much about being God's Country, but turn out backs on the millions of children dying of malnutrition.

I know this country is not perfect-- no country is; but I want it to see itself for what it really is, and fucking fix that shit!

 

[Peagreen]

Organized government and social contracts = fail, no matter what continent you are on +/- everywhere..
But an Earth full of humans that reflect the unity they share, without greed and raping a planet that they are linked to (whether they realize it or not...), that is my kind of "country."
Enough preachventing for one month, haha.

 

[Psi em]

I take great pride in surviving this shithole of a nation. Best anybody can do is just try not to become a shithole themselves. Keep at it and hope that one day the shitholes in this country will be outnumbered. Just do what you can.