this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 67 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

Seriously, there seems to be this delusion that we all just have magic buttons that execute our politicians on a whim. What the fuck do you expect us to do, specifically, to fix this?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 59 points 6 days ago (3 children)

In pretty much every other western country, the populace could reasonably exert force over their national armed forces because those armed forces are reasonably sized. But the entire active duty military of Germany has fewer personnel than the on-base population of a single US military base (JBLM 210k, Germany 185k), and JBLM is only the 4th largest base in the US....

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 38 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not to mention, our military budget is more than the GDP of 85% of the countries in the world, and it's only getting bigger. The proposed budget for next year is more than 90% of the world's countries' GDP. Think about that for a few minutes.

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Dude the USA just de facto surrendered to Iran.

I don't think those ludicrous amounts of money that corporations embezzle via the military is at all representative of it's quality.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 3 points 5 days ago

A military is only as good as its leaders, which means right now, ours is complete and utter shit, as we're seeing.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You say as if American soldiers aren't also Americans. It's not just up to civilians to partake in politics and the resistance of tyranny.

Coups happen all over the world, for various reasons. You'd think an openly genocidal regime headed by a fascist, paedophile, moronic traitor, actively making life worse for the majority and aiding their enemies. Shitting on the constitution, and making veiled threats to cancel elections, would be enough to instigate one, but I guess not.

The stereotype of American soldiers seems to hold up, all bark but no bite unless the opponent is clearly outmatched with bigger weapons.

By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 29 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I'll accept my share of the blame for not being an active insurgent against the US government as long as we're also holding Russian and Chinese people to the same standard - failing to thwart genocide(s) by a powerful authoritarian regime while under 21st century surveillance and brutal working conditions. Sure I'm disappointed in all of us who aren't part of a resistance, but let's be realistic.

[–] thlibos@thelemmy.club -1 points 5 days ago

No, no, no...you've got it wrong. America is a perfectly representative democracy, so every American bears full responsibility for each and every transgression of it's government or military. China and Russia are not, so only their governments and military are to blame, their citizens are blameless. Now, a more interesting question is how culpable are the rank and file citizens of Canada, Czechia, Albania, North Macedonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, whose governments support the USrael invasion? No doubt, the keyboard warriors will be along at any moment to shame them and demand they rise up against and replace their complicit governments.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk -4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Alright, let's be realistic, a lot of competent high ranking officers are out of work since the purges of Trump. And a lot are still in work, that managed to survive the purges.

And when I say purges, I mean redundancies and firings. Not like Saddam Hussein, taken out back and met with a bullet or rope. But just given their military pension and told to fuck off.

I'm not expecting the average grunt to be able to do much. But an officer whose rank allows them the command of hundreds or thousands of people is capable of something.

There has been not even a murmuring of mutiny, resistance, or rebellion, let alone a coup. Some sailors stuffed t-shirts down their toilets, likely more in rebellion at being at sea far longer than they were meant to than anything else. But that's about it.

Americans, until very very recently, have had freedoms and liberties that the Chinese and Russians have never enjoyed. Do you think Russian military courts are comparable to American? To compare them is disingenuous. Although in saying that, Xu Qinxian did refuse his orders at Tiannamen Square. He refused saying he'd rather be executed than be a criminal to history.

But there's always an exceptionalism, an excuse, for why America is incapable of thwarting fascism. No matter how much I argue here, somebody will come along with another excuse, another reason for why Americans can't do what other countries around the world have done over and over throughout history.

Land of the ~~Brave~~ Bollocks.

[–] mriormro@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I’m going to be honest: you just sound ignorant and disconnected from the reality of the United States as a politically entity.

Exception and exceptional share a root word. They do not mean the same thing.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk -4 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] mriormro@lemmy.zip 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I’m well aware of the term. I’m telling you, you’re misapplying it in your argument.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 0 points 6 days ago

Ah, I see the confusion. I'm used to the modern critical definition, not the original.

Exceptionalism as "exemptionalism"

During the George W. Bush administration (2001–2009), the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context.[104] Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein certain political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the law of nations.[105] (That phenomenon is less concerned with justifying American uniqueness than with asserting its immunity to international law.) Critics argued that American exceptionalism was increasingly used to justify foreign policy decisions that placed the United States "above international law." This perspective claimed that the U.S. invoked exceptionalism not as a model of global leadership but as a rationale for unilateralism and selective application of legal norms.[106]

The new use of the term has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters since its unilateralist emphasis and the actual orientation diverge somewhat from prior uses of the phrase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism#Criticism

[–] i_am_hiding@aussie.zone 12 points 5 days ago

You wrote exactly that delusion into your constitution. The only reason you still have guns after everybody else realised they were bad was so that you could use them to overthrow some mythical tyrannical government.

Now the tyrannical government is here. Use your guns you love so much. Overthrow it.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

oh, anything short of killing ourselves at the government will not be enough for the freaks on this website.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago
[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago

Gather as a mob and attack until they are dead. Nothing less. That's what I expect of you.

Anything but site there on a keyboard fighting with other leftists about who is the true leftists