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The US Americans have lost their marbles. (www.bbc.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[–] 33 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Speaking for the general strike, there are arguably a number of reasons why that’s a lot harder to get rolling in the states. Social safety nets are laughable, worker protections are shittier and union busting is greater than a lot of other nations. A lot of people keep their heads down and don’t act up for fear of loosing what they have.

IMHO complacency oversimplifies and ignores the root causes behind collective action or inaction.

And that said, when it came to shit like ICE, and communities literally have nothing left to lose, that shit gets fucking LOUD in a city. Block by block citizen patrols, lots of organization, etc. But that doesn’t seem to get a lot of press in the news, and people assume Americans are just taking it lying down.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Social safety nets are laughable...

    I think this is probably the #1, or close to the top reason why we don't see more from Americans (including myself and my family).

    I have medical conditions that would bankrupt me in a year if it weren't for the shitty health insurance I get through work. I'm not quite living paycheck to paycheck, but it's fucking close.

    If I stop working, I'll get fired (for cause) lose my health insurance and income and be SOL. My family will get fucked over. Heck, even my life insurance will stop existing because that's through work too.

    So what's left? Weekend protests? Let me look up the next "No Kings" in this podunk town...

    When your country is the size of Texas, a general strike or mass protest makes sense. When your country's landmass is a bit smaller than all of Europe, but its population is less than half (and arguably 30% of that population thinks Trump is doing fine) - general strikes and mass protests don't work well.

    I'm not saying we shouldn't protest, but you've gotta curb expectations and know the dynamic here is much, much less friendly for those activities. (It's a big reason why I'm constantly on edge and having daily panic attacks.)

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Yeah look distance isn’t the issue, it’s unity among a large population.

    Australia doesn’t struggle holding decent protests and it’s not much smaller in size, with a much smaller population.

    Lack of unity, combined with the lack of social safety net, plus individualism, all of which are pretty valid are the bigger reasons. If they were all on the same page or had some unity, the distance wouldn’t matter.

    I’ll say this as well; it seems US citizens aren’t willing to do hardship to get what they want. All of these probably make the easy way out, voting, an attractive option but selfishness stops that one.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    I’m hoping that people like me that can’t afford healthcare this year will be more willing to strike. Since we don’t have a social safety net or universal healthcare like France or wherever.

    When we had that brief social reinforcement during the pandemic BLM happened.

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  • [–] [S] -5 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    I guess the best thing to do is join a union, and make sure to always make use of your opportunity to vote

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Problem is that for the majority of Americans “join a union” in 2026 means “start a union, and go up against a multibillion dollar company that is going to use endless amounts of money and lawyers to stop you”

    Some people pull it off successfully. More fail and end up unemployed with shit unemployment and no healthcare.

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  • [+] -12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I wonder how people were able to ever revolt and kill their masters when healthcare, etc is a pretty new thing.

    I think US americans are just lazy, complacent and do want all this

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    historically, revolutions have followed times of great hardship, where the working class (or peasantry if we're going back further) had nothing left to lose. They also frequently had wealthy backers in the shadows and/or charismatic leaders.

    None of that is currently true of the U.S. If you want to call that laziness, fine, but then you have to recognize that humans were "lazy" for most of recorded history.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Historically i dont think we had a country/a people that has been flooding the world for decades with propaganda that they are the good guys and believing it themselves. Americans were never too lazy to tell the world how awesome they are.

    Americans were also never too lazy to kill people. Probably only the easy kills. Hmm

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