5 ms·

Pretty much all governments in all countries think way worse stuff. something something ultimate power ultimate corruption.

whitemary 4y ago
It's what they do that matters, and there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States. And child poverty is potentially the most alarming example. Despite being the richest nation, the domestic United States has proportionally more child poverty and child hunger than any other major nation in the world.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > It's what they do that matters, and there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States. Are you aware that other countries than the US exist that aren't Canada or in Europe? Let's pick the obvious one: North Korea. There's less brutality, oppression, and exploitation in NK than in the US?
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    Read the post again: amount of those things. The US has over 300M people and it is the most advanced industrial nation (or perhaps China is now?), so of course it has way more impact than freaking North Korea.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      That's useless for comparisons though. Musk lost billions of dollars when Tesla's share price dropped, we should all pitch in and help him out, because we didn't lose billions of dollars and are therefore much better off, right? If only we were able to look at relative things to find out if that's true. I don't believe that was the intended message of the comment I replied to, but even if it was because strange ideas: China easily tops the US, and so does Russia.
      - whitemary 4y ago
        Can you cite actual studies that show China tops the US in child poverty or child hunger? I highly doubt this is the case, but I'm quite confident we do not have any reason to believe one way or the other. The Soviet Union absolutely had less child poverty and hunger, but of course the (many) western definitions of poverty cannot apply. We do straightforwardly know, however, that the Soviet Union did not tolerate any homelessness while the United States has a growing child homelessness problem with no solution in sight.
        dmoy 4y ago
        World bank, etc. Keep in mind that there's ~150 million people in China who subsist on less than ~$3/day or whatever. Even accounting for cheaper standard of living (4x ppp in China) it's cripplingly poor by US poverty rates. It's the equivalent of living on like $4k USD. Idk if you've been to rural China at all, but shit is way different there still. When we define the US federal poverty line it's at minimum like $12k for an individual, even in the cheapest areas. That's 3x higher than the poverty line for data you see coming out of China.
        luckylion 4y ago
        > The Soviet Union absolutely had less child poverty and hunger You mean after they've let a few millions starve here and there? Holy fuck, the insanity.
        whitemary 4y ago
        Obviously you lack even have the slightest clue how much blood is on the hands of the US empire. There is simply no comparison.
      - avgcorrection 4y ago
        > That's useless for comparisons though. Musk lost billions of dollars when Tesla's share price dropped, we should all pitch in and help him out, because we didn't lose billions of dollars and are therefore much better off, right? This makes no sense. > I don't believe that was the intended message of the comment I replied to, but even if it was because strange ideas: China easily tops the US, and so does Russia. As for Russia, just in terms of military (if that’s what you are referring to): One illegal invasion right now. An incursion into Georgia. The wars in Chechnya. America on the other hand has Iraq and Afghanistan as the most recent wars, and in general it seems that it is easier to count the number of years that the US has not been at war than to count the years where they have. So I think the world’s largest military which is also used in an offensive capacity wins here. As for China I will probably have to concede the win in case you are referring to the Uyghurs, because the number of Uyghurs in concentration camps worse than Auschwitz must surely number in the hundreds of millions now, if the rhetoric of the anti-China crowd is any indication.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - l3mure 4y ago
    I think any discussion of North Korea as it exists today is pointless without considering the historical context it was born in, of which the most important aspect is the denial of a locally sovereign political process. [1] > The 38th parallel, meant as a line of convenience for two armies' temporary operations, immediately took on characteristics of a political boundary, infuriating the divided people. Just two weeks after his troops landed in Korea on September 8, the US commander, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, sent a message to General MacArthur in Tokyo: "Dissatisfaction with the division of the country grows." [...] > Even before reaching Korea, he had instructed his officers to view the Koreans as an enemy. When his 78,000 troops began landing, he ordered Japanese police to keep local welcoming crowds away. The police shot and killed two Koreans in the process. [..] > In the fall of 1946, the US military authorized elections to an interim legislature for southern Korea, but the results were clearly fraudulent. Even General Hodge privately wrote that right-wing "strong-arm" methods had been used to control the vote. The winners were almost all rightists, including [Syngman] Rhee supporters, even though a survey by the American military government that summer had found that 70 percent of 8,453 southern Koreans polled said they supported socialism, 7 percent communism, and only 14 percent capitalism. [...] > Chung Koo-Hun, the observant young student of the late 1940s, said of the villagers' attitude: "The Americans simply re-employed the pro-Japanese Koreans whom the people hated." [...] > Seventy of the 115 top Korean officials in the Seoul administration in 1947 had held office during the Japanese occupation. Of course the Soviets were offering support in the north, but: [2] > [They] never established a full-fledged military government, moving quickly to local control. The US even horrifically fumbled what minor concessions it was willing to offer to leftist sentiment: [3] > The US military government had pleased the farmers by decreeing a limit on the "rice rent" of 30 percent of the crop. That was on paper. In reality, enforcement was lax, landlords still gouged tenant farmers and the military government did actual harm with a related ordinance lifting price controls and imposing a "free market" on rice. That set off a binge of speculation, corruption and smuggling of Korean rice abroad, which left subsistence rice farmers and other poor southerners with little to eat. They exploded with resentment. > In the southern city of Taegu, people verged on starvation. When 10,000 demonstrators rallied on October 1, 1946, police opened fire, killing many. Vengeful crowds then seized and killed policeman, and the US military declared martial law. The violence spread across the provinces, peasants murdering government officials, landlords, and especially police, detested as holdovers from Japanese days. American troops joined the police in suppressing the uprisings. Together they killed uncounted hundreds of Koreans. And this is all before the war. In which the US killed millions of people in the north with mass bombing, attacks with biological weapons, and annihilation of the north's industrial capacity. US troops even indiscriminately slaughtered thousands of refugees fleeing to the south, the same people they were supposedly protecting! It's the same old colonial playbook, rehashed again and again. It's not like the US learned anything from this experience either. [1][2][3] - The Bridge at No Gun Ri, pp. 47-53
- seneca 4y ago
  > there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States In a world containing North Korea, Iran, China, and Egypt, I can't imagine how incredibly out if touch and radicalized a person needs to be to truly believe something this absurd.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    The US is a powerful country. Which means it has a lot of impact. If that impact also tilts towards the negative spectrum then they will have a large negative impact. Certainly a bigger impact than North Korea, even though North Korea is worse to live under. (Side-note: but America also exports suffering, so it’s not just about US citizens.) Chomsky: Today's Republican Party is a Candidate for Most Dangerous Organization in Human History (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FC7PsvUjo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FC7PsvUjo8

whitemary 4y ago

It's what they do that matters, and there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States. And child poverty is potentially the most alarming example. Despite being the richest nation, the domestic United States has proportionally more child poverty and child hunger than any other major nation in the world.

luckylion 4y ago
> It's what they do that matters, and there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States. Are you aware that other countries than the US exist that aren't Canada or in Europe? Let's pick the obvious one: North Korea. There's less brutality, oppression, and exploitation in NK than in the US?
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  Read the post again: amount of those things. The US has over 300M people and it is the most advanced industrial nation (or perhaps China is now?), so of course it has way more impact than freaking North Korea.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    That's useless for comparisons though. Musk lost billions of dollars when Tesla's share price dropped, we should all pitch in and help him out, because we didn't lose billions of dollars and are therefore much better off, right? If only we were able to look at relative things to find out if that's true. I don't believe that was the intended message of the comment I replied to, but even if it was because strange ideas: China easily tops the US, and so does Russia.
    - whitemary 4y ago
      Can you cite actual studies that show China tops the US in child poverty or child hunger? I highly doubt this is the case, but I'm quite confident we do not have any reason to believe one way or the other. The Soviet Union absolutely had less child poverty and hunger, but of course the (many) western definitions of poverty cannot apply. We do straightforwardly know, however, that the Soviet Union did not tolerate any homelessness while the United States has a growing child homelessness problem with no solution in sight.
      - dmoy 4y ago
        World bank, etc. Keep in mind that there's ~150 million people in China who subsist on less than ~$3/day or whatever. Even accounting for cheaper standard of living (4x ppp in China) it's cripplingly poor by US poverty rates. It's the equivalent of living on like $4k USD. Idk if you've been to rural China at all, but shit is way different there still. When we define the US federal poverty line it's at minimum like $12k for an individual, even in the cheapest areas. That's 3x higher than the poverty line for data you see coming out of China.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        > The Soviet Union absolutely had less child poverty and hunger You mean after they've let a few millions starve here and there? Holy fuck, the insanity.
        whitemary 4y ago
        Obviously you lack even have the slightest clue how much blood is on the hands of the US empire. There is simply no comparison.
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      > That's useless for comparisons though. Musk lost billions of dollars when Tesla's share price dropped, we should all pitch in and help him out, because we didn't lose billions of dollars and are therefore much better off, right? This makes no sense. > I don't believe that was the intended message of the comment I replied to, but even if it was because strange ideas: China easily tops the US, and so does Russia. As for Russia, just in terms of military (if that’s what you are referring to): One illegal invasion right now. An incursion into Georgia. The wars in Chechnya. America on the other hand has Iraq and Afghanistan as the most recent wars, and in general it seems that it is easier to count the number of years that the US has not been at war than to count the years where they have. So I think the world’s largest military which is also used in an offensive capacity wins here. As for China I will probably have to concede the win in case you are referring to the Uyghurs, because the number of Uyghurs in concentration camps worse than Auschwitz must surely number in the hundreds of millions now, if the rhetoric of the anti-China crowd is any indication.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- l3mure 4y ago
  I think any discussion of North Korea as it exists today is pointless without considering the historical context it was born in, of which the most important aspect is the denial of a locally sovereign political process. [1] > The 38th parallel, meant as a line of convenience for two armies' temporary operations, immediately took on characteristics of a political boundary, infuriating the divided people. Just two weeks after his troops landed in Korea on September 8, the US commander, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, sent a message to General MacArthur in Tokyo: "Dissatisfaction with the division of the country grows." [...] > Even before reaching Korea, he had instructed his officers to view the Koreans as an enemy. When his 78,000 troops began landing, he ordered Japanese police to keep local welcoming crowds away. The police shot and killed two Koreans in the process. [..] > In the fall of 1946, the US military authorized elections to an interim legislature for southern Korea, but the results were clearly fraudulent. Even General Hodge privately wrote that right-wing "strong-arm" methods had been used to control the vote. The winners were almost all rightists, including [Syngman] Rhee supporters, even though a survey by the American military government that summer had found that 70 percent of 8,453 southern Koreans polled said they supported socialism, 7 percent communism, and only 14 percent capitalism. [...] > Chung Koo-Hun, the observant young student of the late 1940s, said of the villagers' attitude: "The Americans simply re-employed the pro-Japanese Koreans whom the people hated." [...] > Seventy of the 115 top Korean officials in the Seoul administration in 1947 had held office during the Japanese occupation. Of course the Soviets were offering support in the north, but: [2] > [They] never established a full-fledged military government, moving quickly to local control. The US even horrifically fumbled what minor concessions it was willing to offer to leftist sentiment: [3] > The US military government had pleased the farmers by decreeing a limit on the "rice rent" of 30 percent of the crop. That was on paper. In reality, enforcement was lax, landlords still gouged tenant farmers and the military government did actual harm with a related ordinance lifting price controls and imposing a "free market" on rice. That set off a binge of speculation, corruption and smuggling of Korean rice abroad, which left subsistence rice farmers and other poor southerners with little to eat. They exploded with resentment. > In the southern city of Taegu, people verged on starvation. When 10,000 demonstrators rallied on October 1, 1946, police opened fire, killing many. Vengeful crowds then seized and killed policeman, and the US military declared martial law. The violence spread across the provinces, peasants murdering government officials, landlords, and especially police, detested as holdovers from Japanese days. American troops joined the police in suppressing the uprisings. Together they killed uncounted hundreds of Koreans. And this is all before the war. In which the US killed millions of people in the north with mass bombing, attacks with biological weapons, and annihilation of the north's industrial capacity. US troops even indiscriminately slaughtered thousands of refugees fleeing to the south, the same people they were supposedly protecting! It's the same old colonial playbook, rehashed again and again. It's not like the US learned anything from this experience either. [1][2][3] - The Bridge at No Gun Ri, pp. 47-53
seneca 4y ago
> there is no country in the world today which is responsible for nearly the amount of brutality, oppression, and exploitation as the United States In a world containing North Korea, Iran, China, and Egypt, I can't imagine how incredibly out if touch and radicalized a person needs to be to truly believe something this absurd.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  The US is a powerful country. Which means it has a lot of impact. If that impact also tilts towards the negative spectrum then they will have a large negative impact. Certainly a bigger impact than North Korea, even though North Korea is worse to live under. (Side-note: but America also exports suffering, so it’s not just about US citizens.) Chomsky: Today's Republican Party is a Candidate for Most Dangerous Organization in Human History (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FC7PsvUjo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FC7PsvUjo8