EldritchFemininity

People like you are why I’m so fed up with Europeans after the past 2 months. So angry that you can have the facts right in front of you but can’t put them together to see that 2 plus 2 is 4, only use them as fuel for 2 different sides of your argument. You point out how fucked things are here in one breath but don’t acknowledge that they’ve been fucked since before most of the people here were born and then blame us for not having the power to fix it with your next.

Do you get this angry at the Chinese, North Koreans, or Russians for not deposing Putin or the CCP? Because, newsflash, America is the most propagandized country in the world and has a militarized domestic police force. The US and Russia are far more similar than most people realize or want to admit/acknowledge.

Our children pledge their undying loyalty to the country every morning to the flag that is installed in every classroom in the country. There are only two other countries in the world with similar practices, and one of them was the Hitler’s Youth program in Nazi Germany. Military recruiters stalk the halls of our high schools and follow kids to their houses using the personal information given to them by the schools, including calling their personal cell phone numbers, to convince them to join the military. Hollywood is a massive pro US military machine. Any time you see a tank, jet, naval ship, or anything else in a superhero movie, it was bought and paid for to be in there by the US military with the stipulation that it be on the good guys side.

Any safeguards and checks and balances our system had were actively eroded starting all the way back to the reconciliation after the Civil War, from ensuring that the votes of leftists count for less than the votes of conservatives - if and when they aren’t just drowned out by cutting up the voting districts to bury them under as much red as possible - to putting people in places of import whose loyalties lie with the party first and foremost.

There isn’t a single country in the EU where a president or prime minister would have the power on their own to just decide and bomb fishermen, or abduct a leader of another country, or fuck children and get away with this.

And neither should Trump. The reason that he can get away with it is because the people who should be holding him accountable - from the justice system to the politicians to the military - are in on it. There are no legal systems that haven’t been undermined to make this very thing possible.

Hitler wasn’t elected, but he came in second and was appointed Chancellor by the incumbent president as per tradition because the Nazis were elected as the majority party in the Reichstag. Sound familiar? A minority party working their way into a leadership role that gave them full control of the country? At its height, the Nazi party made up about 15% of the German population. 15% was all it took to bring the entire world into one of the worst wars in history that left the Jewish population so decimated that they have only returned to pre-WW2 levels within the past 20 or so years. Republicans are not a majority party either and would actually never hold any major office again if votes were counted fairly. 60% of Americans are more leftist than the government at any given time - even when the Democrats hold power.

So why didn’t the Germans fight back against the Nazi party as things got bad? Trick question. They did. With guns, too. Except the Nazis had a quasi military force already deployed in order to put down any opposition. Sounds familiar? Because the US had that long before ICE and the DHS (who are both governmental bodies beholden to no-one) were formed following 9/11. Our police are a bunch of schoolyard bullies with surplus military hardware donated by the army or bought from the government and military industrial complex, taught to shoot first and ask never. Did you know that it’s a war crime to use tear gas? It’s considered chemical warfare. Except when you use it against your own citizens, then it’s okay. And they were born with itchy trigger fingers. Especially against anybody with skin a shade darker than pasteurized milk. Deporting people for looking too Mexican? We did that in the 50s, under Eisenhower. It was called Operation Wetback. We rounded up US citizens using military tactics and tossed them over the border into Mexico.

The government and corporations destroyed our unions and social support systems in order to erode worker’s rights and ensure loyalty through dependence. People often talk about how much money Americans make, but don’t see that the CoL is so much higher here that we’re worse off than any European country in terms of quality of life. The average lifespan of the average American has decreased for several years consecutively and is now equivalent to that of the average lifespan of the worst area of the UK. Americans are the most likely to die from preventable dieseases because we can’t afford preventative care. If you take the average cost of a house in any county in the country and compare it to the average salary in that same area, you’ll find that there is not a single place in the US where the average salary can buy a house. We are a 3rd world nation in a Prada belt.

So don’t blame the people working with sticks and stones for not having stemmed the tide, blame the people trying to smash down the shitty dam with hammers and the people who set the course of the river.

As a trans woman, I’d rather take my chances charging ICE agents with a knife than trust you lot to have my back in any way, shape, or form. I’ve seen what you think of us who are trapped here. Over and over.

Sorry if I’d like ANY response to the attacks on trans people across Europe, the UK, Canada, and plenty of other places.

I want people out there like the Black Panthers, too. I want Europe to divest themselves from the American military industrial complex. I want to watch American companies who support and enable these fascists see their profits shrivel up as the economy collapses. I want to watch Google and Facebook and Twitter burn.

But all I hear from Europeans on here is how all Americans are fascists for not being in open war with the regime while fascism tightens its grip on your own right-wing parties, and I’m sick of it. If you’re not proactive, you’ll be in the same boat as us. Italy had fascist gangs attacking people in the streets a few years back. We used to say “it could never happen here” when reading about Nazi Germany and wondering just how they could let it happen. And then it did happen here. Now you’re the ones saying it.

I am hating on Europeans. Because Europeans have been hating on me and mine for almost a year now, regardless of what people do here.

Fascist gangs were roaming the streets of Italy a few years ago. Your fascist parties have been waging war against trans people like me for over a decade. Where is your resistance to them? Your solidarity with the weakest amongst you?

European hate is misplaced. All we want is justice and a good society, but we have to fight against 70 years of work to destroy our ability to fight as well as the ignorant and hateful minority of the populace who support these fuckers, and they’re the ones the most willing to commit acts of terrorism. The people protesting are the average person who balks at the thought of fist-fighting in the street.

The protests last year were some of the largest in US history. There have been smaller protests popping up constantly since the first few months of the regime.

The protests last year were some of the largest in US history, up there with and possibly larger than during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement.

But go ahead and ignore those. Keep proving my original post right.

It took a decade for the Civil Rights protests to get any real change to happen, and that was only after the murder of MLK caused the black community to burn down entire city districts and cause billions of dollars worth of property damage. Your average person - even in Europe - won’t go that far unless pushed.

Europeans were perfectly fine with Nazi fascism right up until it was knocking down their door. They’ve been perfectly fine with allowing their right-wing parties to fall further and further into fascism right alongside the US. Italy had fascist gangs roaming the streets attacking people a few years back. You’ve been perfectly content to watch as European politicians target people like me almost as badly as Republicans have. Where are your protests in support of trans people? I guess it doesn’t affect you, so you don’t care.

So go ahead and keep acting like you’re so much better than Americans. All of you are just proving my point and showing the exact reason that I’ve had enough of Europe and Canada. Pot, meet kettle.

I’ve been in full support of anything Europe and Canada are doing to hurt America and fix their own issues, but the constant vitriol against the people who actually want to fight the fight has made me sick of the armchair generals all over Lemmy.

“But why don’t Americans protest? All they do is sit back and take it up the ass!” I hear every European crying as they ignore this right alongside all the other protests.

Honestly, the issue is deeper than that. Your government has been fighting a war on science and reason almost as long as ours has. Politicians and CEOs in your country have been hungrily watching what politicians allow them to get away with in our country for over half a century. It’s why they keep pushing for privatized healthcare for you and countries like the UK. The one that I’ll never forget was around 2010 when a conservative administration came into power and immediately shut down a multi-year study on UBI halfway through and then sealed the reports because it showed that all the things that they lie about are false. The only 2 groups to drop out of the workforce were pregnant women and students, graduation rates increased, as did college admission applications, and the economy in the area where the study took place saw a general boom as people were willing to spend more money. And all of that was on maybe a $1,500 a month UBI if I remember right.

As an American, I don’t know what that first image is supposed to be, but it sure looks expensive.

They’d probably respond similarly to telling somebody who was circumcised without consent and doesn’t like it that it’s just a harmless cosmetic surgery. Or telling a trans person forced to experience the wrong puberty that it isn’t a big deal/we can’t allow trans kids to go on puberty blockers because they might regret it (despite the fact that all the effects of puberty blockers are reversed by…stopping taking them).

Source: am trans, was forced through the wrong puberty, and was circumcised without consent as a baby and hate it. Did you know that there are people out there so traumatized by being circumcised as a baby that they willingly use clamps and rubber bands to slowly stretch out the skin on their dick until it looks like a foreskin again? The info on how to do it is easily accessible online and the tools are easily purchased. I know this because I discovered it and considered it not long before I discovered words like “transgender” and “gender dysphoria” and found out that there were words for feelings that I did not have the language to understand before.

I used those specific body parts as examples for a few reasons. Namely, they’re all designed to protect mucus membranes and keep them moist, like the foreskin. Removing them would also be permanent and result in negative effects - like how circumcision causes nerve damage and desensitization. There really isn’t a great comparison, and those who had it done as a kid don’t know what they’re missing. We do have plenty of reports from people who had it done later in life, though, and there’s plenty of data on the loss of sensitivity and struggle with sexual pleasure and satisfaction post-circumcision.

I guess the closest thing would be if people were ritualistically shooting lasers into their babies’ eyes to damage the lenses so that they needed glasses or something. Some people just like the way that glasses look. I knew a guy who didn’t need glasses and wore a pair without any lenses in them just because he liked the way that they looked. But given the choice between glasses and 20/20 vision, I’d personally take the 20/20 vision, thanks.

It is not a “harmless cosmetic procedure.” It’s more akin to ritual scarification or removing something like a lip, eyelid, or nose. It destroys nerve endings, causing a permanent loss of sensitivity, and the head of the penis is a mucus membrane that the foreskin is meant to keep moist and protect from damage. Most people had it done before they were old enough to be aware of the difference, but those who had it done later in life often report things like a reduction in the ability to feel sexual pleasure.

Medically necessary circumcision or somebody choosing to have it done is one thing, forcing an amputation onto a baby is entirely different. It’s like forcing a trans person to go through the wrong puberty: unwanted and permanent physical changes that can take years of therapy and medical procedures to heal from.