8th Grade. When I got access to the internet.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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I'm not sure it ever wasn't propaganda (they never provided any metrics) to me, but I think I started to care during the Bush II administration as an adolescent/teenager. I still remember thinking how f***ed up it was that Gore had the popular vote while still losing the election. --I guess that made me unsurprised when it happened again. I didn't realize how bizarre our 'Pledge of Allegiance' habits were until I was in my twenties, though.
Internet made everything one big shitstorm.
My friend from Ukraine could not understand why and how someone would pay to be driven to the hospital in an ambulance.
It's not a lie, they just didn't say the competition is for the strongest empire instead of the best place to live.
6th grade I really started paying attention to the pledge of allegiance in really what something like that meant. I question why I was pledging my allegiance to a flag every morning. It wasn't my choice I was told to do this. And that didn't feel right to me until I stopped.
In high school. Noticed the various branches of the military would never leave and were always trying to recruit. I noticed in the kids around me behavioral differences, as they were hyped up to join the military. But my great-grandfather who is in the military and was on Normandy Beach... He wasn't hype about the military. My uncle who is in the Navy barely speaks of it. And my other uncle who was in the Vietnam war... Seemed rather traumatized by the whole experience. And George W Bush and everything surrounding 9/11, the definite WMDs that totally existed.
Also in high school I got to meet foreign exchange students. Made friends with a bunch of them and got to learn about how things are in various parts of the world that really didn't add up to the things that I was being told.
Then in college and post college, thanks though like early YouTube and even early Reddit, I got to learn a lot more about the world than anything grade school had ever taught me.
Your path is similar to mine. It also almost identical to my religious path too. Essentially I was born into something, told I was supposed to respect and obey it (without a reason for why), and realized there are so many competing groups saying they're also the best/correct, but that can only be true for one of them. This means most people have to be wrong, if not everyone.
I was also in boy scouts and am an eagle scout. One of the requirements for that is the belief in a god of some kind (usually the Christian one, but not strictly required), and it has tons of nationalism involved. I still finished with the rank of eagle, but it's fair to say I was faking a lot of stuff by the end of it. (Tangent: I really like the idea of scouting, but it really needs to get rid of this stuff. There are alternatives, but none are as good.)
I think since at least middle school. I was already aware of some of the lies and "half truths" that they were teaching us. I don't remember most of what they taught us but I remember telling some of my classmates about it and they acted like I was weird.
when the newsroom premiered 😂
Nobody says it better.
That opening speech? *chef's kiss*
Sadly it was largely downhill from there. Still watched it all tho because I’m sorkin-pilled
probably after 9/11, but i already had questions as a kid connected to the cold war.
Yeah shortly after 9/11 is what did it for me. Learning who attacked us, why they would do that, stuff they didn't teach us in school. Then, when I learned the US was invading Iraq for made up reasons, I realized what the US really is.
To answer your question: in college, gradually.
We can't just say we're "the best country in the world", we have to live it. We have to, each of us, take responsibility to make it so. Instead, I see far too many people taking what others in the country might have done (We went to the moon first!) to stand as credit for their own personal pride. Not saying you can't be grateful for what's been accomplished, but there's many who just ride on it and don't really contribute anything meaningful of their own.
All countries need patriotism, a little bit of 'we're better than everyone else/ the competition!' Is good for morale boosting and fostering nationalistic pride especially if your country isn't doing too hot socioeconomically. You don't have families of soldiers willing to send themselves and their children to fight wars if they didn't truly believe on some level america is #1. Id like to think its the same with most countries, nationalism is a powerful tool of propaganda.
yes what would commoners do without empty sophistry to get them through the day
Some pride in your country is definitely good, but its equally important (if not more) to notice things that could be improved and examples of other places that do things differently.
Yeah, I think you've both missed the point of this post, and are drunk on the kool aid
It's not a lie. It's a point of view. It's a declaration of intent. Being #1 isn't a privilege, it's a responsibility, and a choice.
Sorry, bullshit.
It's always "we're the beat, we're the best at X" whereas the reality is that you have rampant poverty, institutionalized racism (hello US police forces!), shit and unaffordable healthcare with (apparently) doctors who put their religion over their Hippocratic oath, unaffordable education which doesn't get you a good job anymore anyways, you don't work to live, you live to work, you have almost no vacation days whatsoever, you have no free days agter when your baby is born,you can't do anything anymore without a car, you have no freedoms, but they convinced you that parading around military style weapons is freedom somehow. You teach little children at school that sex is wrong, but it's good to knoe what to do when the next mass murderer visits your school again. Your police is racist, uneducated, inept, and corrupt..... I could go on, but you get the idea.
Sorry, America sucks, to paraphrase someone else in this thread: it's a third world country wearing the mask of a first world country.
Right. Being #1 means being the best. "We are the best at X" is an equivalent statement to "We're #1".
Not disputing that.
What I'm saying is that both of those statements can be, and are, statements of intent.
You really think a pizza place claiming "The best pizza in NYC!" thinks they're stating an objective fact? No, they're stating their commitment to acting as if that's their role. It's a commitment to excellence and striving.
Yeaaahhh, about that.
First of all that's not how language works. If you say A but then when called out on it say "well actually I meant b to be like a" then you're just lying
Then, that intent kind of becomes questionable too when your pizza parlor is rat infested and your pizzas are covered in mold. The US has great things, like all countries, but all takeb together I consider it a third world nation that ban barely get by.
The vast majority of people I see declaring we're #1 are taking credit for it but not working to be the best in the world. It's the people who are saying we shouldn't help other people outside the US (or even inside). It's not a declaration of intent for most people. It's a badge of pride that they don't deserve and don't intend to maintain.
If it actually were used like you imply, I don't doubt we would be the best. It would require us working to improve the world around us, not just benefit ourselves. Usually it's said out of nationalism though, not optimism.
School shootings and healthcare
When I moved out of my parents house and stopped watching fox news.
I figured out pretty quickly that there were really big differences between Fox,NBC and CNN, at that point I saw CNN as being approximately truthful.
A couple years later one of the guys that worked with had CNN lies bumper stickers. I thought BS, but realized I really should see what it was about.
I looked into that. And found that he wasn't wrong but it was way more complicated than that.
I realized that even the news channels with the most journalistic integrity still have numbers to make. If I'm not riled up they consider me under-consuming. And there were still agendas here and there.
In the Netherlands we had (and as far as I know, still have) state sponsored news and they are by law obliged to be truthful and neutral. I always found it to be a very trustworthy source, and I think this is something that other countries should do too. It had no numbers to make, they got paid no matter what, so they simply made the news, they were journalists. 10/10 would recommend
We had fairness in reporting laws until Reagan came through and nixed it.
That type of thing makes it better, but the bias still comes through in reporting choices. The right wing side always reports every piece of doom and gloom in the cities so they can make the case that the entire left-wing side is backing lawlessness.
Hell even if you take journalism out of it, every other neighborhood on social media will report that there are bands of roving kids running around thieving and fighting. Come to find out it's a bunch of high schoolers getting together in summer at a carnival. I mean, we even have gang activity here and there but they hardly report on it.
Put those laws back, then. Right now the most accurate news source I can find is the daily show, which is a Comedy show. Jon is hilarious for sure, but how the hell is it that a comedy show does better?
Require news shows to be factual or they can't call themselves news.
I grew up poor and black. The illusion was never there.
Surpised only two down votes.
OP prompt inherently has sub urban middle class bias... Poor or other disadvantaged people have no reason to larp that kool-aid
The fact that US doesn't provide maternity leave to women is savage
It's not just the prompt, it's Lemmy as a whole.
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