For sure, every small bit counts. Power in numbers.

A single person dropping all American spend does nothing. 100 million people cutting down US directed spend by 25% is going to hurt.

The We refers to the rest of the world.

What Trump is saying is irrelevant. Best to not pay for American media. Subscribe to your local streaming companies that offer content in your local language, watch movies and series from other countries. A dollar to America is a dollar to supporting fascism.

And not all of it works on a tax incentive basis. Here in Ukraine the cost differential alone was enough to attract film productions (pre-full scale russian invasion of course).

If sane Americans get their house in order (not Biden or Harris style bullshit, but real anti-corruption programs that decapitate the US oligarchy), then that’s another discussion. But that is a big if.

I would argue a more accurate description for the US far right would be proto-fascists. Primarily because they haven’t fully rejected open elections and they are still somewhat constrained by US judicial institutions.

Although I expect this will change in the next 24 months.

On some level this is a good thing. Many American movies are low level oligarch propaganda (e.g. The “Tony Stark” character in Iron Man).

We shouldn’t be funding what is essentially a proto-fascist state. While there are many sane Americans, they have yet to prove that they have the risk tolerance to fight back effectively. From my experience living in the US, American culture isn’t really suited for that kind of thing.

I am talking about blaming everything on sanctions.

I am not that knowledgeable about Cuba, but I have met people from Cuba who moved to the Eastern Block and I know a little bit about events Cuba in context of global history (missile crisis, overthrow of Batista).

Your approach doesn’t sound nuanced enough based on my experience talking to Cubans (and they are not your descendants of Cuban exiles in Florida types).

Comparison is fine. But you are engaging in whataboutism. We are discussing Cuba’s brutal authoritarianism, this topic can evaluated with references to the US.

So what? There are countries that have free healthcare and also have a democratic political system and aren’t run as a brutal dictatorship.

You keep doing the “but what about the US?”, thing. We are not discussing the US, we are discussing Cuba.

I thought this was for real for a second.

This sounds awfully simplistic.

“What about the US?” is not a real arguement. We are discussing Cuba, not the US, Botswana or Uruguay.

The Cuban regime is brutal and authoritarian with minimal respect for human rights.

Would you prefer a more celebratory article? What’s your arguement?

This is a pretty simplistic, almost child-like take.

You can recognize the self-interested nature of the US, while also pointing out how they are not being efficient for their own goals (that also benefit us).

That’s not out of this world for the type of tech that is being discussed, especially considering costs in the US are very high.

If the US had true gumption, they would be testing their hypersonic missiles via launches out of Ukraine aimed at high value russian military targets, with a pretend excuse that it was actually Ukraine launching the missile.

I can guarantee you most of Ukraine would support this (I live in Ukraine) and the “red line” bla bla is just westerners falling prey to russian foreign propaganda initiatives.

Corrupt American oligarch thinks he can deal with incredibly complex issues just because he’s been able to run scams in the US for a few decade (a country which is arguably one of the most friendly places for oligarchs in the world, some smaller exceptions notwithstanding).

Let’s leave the role of the US alone for now. I was just sharing my perspective in context or recent developments.

I can see how the term degeneracy could be seen as loaded in the US context.

But then my question would be, how would you describe Rogan’s behaviour and the fact that this particular act had zero impact on Rogan’s popularity? One could say that at the very least his following (and he is one of the largest media personalities in his home country) is tolerant of such acts.

I would even go as far as saying that in other cultures even conservatives would share my views about the regressive nature of Rogan’s behaviour and the tolerance of his following for such antics.

I started reading the article and I was curious what the context was and who was involved.

I was shocked to hear that it was Douglas Murray who got into a conflict with Rogan. Murray out of all people (I am aware of his chauvinism due to some other stuff).

What really struck me about this article was this:

Nine days and five shows later, Rogan hosted Tim Dillon, another anti-woke comic, and together they impersonated Murray’s voice like middle schoolers at a sleepover. (“You haven’t beeeeen?”)

I am not American, but I have lived there and travelled extensively. I have close friends who live there (both locals and immigrants from a very young age).

I would always defend the US as a force for good in the democratic world (albeit a very flawed one) and highlight that compared to other major powers (russia, china), the US has been involved in a very good outcomes (post WW2 Germany/Japan, Poland and the Baltic nations after the breakup of the USSR).

With the reelection of Trump, I am starting to wonder if this well ever be possible again (from my perspective Trump is a symptom, not a cause).

But Rogan’s behaviour is an example of degeneracy. True degeneracy. Not degenerate as a random insult or say the term “degenerate gambler”, but the actual term like in the dictionary. A regressive, undesirable behaviour that is an affront to the development of human society. And this is perhaps the largest media personality in the US.

It’s going to be very difficult for sane Americans to root out such degeneracy. And there are unfortunately (in my opinion) certain negative elements of American culture that are going to reinforce such behaviour. It will require novel approaches that I don’t believe Americans have the capability to explore (I hope I am wrong).

Agreed, but do you really need knowledge of political philosophy to do that?

The impression I got from living in the US is that it’s not so much a problem with identification, but more like a desire to avoid rather uncomfortable topics.

I don’t know, maybe I just don’t get it. I will admit that I could be wrong, I am just thinking out loud based on my experiences. 😀

See, I don’t you need know anything about political philosophy to understand how oligarchs function and to well, identify oligarchs.

It’s almost like she is insulting her fellow citizens.

The implication that I see (based on her statement) is that other people in her country lack the capability to comprehend the notion of oligarchy or they are too corrupt themselves to support anti-corruption reform.

Respect to David Hogg. I meant this in a more broader perspective.

I am comparing to global examples. One would be Hong Kong. They failed, but they actually were able to shut down the local airport for a short period.

Or say the initial phase of the Syrian revolution. The population openly protested against a brutal regime that was in power for many decades and there were many examples of their brutality.

I specifically chose failed or highly controversial situations (to highlight how a fight for freedom involves scary and painful choices, this is not a movie). From my experience living in the US, I thought local risk tolerance was low. On a certain level, the US is too well off to have the motivation for resistance (be it mass scale ptotest, 10% of pop or more, weekly protest or violent rebellion).

I don’t know how to say it diplomatically, but true fight for freedom doesn’t seem like the American way.