We’re pretty dense, two critically acclaimed series and a couple shitty, live-action projects isn’t gonna cut it.
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I mean most of this shit is pretty unpopular with Americans. Unfortunately the US has been sliding deeper and deeper into fascism for a while now, so what we want is less and less important.
I like how some people are claiming americans are aware of this lol
If most americans were sufficiently aware and organizing against it accordingly (if they’re not organizing, they’re not aware enough) the imperialist gov would already have been toppled.
I’m American and am aware of this. Explain that!
The One True AmericanTM
The alternative:
The representative of no one AmericanTM
Power. Your fantasy assumes the weight of mere knowing outweighs the power wielded against the citizenry. No revolution started with the whole citizenry waking up. You know why. If not, read more and be less disingenuous.
No revolution started with the whole citizenry waking up
Obviously not everyone lmao.
What every revolution has had is people informing others about what the issue is (often by pamphlets, news, etc), what needs to be done, and organizing. The vast majority of successful revolutions are only those that had organized revolutionaries.
I like how some people are claiming americans are aware of this lol
What every revolution has had is people informing others about what the issue is
If most americans were sufficiently aware and organizing against it accordingly
The vast majority of successful revolutions are only those that had organized revolutionaries.
OK. I see your messaging is at odds with itself and you understand the assignment.
You got top spot on this here memetic sharing of ideas. Which message for the Americans at home who by virtue of reading you on Lemmy are closer to you than not?
It’s a not uncommon theme in anime: some large imperialist/war nation or one associated with fire or occupying Japan.
It’s also worth noting that Japan had a history of imperialism and occupied a significant portion of the world around them not too long ago.
Japan has a pretty similar world view to us. I don’t know a lot about Japanese culture, but I think a lot of its similarities contribute to anime’s popularity in the US. We both have pretty rigid class structures, appreciate violence and capitalism and are enamored with technology.
I know that Avatar is American, perhaps I just wanted to air out a pet theory, however I think it’s good for us to explore some of these assumptions with art and stories.
I think most of us aren’t the baddies though.
To be fair Not all fire nation citizens are bad either
Usually when there’s a imperialistic government it’s very rarely every citizens fault
A comforting/not comforting thought
I sort of believe that the vast majority of whoever from wherever would happily get along, but we still have wars.
I disagree. Most Americans know we are the fire nation/empire from Star Wars.
Well at least most people I know.
Most people you know seem a lot more aware than the average American in my experience
I think we’re more like the Alliance from Firefly.
Most people are just trying to go about their day-to-day, and the war and major imperialism was done a long time ago. Now there are a few in the government who keep doing evil shit, but for the most part it’s a big useless bureaucracy.
the war and major imperialism was done a long time ago.
This is literally a myth that papers over their current warmongering and imperialism
Surprised it’s taken this long for people to grasp it.
We control the world’s reserve currency, and hold the ability to fry any country’s economy via economic sanctions whenever we want. We have the largest military in the world and that military is set up for the purpose of invasion. Yeah, China has a massive navy, but their ships are tiny, most likely for the purpose of defending their oceans and eventually taking Taiwan. We on the other hand have more carrier ships than anyone else, all for the purpose of being able to flex our might on anyone in the world.
People used to say that we attempted to police the world. I don’t hear it nearly as much anymore, but it’s accurate. We throw our weight around. We’re the world’s bully.
Yes, and to large extent NATO countries love to join in on the bullying. Britain and Australia jumped right in with the Iraq invasion for example.
Anybody know where I can get the Mandarin dub of the original cartoon?
America is everthing Americans claim China and Russia to be.
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Is there a country in the Middle East that America hasn’t bombed or invaded?
Is there one that is part of the US now?
There are still American soldiers in most of them.
Huh? Pretty sure Guantanamo Bay is still open to this day. Not on the same scale nowadays, sure; but the CCP never claimed freedom as part of its core values either.
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How so?
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I don’t think America is communist.
neither is China
Are you illiterate? That is the whole fucking point of my reply.
It’s an international poker game and everyone is cheating. To see politics through a campist lens helps no one.
Acknowledging that the US has been the leader of the imperial core — the countries that have been colonizing the rest of the world for 500 years now — since WW2 is the realistic, materialist view.
Only difference now is that it’s changed form to mainly the economic subjugation (neocolonialism) of “former” colonies through unequal exchange under capitalism rather than direct military subjugation — though the US still has a major actual settler colony committing a genocide in Palestine right now.
Any country that tries to escape this system (by nationalizing its resources to prevent extraction by unequal exchange, usually by establishing a socialist state) is sanctioned (DPRK, Vietnam in the past, Zimbabwe etc), embargoed (Cuba), overthrown (Chile, Burkina Faso etc), or invaded (Vietnam, Libya, Korea, etc).
“Imperial Core” is from Star Wars and sounds like a cringe LARP.
Well, the empire from Star Wars was based on the US empire after all, and the rebels were based on the Viet Cong.
That’s partially true, the Empire was based on inspiration from the US, Nazi Germany, and USSR. The rebels are of course the Viet Cong.
USSR
Thank god the “empire” funded and supported the rebels against the empire lmao
The Viet Cong are not the only rebels to have ever existed, the USSR is well known to use excessive military force against its own rebels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Soviet_Union
Citation needed on that USSR claim, Lucas has only, to my knowledge, spoken of the USSR with respect to the inspiration he took from their film industry. He’s outright stated that the Empire is the US and the Rebels the Viet Cong, plus there are the obvious allusions to the Nazis with Stormtroopers and the color of the Empire’s unirorms, but to my knowledge nothing connecting to the USSR.
Return of the Jedi special edition commentary.
Believe it or not, Lucas is capable of finding both positives and negatives about both the US and the USSR.
Most of the aesthetic of Empire architecture is inspired by brutalist Soviet architecture, and ceremony for the Emperor’s arrival was inspired by October Revolution Day military parades.
The USSR was also a fascist dictatorship, the actual bureaucratic structure of the Galactic Empire much more closely resembles the USSR.
Edit: good points were made, it’s overly reductive to call the USSR a facist dictatorship
It is literally from anti-colonial theory lmao
Was this theory developed after Star Wars was already released?
Star Wars was loosely based on it so no wonder you’ll see parallels.
I acknowledge the US has been the “imperial core”. The thing I take issue with is the finger pointing.
As if the United States is unique in seeking out and pursuing its interests. China and Russia may not be the “imperial core” but, all nations will do what’s in their best interest.
That’s the flaw with nations, the campist lens of “America bad, Russia and China good” isn’t productive. Das all I’m saying.
No other country controls the global financial system like the US, and imperial core countries in general, does through its dollar hegemony and global monopolies.
Which is natural, since the entire modern world, its institutions and trade systems, are built on the past few centuries of brutal colonization of the rest of the world by western europe and japan.
finger pointing
Acknowledging reality isn’t “finger pointing”.
Given the same opportunity would Russia and China not do the same things?
But they don’t, so talking about those "what if"s are pointless. China’s current interests — and, broadly speaking, those of capitalist Russia even after the USSR has been overthrown — are mostly in line with the Global South’s against imperial core countries. There’s a reason sentiment like this is common across the developing world.
Many of western countries’ victims, like Cuba, DPRK, Burkina Faso, Palestine, etc., would not be able to function right now, or perhaps even exist, if they did not have China and Russia’s support. Of course, alot of them like Libya aren’t able to function anymore.
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Most Americans are too dumb to realize the allegory in ATLA.
There are a lot of assholish nations that could easily take that place, but imo there are enough references to Dalai lama in the show to assume that the fire nation is china
The Dalai Lama references are from the Air Nomads, not Fire Nation
Yes, that’s how the metaphor follows through. The fire Nation destroys the air nomads the way the Chinese destroyed Tibet.
I think the only war we tried to show our military might “greatness” was the Gulf War. It did establish America as a coalition force to the world.
I think the meme is accurate to people who once supported the war in Iraq. I don’t think it reflects people that opposed it or, people who have since changed their views on it.
And UNO is the avatar that they won’t allow to exist. Or their fake avatar.
Uneducated fuckwits thinking the u.s invented war.
“Oh my god you shot me, I’m going to die, but I don’t blame you because you didn’t invent the gun”
