Comment by atwrk
12 days ago
no it means u_sama has (correctly, IMO) observed that the US has made it very clear in the past year that they don't regard the EU as an ally. I mean the openly talk about annexing EU territory right now.
12 days ago
no it means u_sama has (correctly, IMO) observed that the US has made it very clear in the past year that they don't regard the EU as an ally. I mean the openly talk about annexing EU territory right now.
That assumes that all Americans support the actions of the current administration. I know of no one that supports these actions.
> That assumes that all Americans support the actions of the current administration
This is making the mistake of trying to distinguish between what individual voters want and what the American government and large businesses do. If you’re, say, a Dane wondering if it’s safe to use Windows, iOS, or Chrome, you don’t care about a hundred million Democrats think but instead can only go by what you think the people in power will order and the odds that Satya, Sundar, or Tim will resist requests to compromise your interests. The number of people involved fit on a private jet.
> the mistake of trying to distinguish between what individual voters want and what the American government and large businesses do
That's not really a "mistake", though; that distinction exists and is important. I'd posit that the comment which reads "Americans are not an ally" should instead read "America is not an ally". The interpretation that they are talking about the American people is correct, from a literal reading. I suspect they intended to specify the American government ("America") rather than the American people ("Americans"), which makes the meaning more reasonable (IMO, of course). I agree with the rest of what you wrote; indeed, Satya, Sundar, and Tim both strongly influence and are strongly influenced by the government in question.
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I think this will answer both comments, I said Americans and not America because *both* Democrats and Republicans would antagonize Europeans if they went to bat for their interests (using China as a counterpower to America, protecting industries and becoming as agressive as American administrations have been with protectionism, heavy brain drain, financial abuse and retorting to diminish EU power etc etc)
As a counter to what you say, that is true but in large most are ok with the current administration or the earlier ones. It was under Bush that there was a renaming of French fries to Freedom Fries as a backlash to Gerlany/France not joining the Iraq war. Not every German was a nazi in WW2, yet if you fought a German you will not stop and give him a questionaire to understand his ideology. You lump them as heuristic and act on that.
I don't see mass protests across USA against Grenland policy of current US regime.
That’s because our mass protests are focused on the overseas concentration camps, illegal detainment and arrests, and the other authoritarian moves our president has made. It’s true that Americans in general care little about foreign policy. It’s not an anti-Europe thing, it’s just that people care about stuff that more immediately affects them. European countries are smaller and more integrated, so foreign policy has a more immediate affect on them. Foreign policy has a dramatic affect on Americans lives, but it’s usually indirect and therefore not top of mind for the average citizen. That doesn’t mean we like our government’s foreign policy. And all that’s without mentioning that many believe the Greenland talk is not serious, and simply a distraction, and therefore mass protests would actually be playing into the admins hands.
Then you’re not paying attention. The US is currently experiencing the largest wave of mass protests in its history. The corporate media is simply ignoring it. Practically every trump administration action has triggered nation-wide protests.
https://ash.harvard.edu/programs/crowd-counting-consortium/
When is the last time mass protest has worked in the USA? Somewhat self-fulfilling, sure, but it's been decades. What might work are mass strikes.
Unless your government is entirely forced upon you, they're is only so far the populace can distance itself from them. The majority of the bad crap this American administration is doing and has done was predicted, heck a lot of it they effectively promised during & before the election, yet nearly two thirds of the population either directly voted for it or sat on their elbows and let it happen.
> yet nearly two thirds of the population either directly voted for it or sat on their elbows and let it happen.
While true, that still leaves more than 100 million people who did not.
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I'm not sure how your math stacks out... but 2/3rds of 330 million people is not 75 million votes.
The fact is, the American electoral system is heavily stacked against the actual population due to...
- Citizens United allows individuals with sums of wealth which are nearly incomprehensible to literally drop hundreds of millions of dollars on a single election and not even have a dent in net worth
- The electoral college which may have made sense in 1796 or whenever they were deciding it means presidential elections focus on approximately 7 of our 50 states
- Many places like Puerto Rico, DC, the US Virgin Islands, and other territories just flat out don't have federal representation
- In the Senate small state citizens can sometimes wield up to 60 times as much representation as large state citizens (Hey guess which states those billionaires drop money to buy representation in... I'll give you a hint, it's not the populous ones)
- The House of Reps is capped in size which again hurts large states
It may be time to start talking about structural change here in the United States.
That being said... The United States and (most of) Europe have been allies for 8 decades, it's not like Europe hasn't had it's fair share of bullshit and far right parties.
The fact everyone in this thread is saying our relationship is done cause America's going through a rough patch is ridiculous. Especially given that a year ago our President was helping the expansion of NATO, and we're still sending arms to Ukraine (although the terms are differing), and we just took out Russian ally Maduro.
And I for one am happy that the outcome from this absolutely awful human being is increased European self reliance.
I'm hoping it shakes out that the US rebukes this awful party, and president (which many many people were duped into voting for cause most people are not paying as much attention as say... me and combine hundreds of millions from Musk, and misinformation flowing in through social media, and the stacked systems laid out above)
And when that's all said and done, and millions and millions of us are donating, and marching, and calling, and working to make that happen and there has been very real push back here, although slower than maybe some would hope
That then the US and Europe can be more equal partners than before this monster of an individual
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Which EU territory would that be? If you're referring to Greenland, it's actually not part of the EU.
Why not taking two seconds to look it up before making such a false statement? From Wikipedia:
> Citizens of Greenland are full citizens of Denmark and of the European Union. Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union and is part of the Council of Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland
There is confusion here because Greenland is not part of the EU directly (they were, they left) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_and_the_European_Uni... Its citizens are members of the EU but its territory is not. Greenland is part of NATO though, and has a trade alliance with the EU so its territorial status is very complicated.
It's always disappointing to see that level of aggressive ignorance on HN. I flagged your comment because you're lying and spreading misinformation. Greenland is associated to the European Union but is is not and never has been part of the European Union; it was previously part of the predecessor organization the European Communities but withdrew before the EU was founded. Next time take two seconds to look it up.
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Why do you make such a pointless distinction in the context of this argument?