What's the point of this doomerism? Do you want people to just give up? Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger? I don't understand the point of your comment other than apathy/negativity?
It's absolutely _not_ a "Doomerism" comment - it's a short, sharp, somewhat wry assessment of exactly where the US currently is on the task of undoing the damage caused by gutting longstanding institutional services.
USAID, VoA, Government overwatch, Environmental monitoring, Departmental independance, the US DoJ, et al ... have all been broken in ways that will take much longer to reverse than the time taken to break them.
See "Arrow of Time" and shattered vase examples that go back long in time.
> Do you want people to just give up?
Which people? I don't think the ones doing that damage will "just give up" - it'll take effort to vote them out, it will likely take more effort to actually remove them if they stay on trend and refuse to follow court orders and established procedures.
> Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger?
Weird take, I've been backing my people and country for 60 odd years. In that time I've even backed the USofA on the odd occassion.
> I don't understand the point of your comment
Hopefully that has clarified things a little - you may still need to do some work on that on your side.
> other than apathy/negativity?
because takes such as this are way off the mark.
Still, best of luck getting the US reputation back on track - it'll take time and concerted effort.
Got it. Nothing constructive intended on your part then. Just a pointless negative unproductive internet post that Trumpers won't care about but lowers the moral of people trying to deal with the fallout of all this and get people on board to push back and figure out how to rebuild.
You can keep your empty disingenuous best of luck. You sound like the guy that tells his neighbor whose house burnt down 'man, you are fucked'. Yeah, no shit. Such insight.
Wrong on multiple counts. Way to many assumptions and zero cross cultural understanding.
> Got it.
You've said this multiple times to multiple people with little to no evidence on close reading that, in fact, you "got" anything of their positions and viewpoints.
Your PoV is projecting hard on others to the deteriment of any actual useful communication.
I am of the people that happily rebuild their neighbours house routinely.
What I have said, in short, is that reversing the damage done to the US in the past year will take more than simple reversals via court decisions.
It's an observation about the nature of the problem coupled with a hope that sufficient work be done to fix things.
If you want to do something useful, scroll back and perhaps check your own attitude in multiple posts and worry less about the perceived mote in my eye.
No need for the good luck. This thread has convinced me to just be non-political. Everyone thinks the US sucks, is too broken to fix and like you pointed out the small win I came to this thread hoping to celebrate is as you called it (in your cultures encouraging insightful way) nothing but a pyrrhic victory, and I get too attached to politics. Probably best I just become non-political. But good luck to you.
WTF troll angle would I have? I'm an anti-Trump positivity troll? huh? Trolling with 'let's beat this trash and rebuild'? That's trolling to people who want to... beat this trash and rebuild?
Nah go read my historical posting, worse than a troll, I was a believer of trying to make things better. I'm just burnt out. To be told by this individual that I need to go re-read and internalize that I'm a racist, uneducated piece of shit and that the USA in inherently irredeemable because I'm anti the negativity, and that that is somehow positive, productive talk in their culture I am misunderstanding because I'm not culturally understanding (cultural sensitivity now covers crappy British style snark/negativity/dryness)?
I'm a racist, uneducated, and troll now I guess, because I challenged the piling on and felt the US was redeemable? Fuck it. This is just coming from everywhere and has worn me down, I came this article for just a little win. I'm out. Hope you all find some perfect alliance of America sucks I hate it but also lets rebuild it people that also require everything to be perfect day one and any incremental work towards better is the same as awful and not worth it and just pyrrhic victories or whatever the logic here is.
Because of both how the senate is set up where South Dakota has 2 senators just like California, gerrymandering and to a lesser extent the Electoral College, the 40% of America who like these policies will always have outsized power.
Despite the naive optimism of liberals like Michelle Obama saying “this is not who we are”, what you are seeing now is who this country has always been.
Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain. Or maybe doomerism will lead to rolling the dice and hoping we somehow magically get a better system where no people suck?
This is not who we have historically been. Hence why gerrymandering is an issue today, because they are doing it today. But we have to put in the work to challenge the assholes. The world will always have assholes I don't think giving up/burning it all down and hoping they then magically go away is a political philosophy. The current Republican 'dixiecrats' are an extension of their traitor ancestors that WANT to burn it all down. Seems idiotic to help them in their goal. Fuck these loser traitors I'm keeping my country.
Gerrymandering is an issue today, meaning it is a new issue, that we need to fight, today.
But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things, and don't see how a different country name/system of government would change/fix the horrible things you bring up, or make the worse elements of our society better. I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery. That is ashamed of the internment camps. The doesn't give af about interracial marriage. And that America has been steadily winning WHEN PEOPLE FOUGHT FOR IT. But maybe you are right. Destroy the USA, change the name to 'Super Friendly Nice Perfect Land', get rid of democracy, and maybe racists will stop being racist.
Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things. Our system allows for improvement. There is no indication a random new one will. I have seen videos of Muslims talking about how they won't allow Jewish doctors to treat their kids, so yes, things can go backwards. Doesn't mean we give up. We need to challenge backwards people and backwards thought, not give up because they suck.
You basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war of burn it all down.
Edit2: Again, you see America as irredeemable because there are crappy people in the country and because historically people were much crappier than today. I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better. You aren't going to make me give up/think a name change/rebrand will actually change the issues you have. I think America is the best way to resolve it. How recently were Irish/English killing eachother/hating eachother. 1990s? People love to hate others. You just keep listing 'people suck' as 'America sucks' as if somehow a rebrand/name change will change your complaints. Lots of people just generally suck. We Americans work to improve that. I can see how Black people have given up on it. But I don't see how that is productive for you long term/gives you better results. Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out. That is the dixiecrats anger today, they can see they are being left behind. And you want to just give in to them because???
Thank you for responding. It's good to understand you support/promote doomerism because you think the US is just irredeemable as a nation. I always just assume it's someone frustrated with things. Interesting to hear from someone who really thinks destroying it all is a better solution and that we aren't redeemable as a nation.
Final edit I promise. Read my history and you will see I am very against the American justice system. If you look closely you will see I have fallen from the top to the bottom. In that time I have been physically abused by officers and seen how broken the justice system is. I've made friends who were amazing people who never had a chance from day 1 simply because of their race, who opened my eyes to a lot. I have my own personal reasons to hate aspects of this country, but I still think the best option is to work within the system to improve it. I still think this is not who we are. Glad you aren't racist to you daughter in law. My dad didn't pass my mom's parents whiteness test and that sucked.
So do you think that “prayer changes things” and we can “reach their hearts and minds”?
“This is not who we have historically been.”
Should I start with slavery? Japanese internment camps? Legalized segregation that my still living parents grew up in? Sundown towns that still existed until the 1990s (see Oprah visits Forsyth county)? Laws against interracial marriage? Laws “protecting the sanctity of marriage” because God forbid a same sex couple gets married? How the justice system today still statistically gives harsher penalties to minorities for the same facts? The continued demonization of foreigners and LGBT?
There were places in the south that held their first integrated prom in 2013.
If you have 10 friends and ask them where they want to eat and 6 say let’s go to this nice Mexican restaurant and the other 4 say “let’s kill Bob and eat him”, you still have a shitty group of friends.
> Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain.
I know you put a lot of effort into typing all that, but I just stopped reading at sentence #2.
Doomerism isn't about fixing things. It is about knowing when you are beaten and just give up. The Serentity Prayer says "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
I really wanted to believe that people were better, but they just aren't. My white brother married a Chinese girl in summer of 2016. My parents were so happy for their first child to finally get married. By 2018, they told him that if he had a "mongrel" baby, they would never come to visit.
People were always this evil, they just hid it better. In 2016, they gave themselves permission to be evil in the open, and they ran with it.
So they had to hide it previously because why? Because it's not who we are (the larger we). Saying it IS who we are isn't true AND normalizes their horrible behavior, gives them permission to be awful.
Some people suck, some people will always suck. That doesn't mean we can't aspire to build on the good, to override/reduce the shitiness. That doesn't mean we label the whole irredeemable. Are you the same as them? Doesn't sound like it. And why aren't you? Because it's not who we are.
40% of people still support what’s going on. Would you want to be in a friend group where 4/10 hated you because of the color of your skin if your sexuality?
You are ignoring that who we are required these people to hide it, and to raise children that don't agree with the belief and who didn't care about race when marrying. WHO WE ARE did that, these parents didn't do that.
A system that is getting rid of hate in peoples kids so they don't carry what their parents did IS MAKING THINGS BETTER.
I was jumped and beaten at San Jose State late at night in the 90s because I was white and my friend was Mexican and we were walking around where we weren't allowed I guess. Some Black people hate whites. I don't hate Black people because X out of 10 hate whites or because I was jumped. By your logic I should I guess. That will definitely improve things and build a better society. Thanks for sharing your productive world view.
> I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better.
Ask that to the people in Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, Venezuela and most of the Muslim world or even Canada and Mexico or any foreign country do they see the world as a tool for good?
> Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out.
The government has a “monopoly on [legalized] violence”. You can’t work your way around a corrupt justice system or cops that can shoot you with “qualified immunity”.
Have I given up on America? Yes. I’m planning my exit strategy now and in fact in the country I might retire to now for two months to see what’s it like living here and we have involved ourselves with the local ex-pats community.
But while I’m still working I’m going to extract as much as possible from corporate America and keep “taking things to parking lot” and “double clicking on topics”.
> “But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things.”
So tell me how things are better today in 2026 for immigrants than they were a decade ago? Minorities? LGBT? Hell even rural White America who continues to vote against their own interests as long as they can “own the libs”, see the President abuse brown people, and bring God into the school?
> The doesn't give af about interracial marriage.
My (Black) son is engaged to a white woman. You damn sure better believe that people still care. Me personally? I love her to death.
> I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery
Four states still officially consider “Confederate Memorial Day” a state holiday and two others combine MLK and Confederate Memorial Day.
> Like I said, you basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war.
They weren’t “anti-American” at all. They fought for the America that had slavery in the constitution, and considered a black person as 3/5th of a person and that enshrined “separate but equal” into law until the 50s.
This is who America always was
> Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things.
I’m a 52 year old software developer/consultant. Both of my parents went to what we now call a “historically black college” because that’s all they were allowed to go to. My mom was one of the first Black teachers allowed fo teach in a formerly “White” school.
I am not here screaming that I can get ahead in corporate America because of the color of my skin. I’ve had quite a good track record in corporate America from startups, to BigTech to now a customer facing consultant who can “add on to what Becky said” and “step back and look at things from the 1000 foot view” with the best of them and never experienced discrimination.
Good luck on your response to this kind of rhetoric- I agree with you totally.
For instance, when I read stuff such as "I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery"... it really makes me wonder with what eyes that "fact" has been seen.
In the last couple of weeks I've been reading a lot of WEB DuBois, who lays out pretty good first-hand material histories on the facts here. Or, for instance, yesterday I read a Frederick Douglas speech about John Brown.
When I read these sources, I don't think that the folks (other than the black folks fighting to free themselves) generally were fighting "to remove the cancer of slavery"... I see folks in power who, as a last resort accepted black folks into their lines.
If you read first person accounts of these things, if you read the literal words that folks were writing at the time, it's very easy to see that the obvious tactical and strategic reasons were almost overpowered by the blatent and deep racism of the folks in power.
It's easy to watch folks who will take the word of their 6th grade "history" teacher over reading, like, 2 books of first-hand sources and trace out the litany of other blatantly false understandings of the world on about every topic.
White supremacy culture is disgustingly sticky and oozes all through out folks' brains so much so that they can't even register the water in which they swim as existing. It's even not difficult to see past it if you just, like, read folks and listen when you feel uncomfortable, but damn, folks will just accept whatever BS propaganda they were given in grade school and wonder how come all these folks out in the world dismiss their idiotic positions.
Pretty sure this goes against guidelines here. Responding to someone else's response to quote and then talk about me is straight trash, especially embedding so many labels/ pejoratives aimed at me.
I guess Robert Gould Shaw grudgingly accepted everyone I guess.
I guess elected politicians like Thaddeus Stevens grudgingly accepted everyone and didn't run on a policy of anti-slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens
I don’t see any comments at all, at least on mobile. Is this a bot?
I was going to look at the comments out of curiosity, because I was surprised that there would be any comments at all on an AP article, for several reasons.
I think that might be a "you" thing, there certainly are comments.
And here's a link to APNews' comment guideline page, showing they have comment sections on lots of places in their website
Comment by burkej27.
41 MIN AGO
No state run media!
Comment by Robertl.
55 MIN AGO
Is there anything that Trump does that is legal and won’t be overturned? What a waste of 4 years. They should be held responsible to the 1000 people damaged by his actions. If he can’t then his cabinet.
Comment by Trumpisyourpresident.
1 HR AGO
Just like NPR, it's the voice of liberal America, not America, so it should not be funded.
Comment by KendallGrubb.
1 HR AGO
We’re not in the 1950’s building Crystal am radios anymore. The cost of this service is unnecessary given today’s media options
The last one is so close to the point. Iran had Internet blackouts earlier this year, Russia has been experimenting with the same - options like shortwave are just as relevant as ever.
News article comments are funny. I think some people are just angry about politics and feel the need to vent it all the time. I actually read the NYT comments occasionally, and it's the liberal version what you posted. Some people have the amazing ability to bend any topic into a long complaint about Trump. They're almost like that version of Claude that couldn't stop talking about the Golden Gate Bridge.
I mean they're on thin ice. I have no love for the trump administration, but It's not clear where the constitution authorizes congress to fund VoA or any government propaganda arm, really. You could equally make the argument "it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit".
> it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit
The difference is that the New Deal is one of, like, 3 reasons the US isn't a complete shithole. Basically everything you like about the US can be traced back to the New Deal.
> Basically everything you like about the US can be traced back to the New Deal.
like, the fucked up "worst of both both worlds socialism and capitalism" employment-tied healthcare system we have, arguably the #1 biggest problem in contemporary us?
they dont teach history good in this country any more i guess
Seems like this would fall under the General Welfare clause. Certainly a lot clearer than the idea that growing your own feed for your livestock means you don’t buy feed on the open market which affects prices which means your feed growing qualifies as interstate commerce despite never leaving your land and can therefore be regulated by the federal government.
You’re the one who brought up FDR, my dude. It’s not whataboutism to address a topic explicitly mentioned by the other party.
I personally don’t see the case for saying the Constitution doesn’t authorize government funded media under the General Welfare clause. I can see where there might be room for disagreement, but that clause is pretty broad. Whereas interstate commerce is a lot clearer, and the reasoning in Wickard v. Filburn is pretty transparent bullshit made to reach a desired conclusion. In terms of Congress exceeding its enumerated powers, the latter is vastly worse.
the general welfare clause is pretty clearly in the header of article 1 section 8, with the specific enumerated welfare provisions following it.
anything outside of those provisions (e.g. making a non-apporpotioned income tax, making a law that makes alcohol illegal, why not just have those be authorized as "general welfare"?) needs a Constitutional amendment otherwise its just congress creating a power for itself out of whole cloth.
look at this point the government pretty clearly breaks every other part of the Constitution except for the pomp and circumstances around the oath of office, so we know where the real priorities lie.
Ah, so "the FDR bullshit" was specifically about VOA. That was not clear. I thought it was a reference to New Deal policies more broadly. Write more carefully.
Actually, in your reply in the other subtree, you added "(among other things)" so it appears I understood it correctly the first time, and it was a reference to New Deal policies more broadly.
yes and the comment i originally responded to talks about Trump/DOGE in a broad sense, which is also more than just VOA. actually doge is unwinding quite a bit of FDR bullshit it turns out so my analogy is a nice mirror.
My read is that it's all about the dollars. The court cannot force Congress to appropriate money, and so if there is no money appropriated to run VoA then the administration has no money from Congress to run it, and cannot be forced to restore it.
It’s hilarious to call VoA, which had already faded into near irrelevancy, “their biggest propaganda organ.” That title belongs to Fox News or Hollywood.
Why does this comment get voted down? Which part are people against hearing/reading about? Is it the fact that the USA is an empire, the fact that its own journalistic efforts are propaganda, the claim that VoA is the biggest propaganda organ, or something else?
It is not logically inconsistent. The "Imperial Manager"ial class mentioned in the OP is multifaceted. That is to say, there are warring factions within the ruling class who disagree on details about certain things. (other things they are fully aligned on such as stamping down on the working class)
It’s the sort of comment that does nothing to inform or convince or really say anything. If you already agree with it the you’ll like it. If you don’t then it doesn’t tell you anything. Its only purpose is to stir things up.
It's a logically unconvincing point of view (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424628) delivered with sarcasm. The sarcasm is something people have to ignore to post a substantive reply and it's not redeemed by making a strong point that's worthy of discussion.
It's using criticisms which generally aren't even well-received in good faith conversation, stating them obtusely, and ultimately just disingenuously abusing them to support fascism which doesn't actually seek to reform but merely seeks to consolidate power.
I've long criticized the US foreign policy and the US economic empire. But with the fascists destroying every institution they can, I've become extremely conservative.
That’s a very extrinsic perspective, so let’s included the other far more powerful and consequential propaganda organs; the whole media, news, TV, movie, cultural conglomeration of the American empire. If you consume “mainstream” American news, TV, movies, etc. you are being propagandized way more powerfully than anything a Sputnik, RT, AJ, DW, BBC, etc. could ever hope to achieve.
It’s not any of these rather meaningless little foreign entities that cause the major swings in “opinion” in the America that cause people to abandoned their own supposed core beliefs by getting the new firmware updates through the telescreen. I would provide a clear example, but I also don’t want to give the impression that it’s any one party or ideology, the majority of people get their firmware updates beamed into their heads through the telescreen. That is what is actually filing the void of people’s minds, not the crumbs from RT or even the slightly bigger crumbs of the BBC, it’s the approved, authorized mainstream information streams emanating from the telescreen that update people’s whatToThink; be it who to vote for or who to bomb.
> If you consume “mainstream” American news, TV, movies, etc. you are being propagandized way more powerfully than anything a Sputnik, RT, AJ, DW, BBC, etc. could ever hope to achieve.
War films are the most overt examples but far from the only ones:
> Four decades after the release of the 1954 adult animated film Animal Farm, Cold War historian Tony Shaw discovered, through looking at archives of the film, that the CIA had secretly purchased the rights to the film. The CIA also altered the ending of the film so that the pigs, who represent communists, were overthrown by the other animals on the farm.
Said to an American news anchor (who later dismissed the speaker as a "brilliant conspiracist" for this line): "I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting."
Simple enough, just reverse the arrow of time and unshatter that vase, restore allied trust, and un-DOGE all the clogged pipelines.
These kinds of victories really are thin gruel, aren't they?
It's almost but not quite:
~ Pyrrhus of Epirus, 2026 ADterritory.
Don't forget to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
What's the point of this doomerism? Do you want people to just give up? Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger? I don't understand the point of your comment other than apathy/negativity?
> What's the point of this doomerism?
It's absolutely _not_ a "Doomerism" comment - it's a short, sharp, somewhat wry assessment of exactly where the US currently is on the task of undoing the damage caused by gutting longstanding institutional services.
USAID, VoA, Government overwatch, Environmental monitoring, Departmental independance, the US DoJ, et al ... have all been broken in ways that will take much longer to reverse than the time taken to break them.
See "Arrow of Time" and shattered vase examples that go back long in time.
> Do you want people to just give up?
Which people? I don't think the ones doing that damage will "just give up" - it'll take effort to vote them out, it will likely take more effort to actually remove them if they stay on trend and refuse to follow court orders and established procedures.
> Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger?
Weird take, I've been backing my people and country for 60 odd years. In that time I've even backed the USofA on the odd occassion.
> I don't understand the point of your comment
Hopefully that has clarified things a little - you may still need to do some work on that on your side.
> other than apathy/negativity?
because takes such as this are way off the mark.
Still, best of luck getting the US reputation back on track - it'll take time and concerted effort.
Got it. Nothing constructive intended on your part then. Just a pointless negative unproductive internet post that Trumpers won't care about but lowers the moral of people trying to deal with the fallout of all this and get people on board to push back and figure out how to rebuild.
You can keep your empty disingenuous best of luck. You sound like the guy that tells his neighbor whose house burnt down 'man, you are fucked'. Yeah, no shit. Such insight.
Wrong on multiple counts. Way to many assumptions and zero cross cultural understanding.
> Got it.
You've said this multiple times to multiple people with little to no evidence on close reading that, in fact, you "got" anything of their positions and viewpoints.
Your PoV is projecting hard on others to the deteriment of any actual useful communication.
I am of the people that happily rebuild their neighbours house routinely.
What I have said, in short, is that reversing the damage done to the US in the past year will take more than simple reversals via court decisions.
It's an observation about the nature of the problem coupled with a hope that sufficient work be done to fix things.
If you want to do something useful, scroll back and perhaps check your own attitude in multiple posts and worry less about the perceived mote in my eye.
Good luck.
No need for the good luck. This thread has convinced me to just be non-political. Everyone thinks the US sucks, is too broken to fix and like you pointed out the small win I came to this thread hoping to celebrate is as you called it (in your cultures encouraging insightful way) nothing but a pyrrhic victory, and I get too attached to politics. Probably best I just become non-political. But good luck to you.
if you're giving up that easily, you're just a troll
WTF troll angle would I have? I'm an anti-Trump positivity troll? huh? Trolling with 'let's beat this trash and rebuild'? That's trolling to people who want to... beat this trash and rebuild?
Nah go read my historical posting, worse than a troll, I was a believer of trying to make things better. I'm just burnt out. To be told by this individual that I need to go re-read and internalize that I'm a racist, uneducated piece of shit and that the USA in inherently irredeemable because I'm anti the negativity, and that that is somehow positive, productive talk in their culture I am misunderstanding because I'm not culturally understanding (cultural sensitivity now covers crappy British style snark/negativity/dryness)?
I'm a racist, uneducated, and troll now I guess, because I challenged the piling on and felt the US was redeemable? Fuck it. This is just coming from everywhere and has worn me down, I came this article for just a little win. I'm out. Hope you all find some perfect alliance of America sucks I hate it but also lets rebuild it people that also require everything to be perfect day one and any incremental work towards better is the same as awful and not worth it and just pyrrhic victories or whatever the logic here is.
Because of both how the senate is set up where South Dakota has 2 senators just like California, gerrymandering and to a lesser extent the Electoral College, the 40% of America who like these policies will always have outsized power.
Despite the naive optimism of liberals like Michelle Obama saying “this is not who we are”, what you are seeing now is who this country has always been.
Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain. Or maybe doomerism will lead to rolling the dice and hoping we somehow magically get a better system where no people suck?
This is not who we have historically been. Hence why gerrymandering is an issue today, because they are doing it today. But we have to put in the work to challenge the assholes. The world will always have assholes I don't think giving up/burning it all down and hoping they then magically go away is a political philosophy. The current Republican 'dixiecrats' are an extension of their traitor ancestors that WANT to burn it all down. Seems idiotic to help them in their goal. Fuck these loser traitors I'm keeping my country.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kjah99E1fIo
Edit because I'm throttled:
You completely jumped talking points.
Gerrymandering is an issue today, meaning it is a new issue, that we need to fight, today.
But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things, and don't see how a different country name/system of government would change/fix the horrible things you bring up, or make the worse elements of our society better. I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery. That is ashamed of the internment camps. The doesn't give af about interracial marriage. And that America has been steadily winning WHEN PEOPLE FOUGHT FOR IT. But maybe you are right. Destroy the USA, change the name to 'Super Friendly Nice Perfect Land', get rid of democracy, and maybe racists will stop being racist.
Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things. Our system allows for improvement. There is no indication a random new one will. I have seen videos of Muslims talking about how they won't allow Jewish doctors to treat their kids, so yes, things can go backwards. Doesn't mean we give up. We need to challenge backwards people and backwards thought, not give up because they suck.
You basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war of burn it all down.
Edit2: Again, you see America as irredeemable because there are crappy people in the country and because historically people were much crappier than today. I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better. You aren't going to make me give up/think a name change/rebrand will actually change the issues you have. I think America is the best way to resolve it. How recently were Irish/English killing eachother/hating eachother. 1990s? People love to hate others. You just keep listing 'people suck' as 'America sucks' as if somehow a rebrand/name change will change your complaints. Lots of people just generally suck. We Americans work to improve that. I can see how Black people have given up on it. But I don't see how that is productive for you long term/gives you better results. Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out. That is the dixiecrats anger today, they can see they are being left behind. And you want to just give in to them because???
Thank you for responding. It's good to understand you support/promote doomerism because you think the US is just irredeemable as a nation. I always just assume it's someone frustrated with things. Interesting to hear from someone who really thinks destroying it all is a better solution and that we aren't redeemable as a nation.
Final edit I promise. Read my history and you will see I am very against the American justice system. If you look closely you will see I have fallen from the top to the bottom. In that time I have been physically abused by officers and seen how broken the justice system is. I've made friends who were amazing people who never had a chance from day 1 simply because of their race, who opened my eyes to a lot. I have my own personal reasons to hate aspects of this country, but I still think the best option is to work within the system to improve it. I still think this is not who we are. Glad you aren't racist to you daughter in law. My dad didn't pass my mom's parents whiteness test and that sucked.
So do you think that “prayer changes things” and we can “reach their hearts and minds”?
“This is not who we have historically been.”
Should I start with slavery? Japanese internment camps? Legalized segregation that my still living parents grew up in? Sundown towns that still existed until the 1990s (see Oprah visits Forsyth county)? Laws against interracial marriage? Laws “protecting the sanctity of marriage” because God forbid a same sex couple gets married? How the justice system today still statistically gives harsher penalties to minorities for the same facts? The continued demonization of foreigners and LGBT?
There were places in the south that held their first integrated prom in 2013.
If you have 10 friends and ask them where they want to eat and 6 say let’s go to this nice Mexican restaurant and the other 4 say “let’s kill Bob and eat him”, you still have a shitty group of friends.
> Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain.
I know you put a lot of effort into typing all that, but I just stopped reading at sentence #2.
Doomerism isn't about fixing things. It is about knowing when you are beaten and just give up. The Serentity Prayer says "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
I really wanted to believe that people were better, but they just aren't. My white brother married a Chinese girl in summer of 2016. My parents were so happy for their first child to finally get married. By 2018, they told him that if he had a "mongrel" baby, they would never come to visit.
People were always this evil, they just hid it better. In 2016, they gave themselves permission to be evil in the open, and they ran with it.
So they had to hide it previously because why? Because it's not who we are (the larger we). Saying it IS who we are isn't true AND normalizes their horrible behavior, gives them permission to be awful.
Some people suck, some people will always suck. That doesn't mean we can't aspire to build on the good, to override/reduce the shitiness. That doesn't mean we label the whole irredeemable. Are you the same as them? Doesn't sound like it. And why aren't you? Because it's not who we are.
40% of people still support what’s going on. Would you want to be in a friend group where 4/10 hated you because of the color of your skin if your sexuality?
You are ignoring that who we are required these people to hide it, and to raise children that don't agree with the belief and who didn't care about race when marrying. WHO WE ARE did that, these parents didn't do that.
A system that is getting rid of hate in peoples kids so they don't carry what their parents did IS MAKING THINGS BETTER.
I was jumped and beaten at San Jose State late at night in the 90s because I was white and my friend was Mexican and we were walking around where we weren't allowed I guess. Some Black people hate whites. I don't hate Black people because X out of 10 hate whites or because I was jumped. By your logic I should I guess. That will definitely improve things and build a better society. Thanks for sharing your productive world view.
Okay (weird as this is) third reply
> I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better.
Ask that to the people in Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, Venezuela and most of the Muslim world or even Canada and Mexico or any foreign country do they see the world as a tool for good?
> Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out.
The government has a “monopoly on [legalized] violence”. You can’t work your way around a corrupt justice system or cops that can shoot you with “qualified immunity”.
Have I given up on America? Yes. I’m planning my exit strategy now and in fact in the country I might retire to now for two months to see what’s it like living here and we have involved ourselves with the local ex-pats community.
But while I’m still working I’m going to extract as much as possible from corporate America and keep “taking things to parking lot” and “double clicking on topics”.
I am responding to your edits
> “But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things.”
So tell me how things are better today in 2026 for immigrants than they were a decade ago? Minorities? LGBT? Hell even rural White America who continues to vote against their own interests as long as they can “own the libs”, see the President abuse brown people, and bring God into the school?
> The doesn't give af about interracial marriage.
My (Black) son is engaged to a white woman. You damn sure better believe that people still care. Me personally? I love her to death.
But for a less anecdotal answer.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/2-publi...
> That is ashamed of the internment camps.
What do you call what ICE is doing right now?
> I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery
Four states still officially consider “Confederate Memorial Day” a state holiday and two others combine MLK and Confederate Memorial Day.
> Like I said, you basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war.
They weren’t “anti-American” at all. They fought for the America that had slavery in the constitution, and considered a black person as 3/5th of a person and that enshrined “separate but equal” into law until the 50s.
This is who America always was
> Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things.
I’m a 52 year old software developer/consultant. Both of my parents went to what we now call a “historically black college” because that’s all they were allowed to go to. My mom was one of the first Black teachers allowed fo teach in a formerly “White” school.
I am not here screaming that I can get ahead in corporate America because of the color of my skin. I’ve had quite a good track record in corporate America from startups, to BigTech to now a customer facing consultant who can “add on to what Becky said” and “step back and look at things from the 1000 foot view” with the best of them and never experienced discrimination.
Good luck on your response to this kind of rhetoric- I agree with you totally.
For instance, when I read stuff such as "I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery"... it really makes me wonder with what eyes that "fact" has been seen.
In the last couple of weeks I've been reading a lot of WEB DuBois, who lays out pretty good first-hand material histories on the facts here. Or, for instance, yesterday I read a Frederick Douglas speech about John Brown.
When I read these sources, I don't think that the folks (other than the black folks fighting to free themselves) generally were fighting "to remove the cancer of slavery"... I see folks in power who, as a last resort accepted black folks into their lines.
If you read first person accounts of these things, if you read the literal words that folks were writing at the time, it's very easy to see that the obvious tactical and strategic reasons were almost overpowered by the blatent and deep racism of the folks in power.
It's easy to watch folks who will take the word of their 6th grade "history" teacher over reading, like, 2 books of first-hand sources and trace out the litany of other blatantly false understandings of the world on about every topic.
White supremacy culture is disgustingly sticky and oozes all through out folks' brains so much so that they can't even register the water in which they swim as existing. It's even not difficult to see past it if you just, like, read folks and listen when you feel uncomfortable, but damn, folks will just accept whatever BS propaganda they were given in grade school and wonder how come all these folks out in the world dismiss their idiotic positions.
Pretty sure this goes against guidelines here. Responding to someone else's response to quote and then talk about me is straight trash, especially embedding so many labels/ pejoratives aimed at me.
I guess Robert Gould Shaw grudgingly accepted everyone I guess. I guess elected politicians like Thaddeus Stevens grudgingly accepted everyone and didn't run on a policy of anti-slavery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens
Maybe don't write ignorant stuff? I don't know what to tell you...
What’s with the page blocking Cloudflare popup? I can’t dismiss it on mobile.
Reading the article, Lake said this decision is going to be appealed.
The ultimate resolution will likely have to happen at the Supreme Court.
I guess that is what happens when you don't stuff the courts with loyal judges.
Judges overruling the citizens again.
Wasn't Voice of America just a propaganda tool? Why are we happy that crap is back?
> Why are we happy that crap is back?
Don't you want to hear the voice of freedom and democracy ?
I am reading the comments under the AP article and wondering how many of them are just bots yelling at each other.
Dead internet theory is creeping up on me.
I don’t see any comments at all, at least on mobile. Is this a bot?
I was going to look at the comments out of curiosity, because I was surprised that there would be any comments at all on an AP article, for several reasons.
I think that might be a "you" thing, there certainly are comments. And here's a link to APNews' comment guideline page, showing they have comment sections on lots of places in their website
https://apnews.com/community-guidelines
Unsure why you jump to "is this a bot" conclusion, seems a little odd.
Unsure why you jump to "is this a bot" conclusion, seems a little odd.
Seemed a little quick, but not odd. Most news comment sections are bots, I'd expext at least 10% of HN to be, etc.
As the US midterms arrive, I'd expect news comments sections to be 99.99% bots.
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Here are a few I see:
Comment by burkej27. 41 MIN AGO No state run media!
Comment by Robertl. 55 MIN AGO Is there anything that Trump does that is legal and won’t be overturned? What a waste of 4 years. They should be held responsible to the 1000 people damaged by his actions. If he can’t then his cabinet.
Comment by Trumpisyourpresident. 1 HR AGO Just like NPR, it's the voice of liberal America, not America, so it should not be funded.
Comment by KendallGrubb. 1 HR AGO We’re not in the 1950’s building Crystal am radios anymore. The cost of this service is unnecessary given today’s media options
The last one is so close to the point. Iran had Internet blackouts earlier this year, Russia has been experimenting with the same - options like shortwave are just as relevant as ever.
News article comments are funny. I think some people are just angry about politics and feel the need to vent it all the time. I actually read the NYT comments occasionally, and it's the liberal version what you posted. Some people have the amazing ability to bend any topic into a long complaint about Trump. They're almost like that version of Claude that couldn't stop talking about the Golden Gate Bridge.
While radio listenership is in decline in the US it remains very popular in developing nations, even shortwave. That's really why it still exists.
Can I just say: Hurray! Well done.
Gonna take a generation to unpick and fix the Trump/DOGE bullshit ...
One hopes if it is rebuilt it's rebuilt to be "good" rather than bad/evil
I mean they're on thin ice. I have no love for the trump administration, but It's not clear where the constitution authorizes congress to fund VoA or any government propaganda arm, really. You could equally make the argument "it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit".
> it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit
The difference is that the New Deal is one of, like, 3 reasons the US isn't a complete shithole. Basically everything you like about the US can be traced back to the New Deal.
> Basically everything you like about the US can be traced back to the New Deal.
like, the fucked up "worst of both both worlds socialism and capitalism" employment-tied healthcare system we have, arguably the #1 biggest problem in contemporary us?
they dont teach history good in this country any more i guess
Seems like this would fall under the General Welfare clause. Certainly a lot clearer than the idea that growing your own feed for your livestock means you don’t buy feed on the open market which affects prices which means your feed growing qualifies as interstate commerce despite never leaving your land and can therefore be regulated by the federal government.
whataboutism. Both of those are bad.
You’re the one who brought up FDR, my dude. It’s not whataboutism to address a topic explicitly mentioned by the other party.
I personally don’t see the case for saying the Constitution doesn’t authorize government funded media under the General Welfare clause. I can see where there might be room for disagreement, but that clause is pretty broad. Whereas interstate commerce is a lot clearer, and the reasoning in Wickard v. Filburn is pretty transparent bullshit made to reach a desired conclusion. In terms of Congress exceeding its enumerated powers, the latter is vastly worse.
> You’re the one who brought up FDR, my dude
VOA was established by FDR?
> the General Welfare clause.
the general welfare clause is pretty clearly in the header of article 1 section 8, with the specific enumerated welfare provisions following it.
anything outside of those provisions (e.g. making a non-apporpotioned income tax, making a law that makes alcohol illegal, why not just have those be authorized as "general welfare"?) needs a Constitutional amendment otherwise its just congress creating a power for itself out of whole cloth.
look at this point the government pretty clearly breaks every other part of the Constitution except for the pomp and circumstances around the oath of office, so we know where the real priorities lie.
> VOA was established by FDR?
Are you serious? You mentioned FDR by name.
> You could equally make the argument "it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit".
You made the comparison. I made my own comparison. Then you accused me of "whataboutism" for following your lead.
I don't have the energy for this bullshit.
read carefully.
"it took three generations to unpick and fix the FDR bullshit [establishing VOA]".
Ah, so "the FDR bullshit" was specifically about VOA. That was not clear. I thought it was a reference to New Deal policies more broadly. Write more carefully.
Actually, in your reply in the other subtree, you added "(among other things)" so it appears I understood it correctly the first time, and it was a reference to New Deal policies more broadly.
yes and the comment i originally responded to talks about Trump/DOGE in a broad sense, which is also more than just VOA. actually doge is unwinding quite a bit of FDR bullshit it turns out so my analogy is a nice mirror.
Tone doesnt come over well in text. What exactly is the "FDR Bullshit"?
establishing VOA (among other things)
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My takeaway was that VoA can be shutdown, it just needs to be done so according to the law.
My read is that it's all about the dollars. The court cannot force Congress to appropriate money, and so if there is no money appropriated to run VoA then the administration has no money from Congress to run it, and cannot be forced to restore it.
It’s hilarious to call VoA, which had already faded into near irrelevancy, “their biggest propaganda organ.” That title belongs to Fox News or Hollywood.
VoA is for an international audience whilst Fox News, CNN & co are for the American public. Hollywood is mixed.
Why does this comment get voted down? Which part are people against hearing/reading about? Is it the fact that the USA is an empire, the fact that its own journalistic efforts are propaganda, the claim that VoA is the biggest propaganda organ, or something else?
That the emperor is the one that shut it down in the first place. So some part of the statement is logically inconsistent.
It is not logically inconsistent. The "Imperial Manager"ial class mentioned in the OP is multifaceted. That is to say, there are warring factions within the ruling class who disagree on details about certain things. (other things they are fully aligned on such as stamping down on the working class)
Not really. He is just one of many imperial managers.
Even if America is an empire and VoA is propaganda "Imperial Manager" doesn't seem very descriptive of what a judge does.
It does more describing work than what the word "judge" is doing here. So much so that it's controversial.
It’s the sort of comment that does nothing to inform or convince or really say anything. If you already agree with it the you’ll like it. If you don’t then it doesn’t tell you anything. Its only purpose is to stir things up.
It's a logically unconvincing point of view (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424628) delivered with sarcasm. The sarcasm is something people have to ignore to post a substantive reply and it's not redeemed by making a strong point that's worthy of discussion.
It's using criticisms which generally aren't even well-received in good faith conversation, stating them obtusely, and ultimately just disingenuously abusing them to support fascism which doesn't actually seek to reform but merely seeks to consolidate power.
I've long criticized the US foreign policy and the US economic empire. But with the fascists destroying every institution they can, I've become extremely conservative.
Leaving it with only Sputnik is not exactly helping humanity either.
There’s also “Xin hua” and many others, including BBC, CBC, etc., filling the void.
That’s a very extrinsic perspective, so let’s included the other far more powerful and consequential propaganda organs; the whole media, news, TV, movie, cultural conglomeration of the American empire. If you consume “mainstream” American news, TV, movies, etc. you are being propagandized way more powerfully than anything a Sputnik, RT, AJ, DW, BBC, etc. could ever hope to achieve.
It’s not any of these rather meaningless little foreign entities that cause the major swings in “opinion” in the America that cause people to abandoned their own supposed core beliefs by getting the new firmware updates through the telescreen. I would provide a clear example, but I also don’t want to give the impression that it’s any one party or ideology, the majority of people get their firmware updates beamed into their heads through the telescreen. That is what is actually filing the void of people’s minds, not the crumbs from RT or even the slightly bigger crumbs of the BBC, it’s the approved, authorized mainstream information streams emanating from the telescreen that update people’s whatToThink; be it who to vote for or who to bomb.
> If you consume “mainstream” American news, TV, movies, etc. you are being propagandized way more powerfully than anything a Sputnik, RT, AJ, DW, BBC, etc. could ever hope to achieve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military–entertainment_complex
War films are the most overt examples but far from the only ones:
> Four decades after the release of the 1954 adult animated film Animal Farm, Cold War historian Tony Shaw discovered, through looking at archives of the film, that the CIA had secretly purchased the rights to the film. The CIA also altered the ending of the film so that the pigs, who represent communists, were overthrown by the other animals on the farm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Said to an American news anchor (who later dismissed the speaker as a "brilliant conspiracist" for this line): "I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting."
Al Jazeera is great too.
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Funny how often I've read this exact comment today.