Political Memes

I’m not a fan of optimism. Optimism and pessimism are both a form of vulgar fatalism — the belief that things are going to get better or worse irrespective of what we do. If I believed that, I wouldn’t get out of bed.

But I believe very much in hope. And hope is the belief that if you materially improve your circumstances, you will gain a new vantage point from which you will see things that you couldn’t see before.

https://lemmy.world/post/44108195/22599016

As bad as the USA has become, it's not a new thing but rather the culmination of decades of empire building, corruption and internal decay that it seems many of its people have been numb to, having been raised on optimistic nationalist propaganda all their lives. Optimistic complacency is not going to fix that, but hopeful action might. The USA is at a place where it must, and will, undergo significant change, for better or worse. The way I see it, it could go either way, but to be complacent and fail to take whatever action you can, is to concede defeat.

The last bastion of belief I had in this place was the idea that it responded to attempts to improve it and no matter what we did in the past we could make it better for people now.

"To make a more perfect union..."

That was the dream.

I think the more optimistic a person is the more prone they are to going the exact same distance the other direction when they realize the nature of things. Whatever that toxic character trait is called that is what mine is.

There's a phrase/concept for it that I can't remember or find, and it's driving me crazy.

Does it? There's two continents named America, so who does it belong to? No other country on either of those continents has the word "America" in its name. Really stupid thing to be mad about amongst all the very valid things to be mad about.