Most Germans say US doesn't respect freedom

I'm going to hit something touchy.

Regarding TPP, the military industrial complex, the Patriot Act, the complete capture of government by industry affecting labor, the environment, consumer safety, and the growing surveillance and police state.

We all love to rail about the culture war. But for all intents and purposes - the culture war, while imporant, is a distraction.

While you're all debating the transphobic comments of rappers and old people over Jenner's coming-out, and worrying about the rights of the 1 in 30,000 people who are transexual - the entire middle class is being gutted of jobs, the entirety of our society has lost it's privacy rights, TPP has bypassed our democratic process on food safety, copyright, environmental laws, and plenty of other areas, the drug war rages out backed by a militarized police force who shoots brown people first and hopes no one caught it on a cell phone with virtually no accountability.

I'm not picking on trans or gays or anything like that.. while trans-rights and gay rights, and to some extent the decriminalization of pot on a state by state basis are important and real problems.. (and would argue pot rides the line of culture war and larger scale problems) i just think it's sad liberals and conservatives don't band together to do anything about big structural problems in any meaningful way. Our privacy rights are gone. Completely. We're now a nation that tortures. Police abuse of power is out of control. Wall Street and big industries corrupt every aspect of our lives and regulation against them is weak, even with weak regs we're pushing treaties and trade agreements that will usurp our democratic ability to govern these things, our military industrial complex is out of control and is increasingly shifting inward to citizen surveillance, labor has been absolutely crushed and as a result the middle class increasingly smaller and smaller. And don't get me started on gradual environmental collapse.

and we're all arguing about confederate flags, the war on christmas (or alternatively nativity scenes on public land) and who marries who and gendered bathrooms or pronouns..

anything that truly effects power to the people in a big way becomes a back burner issue while low hanging fruit that inspires passioned, cultural debates between political wings and generations get moved to the front of the line.

People love the drama of it all, the duking it out on MSNBC, comedy infotainment programs, Fox News and AM radio programs. They love fighting in the media and in blogs, gasping at bigots, or old religious people with irrational fears about "their way of life". People want a reason to yell at their dad over the thanksigiving table more than they want to bind together on issues that unite us all and actually do something that would better this world in a major way rather than worrying about increasingly tiny demographics of minority groups in a disproportionate fashion.

Debating abortion is fun - you get to shout your side's slogans at each other. But having a deeply informed opinion on what exactly Snowden ended up revealing and all the things it says about our government that we pay for and vote for.. that's.. just a drag man.

1 in 30,000 people are transgendered. And I promise you in the next decade there will be more media coverage and more debate about transrights than almost any other topic - while more and more americans (trans and cis gendered) are thrown into poverty, while wall street continually co-opts our government, while we wage wars killing thousands of our own troops not too mention the brown people of where-ever we decide to invade next.. we'll all be having a little cultural argument about how the one dude in the miniskirt makes so-and-so uncomfortable.

We as a society have created huge, decade spanning debates about small fry issues (in the grand scheme of things) because we've collectively decided the big issues are too big to confront. And it's getting worse. Political correctness as you see SRS or Tumblr promote is - as a lifestyle is the pinnacle of everything wrong with american politics. Go look on Fox News and it's the opposite end of that same coin. It's just fucking pettiness. OMG YOu're ableist b/c you called yourself an idiot for misplacing your keys! Lets debate this back and forth all day rather than something that fucking matters.

So we just give up on that shit. Dont get me wrong - trans rights and gay rights and marijuana decriminalization are all fantastic things. I don't dislike the progress in the slightest. But it all just feels cosmetic when you look at the sheer scale of harm to human life and human rights that stem from these other issues and it's like people don't care about them in any meaningful way. America LOVES it's culture war as a form of entertainment. I don't care if you're talking your Fox News baby boomer bigots or your Tumblr SJWs. Outrage has become recreation, while structural and institutional oppression that affects the mass of society becomes this thing too big to confront.

This has become what politics is in america. The left is no better than the right in the fact that petty bickering and outrage as recreation and debates chock full of nothing but mudslinging captures virtually all the energy, and none of it gets poured into any kind of practical solution.

Everything has become about "signaling goodness" to demographic you think you are a part of.

In fact, as a progressive - i think progressives are even more guilty of this than the right. At least the right makes their intention clear in most cases; "block change and be bigoted pieces of shit".

The left just helps them out in their goal by caring more about taking people down a peg in all the "dialogues" that happen on tv and across the web and in their family homes. It's about winning the discussion and promoting yourself as "more noble" than the next guy. But when it comes to actually organizing and trying to do anything effective? Fuck that. It's much easier to post vids about how cuddle-raping your pets is animal exploitation or something.. or deriding someone for being ableist when the call themselves idiots for misplacing their keys. It's SRS as a lifestyle - rather than doing anything to affect class, social justice or violence problems.

modern progressive-ism rests on the idea that being offended is akin to being physically assaulted and that the worst thing that could happen to you is your micro-aggressions triggering you into the horrible situation of dealing with an uncomfortable idea.

It cares about attacking people who say keywords and thus are signaling they are anti-social justice when they say no-no words, rather than the mechanics of institutions that perpetuate oppression, it ignores labor, it is slacktivist in it's anti-war and environmental stances. It's a "complain from your blog" as a lifestyle.

And conservatives have inturn become these "dont' tread on me" flag flying, salivating gun nuts with scorched earth policies. They care more about perpetuating their racism than they care about any structural issue when all of society is in the same boat regardless of gender, race or "otherness". And as a progressive...being stuck between greedy, scorched-earth, religious zealot, racist/sexist boomers, and sissy, do-nothing millennials who whine on tumblr and reddit all day.. i've become completely disillusioned.

And here we sit. Stuck between slackitivist finger wagging Tumblr-styled millenial "progressives" and scorched-earth conservative morons who just want to keep debating "white privilege" and ableism and transphobia.

The rich and powerful thank you for your petty squabbles. Good luck on building your retirement and maintaining your rights under law. I hope you're all happy.

'Murica.

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