never before have i seen such unfortunately placed blurs.
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Let's just be glad we didn't get a shot of Sarah's shaw.
Why are people still choosing to visit the US I honestly don't get it.
This has been happening to dozens of people. Yes, even white people from white countries. Don't fucking come to the US right now. We're not even really safe inside with our genuine US passports and all, definitely don't go out of your way to subject yourself to it if you're literally the currently active entry in the little Martin Niemöller to-do list.
I had the opportunity to visit the US for an event but decided against it and am so glad I did. I don't need to be sitting in a jail in some shithole state for no reason.
Please accept our apologies, hopefully we're able to get our shit together at some point but it's likely to be like this for a while and probably get substantially worse before it gets better.
I hope it actually does get better but looking at authotarian rulers Trump is following in the footsteps of it might never get better. Look at Putin, Ergodan, Netinyahu, Oban etc. Trump is using their playbook.
On the other hand, he's an absolute fucking moron.
Trump is the fascism vaccine: He is the weakened form, so the system can learn about it, recognize it, and respond with no fuckin' around when it happens for real.
I'm not saying he is not dangerous. The camps are going up right now, and people packing into them every day. I'm just saying compared to what he could have been, we might have some kind of chance. Or I hope so at least.
He is not weak and neither are any of the people pulling his strings.
He is absolutely weak. "When small men cast long shadows" type of thing. ☹️ Like I said, it doesn't mean he's not very very dangerous...
He is not weak because he wields the largest economy and military in the world.
Yeah. I'm just talking about his character on a personal level, not about the danger he represents on a factual level. Other people who have much stronger character set up solid systems which are terrifyingly effective, and now this brain damaged child is in charge of a lot of them. It's not a good situation.
Who cares about your assessment of his character though? He is in charge and he wields immense power and is using that power to destroy democracy and to advance a christian nationalist and fascist agenda.
Because it matters quite a bit for what sort of damage a person will do, what their overall character and their motivations are. Stalin is different from Hitler is different from Tito is different from Andrew Jackson is different from the kid from "It's a Good Life." Trump's a little bit unprecedented in terms of how incapable he is on a personal level as contrasted with the almost unimaginable power he wields. It's relevant for talking about what sort of damage he will do and what options people have in terms of resisting it.
It seems like this is one of those internet arguments where I'm agreeing with you, and then trying to add something else the scope of which is a little different from the thing you're saying, and then you're saying "NO YOU DON'T GET IT [repeating the original point I agreed with]" for multiple messages. Like the only template you can understand is if someone's response is "Oh yes you are correct and I have nothing to add."
Good luck with future conversations, I feel like you must be fun at parties.
My wife and a friend were planning on going to the Mall of America before Trump gained power. We said Fuck that and they went to West Edmonton Mall. Similar vibes, got to go on rides, etc., and not in America!
I guess communists are safe there.
So afraid to mention the C-word they ommited the first sentence of his poem.
In the US Holocaust Memorial Museum no less.
Imagine them doing a little revisionism.
Anyone know how they would have been transported from the Canadian border all the way to Texas?
Mahmud Kalhil was handcuffed and put on a plane and shipped to three different prisons before anybody even knew where he was. That's what they do. They kidnap people and shove them in a hole someplace without telling anybody where they are. They even shipped people to El Salvador torture concentration camps. They are shipping people to be tortured all around the world now.
Honestly scary stuff happening. My once dream of getting over to the States, when I was younger, has now died out.
Go to Canada instead.
We had actually planned to visit Seattle/British Columbia right before Covid Lockdowns hit, and havent really thought about it since.
To be honest, a lot of my sense of connection with the USA was due to Sports that I follow, and due to constant portrayal from Films/TV Shows. Other than that, don't really have a sense of wanting to visit North America at this point in time.
I visited the west coast, I drove up from San Francisco to Vancouver visiting various towns in Oregon and Washington along the way. IMHO Canada was much better in every aspect except maybe mexican food. I really loved Vancouver and want to go back some day.
What were some of the big/key differences you noticed between the two?
The original plan was to actually do something similar. Start at SF, visit some National parks like Yosemite, go to Seattle and then drive on over to Canada... But with some of the early outbreaks in the US happening in and around Seattle, that quickly hanged to Just Canada, which quickly changed to Lets do a NZ Roadie, to lets just stay at home :)
Between the US and Canada you mean? I thought Vancouver was more beautiful and cleaner than SF. The air also was cleaner which I really noticed for some reason. I liked the sushi better in Vancouver, in fact some of the best japanese food I ever ate. The people seemed nicer.
As I said almost everything was a little better.
You might be interested to know that a large portion of american movies and TV use Canadian cities and towns to portray american locales. So you might find yourself right where you wanted to be in Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal, regarding seeing stuff you have enjoyed in movies :)
Seeing as your from lemmy.ca, I assume you are from Cananda? In that case, if you don't me asking, what would you say are some similarities in Canada, to how the US is portrayed in Hollywood, and differences?
I'll make a proper comment when I have the time. This is a cool question that deserves some thought.
Slightly less racist and right-wing.
It just has much better PR
LOL
As an American, I've always thought NZ would be an amazing place to move to. Why have you dreamed of moving out?
When you sit down and think about it, especially now, I don't really know.
I would guess it had a lot to do with the fact that when I was younger, everything seemed to be centered in the US. Films, TV Shows, a lot of Sports I watched, Companies etc etc. Also, the fact that NZ is so small, and the US seems so BIG, makes you want to live that sort of lifestyle.
Again, as I start getting a bit older, I have come to really appreciate living in NZ. I still might travel somewhere International and try living there for a few years (if everything aligns at some point), but not really too fussed about it anymore. When some of my friends started moving overseas, I would say I was jealous for a bit, and it really made me wanted to do the same, but now it's a lot of indifference.
Is that our 18th person this year reporting issues at the us border. They've lost the plot, our gov needs to upgrade the travel warning.
Absolutely.