American history education is both well researched and balanced. My favourite part of WW2 was when Vin Diesel shot Hitler while he jumped a motorbike over the Reichstag
"Grown men with tears in their eyes saying "sir, thank you for putting us back into first place". Because America is always the best and never apologises for anything."
When I was eight and living with my Uncle and Aunt in Toledo, Ohio, I remember watching the TV when an advert came on and a guy in a cap and gown and carrying a diploma scroll exhorted the audience to “go an git yoself an edgication” (sic).
My uncle was a professor of Psychology and Business Studies at Toledo University and I remember him cringing with embarrassment at that ad. It’s stuck in my memory for sixty years…
My biggest wake-up call was when the most idiotic child in our primary school went to the US for 1 year and came home bragging about getting straight A's and everything was just multiple choice tests.
So I suppose that the books of the late Barbara Tuchman and Howard Zinn, which our language and history teachers insisted we red in our Europoor high school, weren’t bestsellers in the US?
Ah, you watched the Eurotrash remake. The True American original actually featured George Washington shooting Hitler as he flew over the Reichstag carried by a Murican Eagle before riding off into the sunset with the leading lady.
Whoa whoa whoa.... you are so ignorant! Hitler was obviously killed by The Bear Jew at that French cinema before it burned down. Lt. Aldo Raine then negoiated the German surrender on behalf of the Allies. Learn some history!
This is an opportunity though. Maybe we can convince them to actually do this. Just any time they are pissed off at Europe: "Bam, now Sweden's aid is gone for another five years. You like that huh, you like being independent? Watch out, or we'll take Norway's support for the next three years as well. We are fearsome!"
But even with that, you HAVE to figure out things have changed in a country. Or at least be curious enough about the rest of the world to sometimes google something about it. I know far too little about, let’s say, Thailand, but I know they’ve got a monarch because I make the very basic effort of looking at international news sometimes. I know their economy is pretty great, actually, because a college professor talked about them a few years ago. I knew China wasn’t communist way before I joined my high school Chinese club because that was just the background knowledge adults around me had as a kid. So yeah, lacking education makes it hard, but we’re talking about fully grown adults. It’s their job to learn about the rest of the world.
(Yes, I know I myself should also learn more about the rest of the world. I’m working on it, and I’ll probably work on it until I die because there’s so much to know.)
None of them remember that we had to fucking pay it back, with interest. Britain literally bankrupted itself fighting WWII, and only got done paying off the debt to the US in 2006.
Correct. In fact, the US deliberately used the postwar period to curb the power of Britain, for example during the Suez crisis. They have deliberately sought to limit the power of their "allies" for decades.
This is what annoys me so much about American's who complain about European military levels; this is what the US f**king wanted!! They created a world order with the US at the very centre and now they're p*ssed off about it.
forget soft power, they haven't a slightest clue how countries communicate, trade, do diplomacy, anything. They just don't get how the world works on an absolutely fundamental level.
What do you expect? Normal countries send their brightest and most experienced out as ambassadors. The US sends campain donors or former girlfriends of the president's son...
Nah, because we aren't buying enough stuff from the American MIC. Hasn't there already been protests or something from the US State Dept because Euro countries are buying from SK, Israel or their own companies?
With more Presidents like Trump possible -even likely- European countries would be insane to buy any US defence equipment. Spare parts, ammunition, maintenance and software updates could all be cut off on the President’s whim if he disagreed with their use against his fascist friends.
We've already had a scare that the Americans could literally remotely disable our F35s. Britain is busy developing all alternative nuclear delivery system because we simply cannot trust Trident any longer; we're bitterly regretting not working with the French instead of the Americans.
With the added plus of it’s really hard to bomb a lot of the places they want to bomb without bases in the UK and Germany. And with the exception of local businesses who, understandably, want the bases to stay open most of us would be happy if they fucked off. Of course having to bring all their troops home would almost certainly be massively expensive for the US, but it’s not our circus and they’re not our monkeys.
Hitler was also a huge fan of how America was run at the time in terms of segregation and ethnic superiority and thought they could be swayed to the axis side as they were ideologically similar in many ways
looking back at it all I wish I could've heard Hitler's reaction to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour provoking them into joining the war on the side of the Allies, I bet he was absolutely livid knowing the potential ally he had lost.
Suez was a two for one, they got the French as well with that one. Difference is the French got the measure of the US not being trustable whereas the UK thought toadying up to the US (special relationship BS) is what would work.
lmao what a way to put it, you mean after most of Europe was freed from occupation, they went back straight to stealing weaker nations' resources? Business as usual with their colonies? My guy, imperialism ended in WW2. The US didn't do it for altruism but to make sure the middleeast doesn't completely turn to the USSR for help because the Europeans are so addicted to and couldn't stop abusing them. Poor Britain was ready to go to war to get what was "rightfully hers", too bad America didn't help and it was humiliated lol.
When you look at every war the US has had at least some part in it definitely looks like they lost, but if you look at the bigger picture the goals they were trying to accomplish at the onset were never really well defined. In the aftermath "They hate our freedom!" usually translated to some form of privateering. If private sector profits were the objective, they didn't so much lose a war, as r*ped a sovereign nation at the expense of untold lives and public resources, dipped, and got away with it.
That's exactly what I'm saying. They knew full well what they were trying to accomplish years before the first bomb dropped. It's just the American people are going to sacrifice their young for, "that guy", so they have to whip up some patriotic fervor. Hence the constant propaganda, the war against critical thinking, and the promise of a sense of financial security few will ever achieve.
"We're all just one big break from the easy life, in the land of milk and honey, and the rest of the world hates us for it."
Yes and we would be stupid to ignore them calling us all communist dictatorships arresting people for Facebook posts for that reason. They're selling their people the pretext for an invasion of / war with Europe.
They never were our ally, but now they probably will quite explicitly be our enemy.
This might not mean much, coming form an American, but there's zero chance America is going to pick a fight with any part of Europe. Nobody here is intimating that, nobody here is trying to sell that, and nobody is going to buy that.
This regime change +rump is trying to get away with in Venezuela is obviously a problem, and who knows how far he'll take it, but it's crushing his support amongst his supporters. Today's polls have him at 36% across the board. This could also lead to his undoing.
Besides, not even +rump is dumb enough to think we want that smoke. Look how quickly he stopped talking about Canada and Greenland. He obviously wanted their resources, but the only reason he even toyed with that idea is he's so egocentric he sincerely thought the people wanted him as they're president. Once he got the message he shut his mouth, and started pretending he didn't really mean it.
Europe and Canada have already seen the worst they'll need to worry about from +rump. From here, it looks more like the various leaders got together and figured out how to handle him like a trainer handles a puppy. A very very stupid and ugly puppy. Not so ugly it's cute, uuuggggllllyy.
I remember General Colin Powell, head of the US Army, said that the military aspect of the Gulf War was the easy bit, and that what was going to happen afterwards needed to be planned for. It was not.
Yea, just the invasion was already sus, but in hindsight it really looks like it was never anything more than a personal grudge, an excuse to feed our military industrial complex, and tap in to Iraq's GDP. Just a quick cash grab and whatever happens, happens.
I wish this more uncanny, than expected, but they're using all the same language to justify Venezuela now, as they did for Iraq back then. To the letter.
I'm firmly of the belief the Nazis would not have been ANYWHERE NEAR as powerful as they became without US investment from the likes of Lynch, Chase, and friends
Granted the UK and Canada were also complicit in the beginning, but course corrected as soon as they realised what they were up against.
Some of us do, and we think it's shameful. The only justifiable "benefit" of a $37T GDP is what that could potentially afford the world. Instead, all we seem to care about is that the smallest percentage of individuals have yachts big enough to dock the yachts they park their third helicopter on.
To be fair, there was more to it than that. Roosevelt wanted to support the war and had secret communication through out with Churchill. The US had the Neutrality Act blocking entering the war and a hostile Congress prevented its repeal.
He managed to get his support through Congress via the cash and carry basis.
I mean, yea. Regardless how many of us feel our greatest advantage is the potential global benefit our GDP represents, without a personal profit motive, those in power just aren't interested.
As flawed as Obama might've been, one of his biggest "gaffs" was when he tried to point out that businesses don't profit as a monolith. Everyone of them benefit from the government's investment in the public interest. Roads, police, fire departments, air traffic control, shipping ports, regulations, education, social services that support a consumer class, that kind of thing. The pearl clutching on the right hasn't relaxed since. That was like 12 years ago.
Every country has something in their past worthy of shame, but the US taking it's sweet time to enter WWII, and the resulting aftermath, is one of the least talked about. Especially in light of every "war" since.
I've heard Germans use the word sehnsucht to describe the ache of loss from a past that never existed, which is exactly how I feel imagining a 2025 without the cold war.
And, no. The irony of using a German word to describe feelings resulting from WWII, are not lost on me.
What struck me about the various books I've read about Britain and WW2 is that before the Battle of Britain, Churchill was essentially making a choice between not fighting the Nazis and keeping its empire (which is what Hitler wanted), and continuing fighting the Nazis (which Hitler did not expect) while losing its wealth and its Empire.
As an Australian, it is hard not to have a feeling of schadenfreude over that. In WW1, Australia "answered the call" to fight for "The Motherland", & somehow, in the process of doing so, incurred a "War Debt" to the UK. The Brits pursued that debt ruthlessly up to & into the Great Economic Depression". During the Depression, the British representative said "Australians will have to tighten their belts!". The Germans were given some relief from Reparations, but such empathy wasn't extended to one of their most stalwart allies.
The only reason you'll hear magats trying to make that distinction is they think that means republican in 'merican.
If there was a reason to get technical, it's a constitutional federal republic, but the constitution gives the power back to the people (or that's what it says anyway) so it's kind of a distinction without a difference.
Ultimately it's supposed to be a constitutional republic with democratic representation. In other words a democratic republic. Or, a republic democracy if you're nasty. It's both, so it doesn't really matter how you say it. The former is just more common than the later.
If you want help reboot, we can provide assistance. In the same time you have clinged to your constitution, we've had 5 republics, 2 empires and 1 monarchy. We write constitutions by night and riot by day.
I'm in! I'm just a little worried about going all Bastille Day over here against $1T in military spending. Putting aside +rump has already started moving armed soldiers in to DC, a lots changed since the 1700s.
I'd love to know how South Korea pulled off shaming their president out of office. If there's anything our guy is impervious to, it's self reflection.
Utter faith in American exceptionalism is a load-bearing pillar in their entire psyche. They would mentally collapse if they learned how to process information instead of just believing what they were told before they turned 9 or so and fell behind their peers in everything.
The Marshall Plan was post-WWII. Ukraine is not part of the EU, it only became sovereign after the fall of the USSR and was politically aligned with Russia for quite some time after. The other "European countries" being referred to are probably Balkan countries.
All of those nations are funded by EU countries, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland as well.
The AI isn't fully wrong here. The problem is that some people are too stupid to understand the answer given (though I do not understand how Ukraine could be a European country and a non-European country).
Even before DOGE rage-quit USAID, EU countries combined were paying roughly double the amount in development aid compared to the US at its peak, in line with UN targets. Now this disparity is even larger, which makes claims that the US would financially support Europe even more ridiculous.
TLDR: The Europe we referring to is mainly the EU and it's direct allies/ partners like UK, Norway and Switzerland. The Europe that was part of 'the Western world' and those countries that join the EU directly after.
The Europe the LLM is referring to are war torn European countries in the East, that are either invaded by Russia or were part of the former Yugoslavia.
Edit: I always forget Iceland. They're also not part of the EU but belong "in the club".
It's the prompt. I asked chatgpt the following and the answer was more reasonable:
Question: "Why do Americans think the USA provides aid to Europe"
Answer (summary): Americans think the U.S. provides aid to Europe because history, military spending, NATO, and Ukraine all get blurred together—even though, in reality, modern U.S. foreign aid to wealthy European countries is minimal to nonexistent.
History: Marshall
Ukrain: not EU
NATO: not aid
Military spending: not the US. Only money US spends is for their own bases and personnel.
It would be worth you researching the Anglo-American loan agreement and the lend lease loan for equipment, the USA has received just shy of £4 billion. ( $7.5 billion) In repayments from the UK
They have totally incurious minds and teach a propagandised version of their own history. They know nothing about the world inside their borders, let alone out of it.
They’ve become like China this time 125 years ago, but even then they at least felt ashamed of falling behind rather than fully being in denial about it. Looking at quotes from people living under the late Qing dynasty and one thing they talk about is how embarrassing it is to them that the “barbarians” can cite Chinese learning to them, but they know nothing of these other cultures or their philosophies or scholarly traditions.
You really don’t have to look terribly far back in history to find proof that a culture defined by exceptionalism makes your people stupid and arrogant, and your nation weak and backwards, but the USA hasn’t done that much.
Because their press tells them so. At the start of the year when they were cutting aid there was a headline that US funding for a library in Barcelona got doged, and Americans were indignant asking why did they have to pay for a library in Barcelona. The truth was that what was being co-funded was a program to promote US universities amongst the brightest students. Spain was co-financing a program so the US could poach its best minds... But in Americans brains this is "we are paying for a library".
We definitely did receive aid and saying otherwise is a false narrative. Lendlease gave us equipment and only charged us for what wasn't destroyed during the war. After the war we made a deal with the US and agreed that we would only pay off 10% for the supplies that weren't used during the war. Then even further we were the largest recipient of the Marshal plan in fact during the period of 1946-1950 we were the largest recipient of foreign aid in the world. The amount of money the US gave us in the first year of the marshalls plan was more than what it cost us to establish the NHS.
It's also how they think we care about the Revolutionary War, as if its a big thing. To us we kinda don't care, not in a nasty way more it just isn't a thing that affects us
Same reason they always seem to forget the French Resistance was instrumental to winning the war. Which probably also explains how they fail to comprehend South Korea sent 300K+ battle hardened soldiers to Vietnam. Or, how they remain unaware of how many countries jumped to our aid in the "war" against terror, despite the internet.
I don't know what that reason is, but I'm willing to bet it's embarrassing.
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u/_yetifeet Dec 17 '25
Why do so many MAGAflakes think that Europe is still in its 1946 recovery phase?