this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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[–] Treemaster099@pawb.social 96 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The US really is becoming a third world country by the day, isn't it. God I hate it here

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 80 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And it's bleeding into Canada.

[–] AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is the part that pisses me off the most. The cancer that is American politics is infecting our country. Now we got dumb fucks like Danielle Smith and PP crying about the "woke" agenda and other imported republican bullshit. Even worse, it's working extremely well on the dumbest of our population and spreading like wildfire.

Fuck America and their sports team politics. People need to realize it should be working class VS the rich, but they keep us distracted and divided with this dumb fucking culture war and the morons are lapping it up.

[–] Lammy@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Remember when Poilievre accused the Liberal government of starting the wildfires? Apparently he embraces nutty conspiracy theories and climate change denial, American style.

Here's a clip from Question Period a few months back:

https://twitter.com/ThunderBayEd/status/1656734773014822926

At the 0:49 mark, Karina Gould mentions the fires in Alberta, and at 1:02 Pierre Poilievre can be clearly heard saying "started by your government". It's very disheartening to see how there's no Republican low Canada's Conservatives won't stoop to, given the chance.

[–] Lammy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

The irony here is that trump did start the camp fire in California. He purposely stopped wildfire prevention efforts on the federal lands surrounding Paradise, California because β€œthose people didn’t vote for me”.

To make it dramatic irony, over 75% of Paradise actually did vote for Trump.

Please Canada, learn from America. Don’t make the same mistakes.

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[–] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago

PP, Ford, Smith, RW municipal politicians are grinding away at Canadian democracy as we speak.

[–] Lileath@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well akchually the USA can never become a third world country, because the designations come from the cold war and first world means US aligned, second world means UdSSR aligned and third world are the neutral countries.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

Let's just say civilized then.

The US is no longer a civilized nation.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Yep a better one might be developed/developing, since that's what people are usually thinking about when they use those terms

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

I'm sorry, man. I came back from America because if the healthcare, but now I avoid visiting my friends in NY/NJ/GA/WA/CA because of all the usual concerns -- and me with so much privilege I need a boat or a Dodge ram.

Stay safe. We'll gain land in the 2029 water wars and you can either join us or join the independent states then.

[–] TheTallestOfMidgets@partizle.com 3 points 1 year ago (18 children)

I agree that in a lot of the states people can be pretty nasty towards LGBTQ+ people, but saying it is becoming a third world country is a bit extreme no?

[–] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Have you been to Alabama? You could shoot those "adopt an African" commercials there.

[–] TheTallestOfMidgets@partizle.com 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can’t speak about Alabama specifically, but all the states I’ve been to seem to be pretty nice places to live. Maybe I’ve only been to β€œthe good ones” if what you said is true

[–] dom@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

And I'm sure you traveled to the nicer places of the cities you were in.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you specifically seek out the bad places?

Crazy thought, but tourist destinations are usually pretty nice for a reason. You're never going to see the slums or the backwaters if you're just doing the tourist thing.

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[–] Khotetsu@lib.lgbt 17 points 1 year ago

One of the common data points used by organizations to rate a country as "third world" or not is the state of its infrastructure. In that department, the US is certainly closer to third world countries than we are to our European brethren. It's been ignored and underfunded for so long that there are many places where it's quite literally falling apart, and that's not even getting into the state of public transit (or lack thereof) or how the single family suburb sprawl is slowly bleeding cities dry of their capital.

There are other horrible things like parts of the US that have never had plumbing (Appalachia comes to mind) or things like the Flint, Michigan crisis (do they have drinkable water? I think as of last year they still didn't. They might be able to take showers again, though, without causing permanent health issues for their kids). We have higher rates of women who die during childbirth than some third world countries. The quality of healthcare here is ranked the worst out of the first world nations while also being the most expensive. The wealthy go to Canada for prescriptions and surgery, or Mexico for dental work - Mexico apparently has better dentists than the US from what I've heard. We are #1 in number of incarcerated citizens per capita. The wealth disparity in the US today is supposedly worse than it was in France in the years just before the French Revolution, where the price of a loaf of bread was more than a day's pay for the average worker. Upward class mobility (being born into a poor family and being able to become wealthy) is the lowest it's been, I think, since the country was founded. A year or two before COVID happened, I was looking into starting a side business and found studies saying that a new business was more likely to fail today than in the Great Depression. If I remember the stats right, it was something like 40% of businesses fail in their first year, another 20% in their second year, and by year 4, 80% of new businesses have gone under.

I've heard the US described as "a third world country in a Prada belt," and I think it's an apt description. Policy-wise, we're closer to third world countries than we'd like to admit. We've just been living off the postwar economic boom from WW2 that centered the US as the world's largest economy and wealthiest nation to ever exist. The sheer amount of money circulating in our economy has kept the nation chugging along through whatever stupid things the corporations and the politicians have done over the years.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

It's a meaningless term that is mostly used as a libel and only muddies discussions.

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[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey good news! I just picked up several prescriptions and there was NO COPAY!!! Yay!

[–] pbjamm@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just moved to BC and have no medical/dental insurance yet. Last week I had to pay out-of-pocket to see a dentist and got a prescription for antibiotics. I paid less than I ever did in the US where I did have insurance. Less than CA$100 to see a dentist, get an xray and the prescription. Mindblowing.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow. Good for you though! I hope BC keeps treating you well!

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[–] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 63 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good move. We need to be vigilant because Canadian RW politicians are attempting to bring US GOP bigot legislation here as well. #NeverVoteConservative

[–] Powerpoint@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

Conservatives would love to pull this garbage here. We're already seeing attempts in Saskatchewan and Alberta. #NeverVoteConservative

[–] Electricorchestra@lemmy.ml 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Canada about to issue a LGBTQ+ travel advisory for Saskatchewan the way shit is going here.

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't forget New Brunswick.

[–] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

PP gets in, all bets are off.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

He's such a closet case. I wanna believe

[–] Electricorchestra@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Imagine our surprise watching that from over here then our Education minister saying "I want some of that."

[–] Lammy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

To be fair, Regina is a very hetero sounding city.

[–] Veraxus@kbin.social 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And they should. If you aren't going to California, Hawaii, or Massachusetts... you should be careful about vetting the state you plan on visiting. Things have gotten very nasty in "red states" over the last few years.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you aren't going to California, Hawaii, or Massachusetts

*liberal cities in California.

There's a loooot of deep, deep red areas of Cali that should be avoided.

Don't know much about the other states you listed, so I can't speak on their status.

[–] Cylusthevirus@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sparsely populated agricultural areas and shitholes like Bakersfield aren't common tourist destinations. You don't need to tell someone to avoid them. So yeah they're "deep red" in the sense that half a dozen yokels that live there are idiots, but they're very, very much in the minority.

And honestly, having traveled a bit, even California Conservatives aren't as Conservative as they think they are; a fact which becomes extremely apparent when they leave the state and then get slapped in the face with actual out and proud racism and they get othered for being from California.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Absolutely true. I know a conservative who moved away from a smaller conservative town in CA to a true red state small town and even he was shocked by the casual use of the hard R N-word use.

[–] Cylusthevirus@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oregon, Washington, and most of the Northeast are fine.

Just stay away from the South. This has always been good advice and remains good advice.

[–] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Still, you get 10 min outside of a city in Oregon and you start seeing Trump signs

[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago

The US divide is really less Blue vs. Red states and more rural vs urban areas.

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Same in Washington. You're mostly safe along I-5 and WA-101 but towns outside of those two highways can get very conservative very fast.

You have some pockets east of the mountains like Spokane and the tri cities that are slightly liberal but there's a reason most of the Republican house representatives come from the east side of the state.

[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

This is urban vs rural more than anything and not state vs state. Because I'm sure there's some dudes from Laramie Wyoming who would take offense that you didn't lump them in with all the other bigots.

Should a gay couple load up there family and move to Garfield Georgia? No probably not but what about Birmingham Alabama? Yeah that'd be fine.

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[–] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago

At first I thought that this sounds a little extreme, but then I remembered that even if you aren't LGBTQ, you still need to watch out for the mass shootings. So being any kind of minority kind of ups your odds of being murdered.

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

So, when does the travel advisory expand to Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Stornoway?

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