You made me think of my buddy from the states visiting me in Toronto 2010-ish laughing at the Canadian flags they sometimes saw flying from people’s houses and other buildings. I asked her what struck her so funny about them and she blanked for a second. She said, “It’s just weird seeing so many flags that aren’t American… Like, this is a country too… um.” We had a brilliant talk about flag-waving patriots for a bit, but seeing that glitch was really interesting and I’ve never forgotten it.
That said, I had plenty of teachers growing up and know tonnes of educators now who’d totally be into forcing students to salute the Canadian flag and pledge allegiance to their God & Country every morning. The only thing stopping them is legislation preventing it, not national identity.
If there’s one thing the US is great at, it’s exporting the most stupid stuff they can come up with. At the moment, unfortunately, it seems to be politics.
The level of nonsensical nationalist propaganda in the US is maybe only second to North Korea’s.
You made me think of my buddy from the states visiting me in Toronto 2010-ish laughing at the Canadian flags they sometimes saw flying from people’s houses and other buildings. I asked her what struck her so funny about them and she blanked for a second. She said, “It’s just weird seeing so many flags that aren’t American… Like, this is a country too… um.” We had a brilliant talk about flag-waving patriots for a bit, but seeing that glitch was really interesting and I’ve never forgotten it.
That said, I had plenty of teachers growing up and know tonnes of educators now who’d totally be into forcing students to salute the Canadian flag and pledge allegiance to their God & Country every morning. The only thing stopping them is legislation preventing it, not national identity.
If there’s one thing the US is great at, it’s exporting the most stupid stuff they can come up with. At the moment, unfortunately, it seems to be politics.
Yeah kids reciting the pledge of allegiance is honestly psychotic.
Probably 3rd behind China
I honestly think the US and China might be neck and neck
Both are empires Both are very concerned with both their outward image and with what the peasantry is up to, lest they get too antsy.
And both have very advanced technology and a very well developed media ecosystem at their disposal.
They both probably push out about as much propaganda by weight.
I’m actually not sure how it compares to Israel. Might be close too