16 Comments
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Phi Eridani's avatar

I’m not American, but I can’t deny a certain fondness for you guys. When you’re good, you’re really good. When you’re down it doesn’t just drag us Euros along, it’s also heartbreaking to watch.

I truly hope that you can stop being a shitty empire and become the land of the free again.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Working on it, brother.

Working on it.

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The Shadow Band's avatar

there are a few of us that will never stop

they have killed family

the have killed writers

they continue to kill babies

they erase entire peoples

they labor on gain of function

day and night

and the rest they do

might be even worse

i will hunt them

until they have been neutralized

or murdered if i can get them to a war crimes trial

we do have laws for this exact problem

i suspect they made too many of me

this time

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Laggy's avatar

🫶🏼

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Uncouth Barbarian's avatar

Can we start by looking next door?

I mean that seriously. Sometimes, at the end of the day, the every day man just needs to relax and have a drink with his neighbor. It's the leaders that need history lessons. Us plebs need to just chill a bit sometimes. Tone down the rhetoric. Take it slow. Have a fire, a pig roast, a block party, turn off all the artificial lights, and let some of the neighborhood kids have some fun on acoustic instruments while the starts travel by.

Screw the rest for a little bit. And see what the day brings.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Yes. Great answer. Had a lovely time at the coffee shop today ranting about the glory of Teddy. Our barista was enthralled.

Good times.

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Scott McWilliams's avatar

If I may, I'd like to add to this list a name that acts as a cautionary tale in this moment: John Sassamon. Sassamon was a praying Indian whose murder, and the subsequent conviction of three Wampanoags, almost directly led to the outbreak of King Philip's War, the bloodiest war (by relative means) on American soil. Tensions were already high by the time of his death, so this mediator between cultures was the spark that lit the fire. I can't help but think that there is someone like that somewhere out there. Not Trump nor Biden, but a bystander caught in the crossfire whose death shakes the nation and breeds destruction. So we better do all we can to never learn the name of a modern day John Sassamon.

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Oececawolf's avatar

Amen

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The Shadow Band's avatar

read history for the follies

read history for the wisdom

~

if you read history

you will feel sick

at the sheer fucking ugliness

of the task ahead

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Joyce's avatar

As always, well written and clear 💙🙏💫

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Dave Wise (Neoteric Wood Art)'s avatar

I just love this piece and have listened to it thrice (yes, listened in the app due to my failing eyesight) and wish it went on longer as your writing ability is so lyrical and inspiring. I'm a huge fan of yours. 👍🌞

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Kristi O'Sullivan's avatar

America produces many great thinkers, selfless and generous leaders, motivators and team builders. What America needs is to get Israel out of their politics (and their media, Hollywood, education, and banking). Replace the cancerous culture which preaches ‘hate they neighbour’ with our original, Christian ‘love they neighbour’ (AKA ask what you can do for your country) and US Exceptionalism might be reborn.

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Laggy's avatar

I feel like Henry David Thoreau could make this list. Richard Feynman as well. Great Americans.

All these people (and ship captains lol) believed that it is our human duty, certainly our American duty, to look at the world around us and come up with a with a way to live well and to resolve problems, from the common to the complex to the nuanced.

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Laggy's avatar

Made me think of Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark. Carl Sagan.

Then lo and behold, you shout out to Carl Sagan. 👊🏻

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Kevin Maher's avatar

I concur with all you say, and might add that you had better be on the lookout night and day, as those seas are full of ships. American, European, African and Irish.

See you soon, sailor.

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