Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Clinton supporters reject Israel settlements proposal [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)So, welcome to a brief education in US history on the topics you brought up, my Australian / British / Canadian / Irish / Kiwi friend!
1) For starts, Fascism was not defeated by anyone. In Europe for example, Franco and Salazar outlasted the World War, and the fascist regimes of Spain and Portugal remained in power until 1977 and 1974 respectively. In other parts of the world, Fascism did just fine - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Angola, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, South Vietnam (during its existence), South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia. Here's the kicker - the US openly and ardently supported a great number of these regimes, because fascism was seen as preferable to communism by our government. Now, the US was involved in overthrowing two European Fascist regimes - Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy... but the Nazis were mostly defeated by the soviet Union - which also happened to knock over Fascist Nazi puppet states in Romania, Albania, and Yugoslavia... To replace it with tier own variety of pseudo-communist Stalinist Fascism. Fascism remains a recurring problem in politics around the globe, including here in the US - Watch a few Trump rallies.
Which brings us to...
2) Communism is still an active influence in modern politics as well. For instance one of the most powerful nations on earth is communist. China? Maybe you've heard of it? Communist parties and politics abound in the world as well. You're posting in I/P, maybe you know of Hadash? I believe what you're trying to reference is the collapse of the Soviet Union. And I hate to tell you, but the US had nothing to do with that. it used to be real popular among Republicans to argue that our involvement in the Afghanistan civil war toppled the Soviets, all praise to Saint Ray-Gun yadda yadda WOLVERINES!... but that never made a lot of sense, and got really politically awkward after 9/11. What precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union was Boris Yeltsin's ego. The USSR had what in the US would be called a "Constitutional Crisis" and Russia decided to secede from the union. And since Russia was like 90% of hte Union anyway, that cascaded quickly, forcing Gorbachev to formally dissolve the USSR.
Speaking of the Union of the United States...
3) here's a map.
As you can see, my nation spans an entire continent. From Atlantic to Pacific, we go right across North America. Now, here's another map.
As you can no doubt tell, this is a very different map, of the exact same landmass. If you right-click / view image, you'll get a much larger version that shows a good estimate of the extent and bounds of Native American nations in North America, based mostly on linguistics groups. Sadly we have to do it that way and sadly it has to be a rough estimate because the US kind of, you know, purged the continent of Native Americans during our wholesale colonization of the continent. So, that little point that the US has never colonized an entire continent is kind of... ignorant. because that's how we got the United States. Also you can see our State of Hawaii there in the lower left hand side? Another colonial acquisition.
Speaking of presidents and race...
4) yes, we did elect a member of a racial minority twice. We also elected George Dubya Bush twice. There's a non-zero chance we'll elect Donald Trump at least once. We're also behind the times in electing a member of a minority group to lead our nation. If we elect Clinton, we'll still be behind the times on electing a female leader. We're not really pioneers on this subject. And our presidential election habits tend to not really say much about our character as a people, since we have a bad habit of trading political parties just for the sake of doing so.
5) You're correct, both communism and fascism are European products. So is Democracy. So is the modern idea of capitalism. Most of the political philosophies and ideologies you can think of are either directly rooted in Europe, or are reactionary movements in response to one of those (such as Neoliberalism and its bitchy useless little brother, Objectivism) This makes sense though as the United States is - as I mentioned above - a nation formed mostly by Europeans and their descendants, displacing any native-born systems.
I guarantee that a poll from the 1950's would have shown a very broad consensus among Americans that segregation is good, normal, and essential to a viable nation. Popular opinion is not a reliable basis for ethical decisionmaking.