The new twitter is garbage, and Musk is despicable.
But the old twitter was only less smelly garbage, and the reporting by Lee Fang on how they collaborated with the pentagon to create fake accounts to influence foreign politics is a great example.
Everyone in the US goes bananas when accusing the Russians of doing stuff like this, but when evidence comes of the same thing done by the US --- then it's silence.
The underlying reason is clear: most people in the US — republicans and democrats alike — actually think this is justified.
@tiago the main media actors are not "everyone." You may want to calibrate what you mean by the latter. Most people in America very well know that the US government is actively involved in changing opinion abroad and internally. You just need to watch Hollywood to know about this---e.g. countless movies, shows and journalism pieces about FBI and CIA influence internally and externally. Also, these actions are not unique to the US among democracies. But I am convinced that the American democracy is more self-reflective about this than other democracies. I can tell you that Portugal very rarely debates how our government manipulates public opinion. I can think of many situations in countries like Sweden, Germany, France, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands that go much more unchecked than the debates, journalism, and art you see in the US. Finally, knowing this does not mean people should just accept to be manipulated by foreign powers, especially those who squash internal criticism much more.
@lmrocha I'm not talking about “main media actors” but the vast majority of people I have contact with in social media — here, on twitter, etc. These happen to be overwhelmingly on the “liberal” side of the spectrum. Most people commenting on the "twitter files” reporting say it's a nothingburger, PR for Musk, etc. The overall tone is very dismissive — seemingly due to tribalistic tendencies.
I agree with you that most people in America are aware (at least vaguely) of some of their government's nefarious actions abroad. My point was that they mostly don't really care, or think it's justified. They only tend to care when they perceive it's directed at them.
The idea that the US is more “self-reflective“ than most other countries is truly bizarre in my opinion — and demonstrably false in key aspects — but is besides the point I was making. Even if the US society were the epitome of self-reflection, it's a moot argument to make when an obvious hypocrisy is being pointed out.
@tiago people have all sorts of reasons to be dismissive of the Twitter files, including knowing full well that the FBI does that and much worse. As for the self-reflection point, I disagree with you. No other country produces the amount of investigative journalism, scholarship, documentaries, movies, tv that are so self-critical. I wonder what proportion of Germans really grasp the amount of corruption their government engages in, from Gazprom to dieselgate to Uighur slave products? Or how much swedes know that Olof Palme used his disarmament meetings with Gandhi to press India to purchase arms? The Spanish and British monarchy sells favors to gulf nepocracies, etc, etc. Most european journalists and commentators just copy the news from the US, rarely investigating their own scandals---dieselgate and FIFAgate were uncovered stateside, for instance. Why is this? Because they are lazy or their governments don't let them?
@lmrocha You are conflating two very different things: production of journalism/scholarship with awareness of the general population.
This is a very basic point.
I've lived in the US. I know how abjectly ignorant many people are about all sorts of basic facts about the world.
The US is scandal precisely because of this: the richest economy, but huge infant mortality, no decent health care. Likewise, the largest and most well funded academia, but one of the most ignorant population, far less educated than comparable countries.
To claim that Americans are more aware of their own corruption is patently ridiculous. You speak as if you have ever set foot in a south American country, or Italy, or hundreds of other places.
I don't want to get in a silly competition with Europe — you seem drawn to this, but I find it irrelevant. When it comes to foreign policy, the EU countries are basically vassal states of the US. The UK is a lapdog.
Nevertheless, it's rather strange that you pick Germany as a comparison. I don't know of a single country that underwent more self-reflection than Germany after WWII. The US never came close to anything like this when it comes to its own atrocities, from the genocide of natives to slavery, not to mention its recent history of aggression and terror in south america, asia and middle east. Yes, there are documentaries about it, scholars cover it (Chomsky does it very well), but most people don't condemn what happened, and most of the population still sees the US as a force for good, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
@lmrocha This whole thing is a digression anyway, there's no point in going into a debate about which population is “the most self-critical”.
My original point is that there is an obvious hypocrisy when people downplay the disinformation perpetrated by the US ("we already knew it”), but get all up in arms when, e..g the Russians do it.
This hypocrisy has a cost.
@tiago You are bringing a lot of side points. You said "Everyone in the US goes bananas for..." I was responding to that. Scholars, journalists, are part of everybody too. Moreover, I also disagree with your characterization of "everybody" in the US beyond those groups. I bring up Europe because I know it very well (I am dual citizen)---also very familiar with southern Africa as I was born and raised Angolan (I let that citizenship expire due to disagreement with such a corrupt, non-democratic government). After living (and attending university) in three European countries, I don't find the US population far more ignorant than the European population at all---as should also be clear by similar proportions of people on both sides voting for authoritarian parties, among many other similar choices.
I also disagree with you about Germany and other European countries when it comes to hypocrisy and corruption---though hypocrisy was the original focus. When European journalists and scholars uncover as much of their own demonstrable corruption as American journalists and scholars do about the US, then we can perhaps compare better. Otherwise it is just the usual game of using US self-scrutiny/reflection against it, without doing the housework first.
Re: Germany. Dieselgate, for one, has been an absolute disaster for the environment and population health. The amount of diesel in the air of European cities is a disgrace. I bet you most Germans and Europeans are not aware of the lying and corruption behind this scandal and still believe their car's "green-eco-diesel" engine logos. And this is just one example of the type of corporate/government complex that rules Germany and Europe in general. But Europeans (and everyone else for that matter) know a lot more---and talk a lot more---about Kanye West and Trump than about Martin Winterkorn or Schroeder :)
@lmrocha I thought it was obvious, but it apparently wasn't: when I mentioned Germany I was talking about the holocaust. I was not talking about individual cases of recent corruption.
There is not much point in talking about how aware are regular citizens of individual cases of recent corruption: it would be fact-free discussion where you feel one way, and I feel another, etc.
Anyway, these are all side points that you brought up.
When I mentioned “everyone” I obviously meant most people, not every single individual — it's a manner of speaking. You know that I know that are exceptions, so I don't know why insist on this.
The attitude I was commenting on is by no means a fringe one in the US. So unless you want to claim it is actually a view that is held by a small minority of people in the US, then there is not much to talk about.
@tiago I have no idea why you brought up the Holocaust since we were talking about modern day hypocrisy. I'm glad you clarified what you meant by "everybody." You and I don't actually know how people feel about FBI and Twitter in the USA. Most people are not on Twitter, and given how they vote, I disagree with your assessment of what most people think stateside. My larger point is that perhaps people should be focusing more on their local politics---thus my bringing up Dieselgate which directly affects the health and lifespan of people in European cities----than what Musk, Kanye, Hillary or anyone else in the USA thinks or does.
@tiago I see your point. But to be clear I am not telling anybody to not criticize the USA. I am saying two things: 1) Avoid misrepresenting or exaggerating American views, especially from what one gathers from media and social media; 2) Avoid overinflating American issues when there is so much at home to worry about too. Regarding point 2) Europe is very hegemonic as well, especially Germany. Things like Dieselgate have had enormous impact on a global scale---so do European megacorps like Siemens, BP, Shell, LVMH, Philips, etc. A corollary of 2) that I am trying to express is that the focus on American issues has served to deflect a lot of harm European companies and governments do. Finally, who am I to tell you what to say? Everybody is entitled to comment, of course :) But American citizens (like everybody else) are also entitled to criticize the criticisms they receive, including by pointing to blind spots at their critics' homes.
@lmrocha But Luis, let me emphasize again: when I criticize the US, I'm not defending Europe. I agree with a lot of what you are saying with respect to European countries, but I refuse to engage with it in the context of this conversation because it's completely besides the point. You want to put me in the role of “defender of Europe,“ which is ridiculous, and I don't accept. I'd much rather join you in criticizing it — but in this context the topic arises just to deflect from my original point.
The alleged acquiescence of German society with respect to Dieselgate has no bearing whatsoever on the hypocritical behavior displayed in the US when it comes to government produced misinformation and interference on the politics of foreign countries.
You are of course entitled to criticize my criticisms, but this is just a *very bad* counter-criticism because it does not address the issue at all.
We're not scoring points to countries to determine which one is the best (or least worse). Also, two wrongs don't make a right, etc.
You keep insisting that I am misrepresenting views, but I don't think this is true. Yes, I did not conduct a nationwide census to reach my conclusion — I did it based on the overwhelming discourse in the mainstream and social media. You don't seem to dispute that this hypocrisy is in full display there.
Even putting aside that my intent was not to make a statement about the full demographic coverage of this belief, it is not “misrepresenting or exaggerating” to expect that it will have some hold inside the general population. This cannot be considered a fringe opinion in any way.
Indeed, the idea that in fact most Americans were just as outraged about the pentagon interference in the middle east as they were with the Russian interference in the US seems quite ridiculous to me.
If I were to guess what most Americans actually think, I would say that they probably don't care at all and never think about any of this.
But I think it is fair to assume that of those that do care and pay attention, many would echo the same view displayed in the social and mainstream media.
There are exceptions of course — but I was obviously not talking about them.
@tiago my point is that by focusing your ire on the perceived opinions of Americans, you are perhaps contributing to obfuscating the horrible things that get done closer to home where (using Greenwald's argument) you have more power to change things. Anti-Americanism (strangely coupled with importing American cultural norms) has a long history in Europe (and elsewhere) and it has functioned as a mechanism that only benefits its elites who are left unchecked. Personally, I have made it a point to write opinions in Portuguese newspapers because I think I can perhaps inform and influence better here.
Regarding perceived American opinion, people typically get it wrong. For instance, all my leftist friends in Europe thought that the war in Iraq was something that had wide support in the US because that is what they saw in main media (including the NY times). But the biggest reason Obama won (first over Hillary then McCain) was his initial opposition to that war. The US is a very diverse country with a wide range of opinions. Trying to generalize its views hardly ever works.
Finally, I want to be clear that I always enjoy reading your thoughts on everything you post. If I reply and disagree on occasion is because I respect what you say :)
@lmrocha I don't see how posting on topic A obfuscates topic B — it's not zero sum. Unless you are claiming that I only post about A and ignore everything about B, which seems to be what you are implying.
Let me add a bit why I often comment on US politics: Unfortunately, it matters interdependently on where you live.
For example, in Brazil the rise of Bolsonaro can be linked to Trump. The same can be said about recent (supposedly) leftist ideologies, such as identity politics, and the rejection of free speech principles to fight the far right. Talking points are often imported wholesale from US discourse.
I'm two borders away from Ukraine. For a while I lived one border away. My electricity costs more than doubled this year. The fact that a lot of the public opinion in the US (including many academics) is just fine with sending huge volumes of weapons to foment a never-ending proxy war next door is *relevant locally*.
It's also relevant globally since the danger of nuclear escalation is real.
Of course I also criticize the feeble and utter subjugation of EU governments on this issue, and many others. I can vote in Germany, and I am disgusted at its voluntary lack of autonomy, the role of the green party in supporting a pro-war agenda at the expense of the environment (and of course peace), etc. I can go on and on, and I do posts about these things as well. But I don't agree that when I focus on the US I obfuscate these issues — on the contrary, they are more often than not tightly interlinked.
Also, a lot of my contacts here are US citizens — more so in fact than people in Brazil, and definitely Russia. So, whatever tiny influence I may have in this platform, it has a significant US component. (Grennwald's and Chomksy's point is about where you have influence, not where you live physically.)
I'd rather ignore the dumpster fire of US politics, but unfortunately, it cannot be decoupled from world politics.
Regarding Iraq: I was one of those that did notice the massive popular protests against the war, which occurred even before it started — something completely unprecedented in history, that seemed to mark a shift in US culture. This, together with Obama being elected, his attempts to improve relations with Russia, etc gave good reasons to be optimistic. But the consequences of the Trump cataclysm were such that the whole spectrum of US politics shifted significantly to the right. Democrats, which were already mostly center-right, became pro-war neo-McCarthysts — essentially identical to republicans of a few decades ago.
I think that the hypocrisy that I pointed out in the initial post, as well as many other things, serve as evidence that the progressive movement in the US is moving *backwards*.
I do think this effect is real, and not just a mirage from my social media bubble.
I'd love to be wrong about this, but I don't think I am.
@tiago I do see where you are coming from. I think where we disagree (by degree more than qualitatively) is on 1) European power and 2) the state of the US left. Europe, especially its megacorps and elites, have a lot of power in the World, including on US politics. I believe that challenging them at home will have greater impact on US politics than people in europe think. The narrative that Europe is a vassal state to the US helps them very much by making the european citizenry feel powerless. Regarding 2) I disagree that Democrats wholesale became pro-war neo-McCarthysts. That is what Greenwald also wants to push and I disagree. The democratic party contains a very wide spectrum of political positions. It has always been that way. Currently, it goes from pro-war neo-McCarthysts to democratic socialism , and includes other orthogonal dimensions including identity politics, environmentalism, etc. In other words, it includes the entire current German government coalition and more. Attempts, like Greenwald's, to paint the party as a monolith of "liberalism" more than false are ineffectual, or worse, simply destructive trolling. It is failing to understand how large coalitions work. I would indeed prefer that it were a formal coalition like in Germany, but the US election system does not allow such multi-party systems, except indirectly in the coalitions that get formed in the local primary politics of each party.
@lmrocha You can count on one hand the congress members that come close to being “democratic socialists” (you need only one finger for that in the senate) — the vast majority will avoid this denomination like a vampire avoids sunlight — and even that tiny (and thus utterly ineffectual) number is actually a recent positive development; it definitely has not “always been that way”.
The whole spectrum has been drifting monotonically to the right for decades. When Chomsky says that Bernie Sanders is essentially a FDR-era Democrat, this is his point — this class of politics is almost extinct, whereas it used to be mainstream.
Any actual variation in the traditional left-right axis — as understood in Latin America, Europe, and the rest of the world — is merely vestigial in US politics.
It is not a “wide spectrum” by any stretch of the imagination.
I also disagree that dimensions like identity politics are orthogonal: they exist precisely as a decoy to enable traditional right wing politics (think CIA ads featuring diversity slogans, Hillary praising the election of Giorgia Meloni since she is the first woman to hold the position, “Breaking up the banks will not stop racism”, etc).
This is something that Chomsky has been point out for years: the political discourse in the US is vigorous and varied but only within very narrow boundaries. In the traditional left-right axis (e.g. class politics, social policy, foreign policy) it is not only extremely narrow, but moving steadily to the right.
The Bernie sanders movement of a few years ago seemed to show signs of a movement in the opposite direction, but by now it has been completely beaten.
@tiago I disagree. In Portugal, the party that follows the same politics as Bernie Sanders has exactly one representative in parliament. In other words, the makeup of the democratic party umbrella in most European countries is quite similar. Most social-democrat or socialist parties in Europe have very similar positions, aligning themselves with very small parties to the left and right to result in similar coalitions. It is true that in other countries you still have communist or similar parties, which are not represented in the Democratic party in the US (or Labour in the UK for that matter), but those do not believe in liberal democracy. There are such parties in the US (and UK), but the electoral system rarely allows them to enter national parliamentary structures---even though they appear in local politics.
Regarding left-right dynamics in US vs. EU, in my experience, hearing what is said in public and seeing election results, I find that the political discourse in Europe has moved much more to the right than in the US in the last 10 years, from Hungary and Poland to Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, France, UK, etc. In several European (and also Latin American) countries working-class voters from the left have moved to nationalist populists, and centrist parties espouse a well-known financial neo-liberal orthodoxy that is much more challenged in the US, including by presidents like Biden and Obama (Paul Krugman discussing the "frugal" European countries comes to mind).
P.S. Bernie Sanders and the like have been in the US political system for a long time, not a new development.
@lmrocha There is a rise in right wing populism all over the globe — not least of which in the US with Trump, which you seem not to factor in your analysis. 50% of the population votes republican, and something tells me that their opinion is not something you tend to hear in public.
In your characterization of Europe you include Portugal, but you mysteriously forget about France, Spain (Catalonia), Ireland, etc. I challenge you to claim with a straight face that the political spectrum in the US is broader than any of these countries.
You also compare a particular moment in time (the parliament composition in Portugal in this instant) with a general tendency that goes in the US for decades.
You seem to put all proper left-wing parties in Latin America in a bag that “do not believe in liberal democracy”. In Brazil we have parties like PCdoB, PSOL, and even PT which haven taken part in the government coalition for at least a decade, and have been part of the democratic system since it was restored in the 80's. It's ridiculous of you to claim they do not believe in liberal democracy. In any case, if it were true, it would only strengthen my argument that the political discourse is broader in many other countries.
The idea that Obama and Joe “nothing will fundamentally change” Biden challenge financial neo-liberal orthodoxy is a statement that leaves me so dizzy that I can't muster the words to respond...
@tiago too many items to respond to. I will just say that economically the Democratic party in the US is less tied to the neoliberal orthodoxy that rules the EU, including by social- democrat and socialist-in-name parties. You just have to compare Obama's response to the financial crisis, to what was seen in Europe, especially against Greece, Portugal and the so-called PIGS---if that acronym alone does not speak volumes about the tone of European "centrist" politics.
All socialist and social-democrat parties in power in the eurozone abide by deficit and spending rules that effectively enforce neoliberal orthodoxy, no matter who is elected and where they profess to be on the left-right axis.
Even with the pandemic, Biden was more aggressive in spending (including on social programs) than Europe was. So, yes, economically the democrats have been able to enforce a more leftist agenda than European center-left governments, including the portuguese that until recently had a coalition with communists.
I did not claim that parties that do not support liberal democracies don't exist in Europe or south America. I just mentioned the communists in Portugal. I just meant that by definition they do not fit the American Democratic party wide coalition---liberal democracy is its core.
At least in Europe those parties have less influence in government than the Bernie coalition in the US. Even in France the last presidential election was between a fascist and a center-right candidate (definitely more Hilary than Bernie).
@lmrocha We can't seem to agree on basic facts.
You keep bringing up Bernie — his ENTIRE platform (healthcare, welfare, free university tuition, etc) is the utmost standard in most EU countries, even those with right-wing governments like Austria and Sweden. Bernie seems radical in the US precisely because of the contrast this poses within the democratic party. To compare him with communists is a joke.
The only reason why Bernie/AOC etc are allowed in the Democratic party is so that they can be brought up in conversations like this, despite having no actual influence in policy, since they are so marginalized internally.
To recap France: in the first round the fascist got as many votes as Mélenchon— a kind of politician that cannot exist in the US, much to the left of Bernie, and which got 22% of the vote, and almost went to the second round. Many voters were so disgusted with Macron that they either did not vote in the second round or in lunatic desperation voted for Le pen — a similar dynamics to the US where Trump still gets a bunch of working class votes, a testament to the utter ineptitude of the democratic party in having any kind of left wing appeal.
Your whole analysis consists of claiming that the Democrats — the supposed “left” of an evenly split two party system is to the left of what you characterize as the European *center*. I don't agree with your characterization, but it just proves my point that the political spectrum in the US is narrower.
I find this conversation fascinating, because you're the only person that I've ever met that has these views.
I can't let go your claim that Biden spent more than “Europe” on Covid. I'll not do a full assessment, but the average worker was much better off, say, in Germany, France or Austria than anywhere in the US. If you lost your job here you would still earn 80% of your salary... Everyone had free flat-rate PCR testing for the entire pandemic (the city of Vienna did more PCR tests than the entire country of Germany). So even if Biden spent more (I doubt it), he would need to have done so because these welfare institutions don't even exist in the US — a country that spends almost a trillion dollars every year on the pentagon budget alone, in complete consensus between both parties.
@tiago Either you are not reading what I say, or you choose to pick the points sideways. You are mixing historical reality, versus current policy. I very much doubt that given current rules and neoliberal orthodoxy, Europe would be able to establish today the welfare state that it currently has. My point is that even if someone like Melenchon had won the French presidency (alas, close but no cigar), he would not be able to enforce a political platform based on government spending without leaving or breaking the eurozone rules. In Portugal, even when the communists were in the government coalition, they had to settle and agree to more right-wing positions on spending than Biden's due to the EU budget and deficit rules. These are facts, not opinion. The fact that European workers inherited more rights than typical US counterparts does not change that political parties in the EU and especially the eurozone are locked-in to neoliberal financial orthodoxy---which sees all problems as needing "structural reform", meaning reducing the role of the state in the economy.
All countries have inherited some of their political and social rights. Yes, the US worker on average is likely wose off than european counterparts; I never disputed that. But the US also has many other features that are more socialist than most European countries. For instance, public mail (it is private in PT, for instance), a very good public school system, including public busing and public food, a phenomenal public library system, public roads, public retirement system (it has been privatized in several European countries), regulatory infrastructure that was able to catch such things as dieselgate that european consumers clearly were not able to defend themselves from, PubMed, open-access policy for publicly-funded research, etc, etc.
If I am the only person you know that has these views, maybe you should meet more people ;) However, I think you are misrepresenting my views, so no wonder you can't find people with the views you think I have.
My whole analysis is not how you represent it. What I say is that the Democratic party in the US is a very wide coalition, with some of its members to the left of most European centrists. Moreover, in a a multidimensional view, the Democrats have recently been able to apply *some* policies to the left of most European governments, even when they are formed by supposedly leftist parties. And yes, Sanders, Warren, AOC, and the like have had an effective role in those.
I do not follow an absolutist, all-or-nothing analysis a la Greenwald at all. I think it is ridiculous to claim that those leftist actors have "no actual influence". You can easily see their legislation record, which has made effective difference not only on the discourse---that even people like Biden adopted---but on actual living conditions from Veterans to consumer and financial protections.
@lmrocha From the beginning I have been talking about the overall political spectrum, not the current policy of those that are at the moment in power — which are obviously a poor representation of the overall landscape.
If I claim that the political discourse in the democratic party (and the US in general) is far more narrow than in most of Europe (and the rest of the world), and you say that some (how many? 5? 10?) democrats are to the left of some *centrists* in Europe, then this is not much of a contradiction.
The neoliberal constraints imposed by the EU on the economic autonomy of member states is a serious problem, and indeed you're totally right that this has been used to successfully block progressive and left wing agendas. The most notorious and tragic example of this was Greece with Syriza. There are many other examples, as you know very well.
However, this neoliberal stronghold does not negate at all my central point: that the political discourse in the EU is wider. Indeed, Syriza was able to articulate a political alternative and won in the ballot box — before being demolished. Was that the only outcome possible? Melenchon did not go as far, but his (and others') existence is nevertheless evidence for a much wider political spectrum — and more hope for an alternative.
It is a fair (but orthogonal) point to make that despite the wider political spectrum, the neoliberal grip of Europe is holding strong. And it may well be broken from the populist right instead of the left — which would be a catastrophe.
Although, for someone who claims to believe in liberal democracy, you seem excessively skeptical that this cannot be changed democratically — and from the left — and dismissive of the few options available.
But as dire as it is in Europe — the situation in the US is even worse. If you want to vote for similar views to those left-wing voices in EU, what options do you have? There's none! The current center-right democratic party is as far as it will go...
I'm sorry, but you must be joking with the list you gave of examples in the US that are “more socialist” than most EU countries. The post office, seriously? I'm sorry for Portugal, but that kind of stuff is nationalized in most of the EU, along with hospitals, transportation, etc. The school system in the US is garbage (I've attended a high school there) — and please don't bring up the *food* there of all things.
No sane person would choose to retire in the US instead of *most* countries in the EU — unless they belong to the top wealthiest segment.
The EU is made of a heterogeneous set of countries, with a much wider variety of cultures and political makeups than the US. So if you want to be serious with your comparison you cannot just pick Portugal all the time. You shouldn't mention Portugal, Spain and Italy, without mentioning also Germany, Sweden and Finland. It's all Europe.
(You believe that the current welfare state in Europe would not exist today if it depended on the current governments. I wonder how you imagine the same counterfactual scenario applied to the welfare crumbles that remain in the us.)
@tiago You raise several very important points. I agree with several. But I will just reply to a couple I disagree with.
I disagree with you regarding the neoliberal stronghold in Europe vs the US. As I said earlier, Biden (and Obama) were able to pursue economic policies more to the left than Europe (including leftist governments). These include substantial financial relief directly to workers, direct investment in companies to protect employment (unconstrained by EU's budget rules), vaccine development, and several other social programs. Indeed that is why the US economy rebounded quicker than Europe's from both the financial crisis and the pandemic.
Even on social norms, the US often precedes most European nations in establishing leftist goals such as gay marriage, pot legalizations, etc. Sure some states now have crazy abortion laws, but the EU also has Poland and others. But where I live in New York, abortion law is much less restrictive than Germany's, for instance. So it is by far not obvious that left-wing voices have no political options in the US as you claim.
Regarding privatization, Portugal has the private post office, but other European countries have crazy gun-ho privatizations in other areas (including retirement and health care systems). In the US the situation is not ideal for my political beliefs, but there is much more public welfare state than you seem to think---including social security, medicaid, medicare and many state-level programs. New Mexico even has free tuition now. The SUNY system where I work is free for New York state families who make less than $125,000/year. This is cheaper than tuition in many European countries.
I also disagree with your assessment of the US public school system. My kids completed most of it here---though also did some years of their K-12 in Portugal (and are in college there actually). I have also studied in the UK and Belgium and have interacted with many undergraduate and graduate students from all over the World. From those interactions, I have absolutely no reason to say that European K-12 (or from anywhere else) is better than American on average. I also find European university education, in general, pretty bad most of the time---typically not a very supportive environment capable of encouraging the best in students.
Maybe I also have the perspective of seeing European, American and Brazilian tourists in Portugal. Let me just say that I am not convinced at all that American education is worse ;)
@lmrocha I brought up Germany because you claimed that “American democracy is more self-reflective than other democracies,“ which is a pretty broad statement. But it's clear now that you are being very specific about what counts as self-reflection.
Given the kind of influence that US politics has in the world — and the fact that most of those that are affected by it cannot vote or influence it directly — I think it's perfectly justified to focus on it.
I find your attitude really weird. I make a comment about US hypocrisy. You don't really refute it, but then say: “you should focus on your own country.” Sorry, but this comes across as a really lame deflection.
It's also a really bad argument — as if criticisms to American society need to be relativized. It implies that citizens of the world are not entitled to criticize the US hegemon before their own societies are completely free of sin. It's the kind of thing that cheap imperialist propagandists say.