#the us sucks

[lordbkspooky]

Yall erm...important stuffs, it passed senate. We. Are. Screwed.

[eylime]

I’m living in my own personal hell.

I was in the process of saving tiktok videos when they started shutting down the servers. I was screen recording on my phone and iPad while pulling urls on my pc.

Then my phone lost access.

Luckily the pc and iPad are still logged in, so I’m just screen recording the playlist I was in. Hopefully it will let me finish

[colacat53]

Melami:*summoning the spirit of George Washington* What are your opinions on America's current state?

George Washington: Absolutely horrible why is everything beneficial towards certain people illegal?

[elijah-loyal]

i have such a weird experience with covid since i lived overseas during the duration of it, but yeah.

i can confidently say that the middle east government at least fucking tried some stuff

no caption needed

[de-lyc-ful]

Guess who just got into trade school to get out of the hellscape that is the US?

✨It’s meeeee✨

Anyways if all goes according to plan I’ll be attending the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology in the fall. Very excited for that. If anyone from Winnipeg, Manitoba would like to be friends hmu! I’m down to chat about pretty much anything.

Yeah I love art so it’ll be a bit sad to leave art school but like… I want job security, I want to get out of this country, and I don’t want to end up hating something I love by making it my job.

[iwoll]

Imperialism in Latin America: Complied Research on the U.S. Coup in Guatemala, 1954

The 1954 U.S.-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected president was not about freedom, democracy, or even communism—it was about fruit. Specifically, it was about the United Fruit Company, a corporate juggernaut that managed to turn Cold War paranoia into a business strategy. What followed was less "land of opportunity" and more "land of opportunists," as economic interests in banana exports reshaped Guatemala’s fate, leaving a bitter aftertaste that lingers to this day. The 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala epitomizes this principle, as it irreversibly altered the nation’s trajectory. The United States justified its actions as a defense against communism, but in reality, economic interests, particularly those of the United Fruit Company, dictated this intervention (x). The overthrow of democratically elected President, Jacobo Árbenz, not only protected U.S. corporate assets but also cemented a legacy of destabilization and violence. The 1954 Guatemalan coup demonstrates the United States' imperialistic entitlement to control Latin American nations, driven by Cold War paranoia and corporate greed. This intervention set a dangerous precedent, leaving behind enduring political and economic instability.

The roots of the Guatemalan coup lie in both Guatemala’s internal struggles and the United States’ Cold War strategies. After a 1944 revolution ousted the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, Guatemala transitioned toward democracy, culminating in the election of President Jacobo Árbenz in 1951. Árbenz’s administration sought to modernize the nation through progressive reforms, including labor protections, universal suffrage, and, most controversially, land redistribution. His government aimed to address Guatemala’s extreme economic inequality, where 2% of landowners controlled 70% of arable land (x).

The United Fruit Company (UFCO), a powerful American corporation, owned vast tracts of unused land in Guatemala. Árbenz’s land reform policies expropriated this idle land and compensated UFCO based on its tax-declared value, which the company had previously undervalued to reduce its tax burden. Outraged by these reforms, UFCO leveraged its significant political influence in the U.S. government. High-ranking officials like Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles, who had financial ties to UFCO, framed Árbenz as a communist threat (x).

Amid Cold War tensions, the U.S. feared Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere. Despite scant evidence connecting Árbenz to communism, the Eisenhower administration launched Operation PBSUCCESS in 1954. This covert CIA operation orchestrated a propaganda campaign, psychological warfare, and the support of a small rebel force led by Carlos Castillo Armas. Árbenz resigned under mounting pressure, and Castillo Armas assumed power, marking the beginning of decades of political instability.

The United States’ primary motivation for intervention was economic, not ideological. The United Fruit Company’s monopoly in Guatemala symbolized American corporate dominance in Latin America. UFCO controlled extensive infrastructure, including railroads, ports, and telecommunications, granting it immense power over Guatemala’s economy. Árbenz’s land reforms directly challenged this dominance, threatening UFCO’s profitability and broader U.S. business interests in the region.

Evidence reveals that the Dulles brothers, who played pivotal roles in the U.S. government, had personal and professional ties to UFCO. Their law firm had represented the company, and they held significant financial stakes. This conflict of interest transformed Guatemala’s internal reform efforts into an existential threat to U.S. corporate hegemony. Historian Richard J. Barnet notes that such interventions were imperialistic, advancing neither democratic ideals nor national security but rather serving corporate agendas (x).

The Guatemalan coup was not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. As Gonzalez notes, “wherever social democratic or radical leftist regimes came to power and threatened the business climate for U.S. companies, Washington responded by backing right-wing opponents to overthrow them. In 1954, the CIA helped oust the liberal reform government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. In 1961, the agency organized the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Four years later, the marines invaded the Dominican Republic again” (Gonzalez, 77). This reveals how the U.S. routinely prioritized corporate interests over the sovereignty and democratic aspirations of Latin American nations.

The Eisenhower administration rationalized its actions in Guatemala by invoking Cold War fears of communism. However, Árbenz’s policies were primarily nationalist, not communist. Scholar Nick Cullather highlights that U.S. intelligence reports found little evidence of Soviet involvement in Guatemala, yet the administration exaggerated the threat to garner public and Congressional support (x). This pattern of overstating communist influence justified U.S. interventions in numerous Latin American countries during the Cold War, from Chile to Nicaragua, perpetuating a cycle of destabilization.

The aftermath of the coup was catastrophic for Guatemala. Castillo Armas dismantled Árbenz’s reforms, returning land to UFCO and suppressing political opposition. His assassination in 1957 initiated a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes that plunged Guatemala into a 36-year civil war. This conflict, marked by systematic violence against Indigenous communities and political dissidents, resulted in over 200,000 deaths and disappearances. The United States’ role in training and funding Guatemalan military forces exacerbated these atrocities.

The long-term impact of the coup extended beyond human rights abuses. Political instability, economic underdevelopment, and deep societal divisions continue to plague Guatemala. By placing corporate profits above national sovereignty, the U.S. intervention severely damaged Guatemala’s democratic ambitions and hindered its economic potential.

Some argue that the United States’ actions in Guatemala were necessary to prevent the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. At the time, the domino theory—a belief that one country’s fall to communism would trigger a chain reaction—dominated U.S. foreign policy. Advocates of the coup maintain that Árbenz’s ties to the Guatemalan Communist Party posed a genuine threat. However, these claims are largely unfounded. Árbenz’s reforms were consistent with nationalist efforts to modernize Guatemala, not Soviet-aligned communism. As historian Max Getchell explains, U.S. intelligence inflated the communist threat to justify intervention (x). Furthermore, the consequences of the coup—decades of violence and instability—far outweighed any perceived short-term benefit of countering communism. The coup’s primary beneficiaries were American corporations, not the Guatemalan people or global democracy.

The 1954 Guatemalan coup stands as a chilling testament to the destructive consequences of U.S. imperialism, where Cold War paranoia and corporate greed eclipsed the democratic aspirations of an entire nation. By overthrowing Jacobo Árbenz’s government under the guise of combating communism, the United States safeguarded the economic interests of the United Fruit Company while destabilizing Guatemala for generations. This intervention not only dismantled progressive reforms but also plunged the nation into decades of authoritarianism, civil war, and human rights atrocities. The long-term impact—a legacy of political instability, economic underdevelopment, and societal divisions—reveals the costs of prioritizing profit over sovereignty. As Ann Van Wynen Thomas observed in her 1969 book review (x), such interventions rarely advance democratic ideals, serving instead as tools of corporate imperialism. Reflecting on Guatemala’s tragedy, we are reminded of the enduring need to challenge exploitative foreign policies and prioritize the autonomy and well-being of nations over corporate interests.

extra source: (x)

[e-to-the-v]

I need Saturday to come sooner. I need the life series to distract me from the state of the world

[sapphia]

USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

[greygullhaven]

The one that gets me is the dirty looks we used to get when we would be buying our groceries for the month with what we used to get on food stamps. And god forbid among the cheap ass ramen, canned veggies, and everything else frugal we dared to get one package of nice meat.. ya know... for an anniversary dinner or a birthday... like Im sorry being poor means I cant afford a $20 splurge to celebrate my anniversary? F you!

[cozylittleartblog]

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

[iero]

Full offense, but I think milk substitution charges should not exist at coffee shops. It is NOT my or anyone's fault that they cannot have dairy and that's that.

[basket-cas]

While Healthcare has a HUGE impact on our happiness levels, there's also so much more to consider!

How individualistic we are here.

How little 3rd places there are (much less ones that have any kind of green which leads to my third point..)

We keep loosing the little nature we do have. I mean think about it, so many of us live in big cities that just keep expanding. Biophilia is real and important!

What about job security?

The state of our economy??

It's getting expensive to enjoy even the little things in life. Owning a pet, grabbing coffee, watching tv.

And I can go on and on.

Source

Source

[man-peach-reborn]

I feel like there's meme potential here

[fainting-fat-cat]

Existing in this economy?

Brittany Ojeda

[shesofie]

BITE EM

[a-bored-maxi]

Why are Nordic countries so much cooler than us

Progress flag at ikea