eldavi

when i binge watch star trek i select episodes to watch based on a topic or theme. i'm almost done watching episodes with portrayals of excelsior class ships and i'm thankful that i watch start trek like this because it provides excellent mental health pauses from my own election coverage binging. the mini mental eye-bleach-like endorphin high that i get when i notice tiny details that i missed when i first consumed star trek as it was released plus the mini nostalgia rushes from the notables times i saw the episodes i selected i for the themed binge; is all sort of like re-remembering trek, but out of order so that i can appreciate it in a different way. i find it keeps old memories alive like: waiting in line for the premiere of movie #6; or the shock of seeing the new klingons in the first movie; or unsuccessfully begging my fiance to let us have our wedding at the star trek experience in las vegas.

i also developed the habit of starting my election coverage binges with democracy now before anything else. I find that it does A LOT to sooth the anxiety i've been feeling trapped by the election and i think it informs my opinions better knowing that everyone's wary of traps and that the best traps are the ones whose targets are unaware that they're inside of one.

i'm aware of this and i bring it up as an example of the concerns i've shared of trying of traveling outside of the imperial core for me.

neuro-divergence awareness within the imperial core is weak at best like it is with my other niche lgbtq identities and it's virtually non-existent in latin america. i've literally have bad experiences over the the decades caused by my neuro-divergence and had to rely on my ability to speak spanish to explain that i meant no offense. i've learned to leverage the entitled/clueless-american-tourist stereotype to "social butterfly" myself out of situations that my faux pas created and i can't do the same thing in french, or vietnames, or thai, or russian, etc.

central and south american history was and is defined by american political intervention/interference in a similar manner to western europe in the decades following world war 2; it's literally the reason why we have things like panama and reaggeton and why life sucks real bad for people right now in venezuela, cuba and haiti. (none of the governments in those countries are complying with the american empire's will so they're being punished for it with embargoes & sanctions and their people pay the price).

I don’t think this concern is justified in most cases, but I’m not really in position to argue. If this were a common problem, I think I’d have heard about it, but outside of the occasional sensationalist news piece or Hollywood/TV thriller, I haven’t.

the cases i had in mind were in the reports from federal inquiries investigating the aftermath of the iraqi invasion for non-existent wmd's after 2008: they detailed HORRIFIC accounts of sometimes weeks long episodes of iraqi lbtq slowly bieng tortured to death while everyone did their best to pretended not to see it happening in front of their eyes. my strong accent already immediately outs me as an american and that's taught me that the people who live in the periphery of the american empire's core can all recognize i'm american easily and that's resulted in experiences like me paying higher prices as a tourist at the most common and inconsequential end of a spectrum of experiences that also includes the iraqi-lgbq-torture example at the other more extreme & uncommon end of that same spectrum.

my experiences in talking to refugees & people of privilege from/in the middle east; south asia; & europe paints a picture of lgbtq communities that resemble the ones in latin america and living in this country as a member to niche several groups within the lgbtq umbrella teaches me that some of my identities have little to no communities at all outside the imperial core like it is in latin america and in large parts of the core itself. i think that my experiences as a gay cis american have turned me into a treat monster and not planning accordingly when traveling outside the imperial core seems like a bad idea if i can't atleast speak the language to mitigate the social faux paus caused by my neuro-divergence.

i also now wonder if the fact that i learned about the iraqi-lgbtq example from gay subreddits is another manifestation of my identities being used as a virtue signal dog whistle in the dnc's failed attempt to bank on the presidential election and left us with the genocide, facism and an impending country wide abortion ban among a FAR rightward lurch and i wonder how that's going to impact the MLK jr timetable.

the numbers of the casualties from the gaza genocide rival those of the hiv/aids crisis per year back in the 1980's and i think that it's fitting that it the controversy back then also came at another time where my government also did little more than public displays of support while they strategically allowed thousands to needless die in service to the MLK jr timetable; but this time gaza's impact is open-secretly-couched as harris not "separating" herself enough from biden as en explanation for the presidency & senate losses rather than plainly admitting that the voter turnout pushes with beyonce et al. succeeded in distracting from the losses of voters abstaining from the election over the genocide.

"a treat monster" is sort of like "tankie" in reverse; it describes the kind of american consumerist that is placated/bribed away from revolutionary thought with treats like big suv's & social privileges and they're monsters because they support genocides.

Most people around the world know how to distinguish between America the empire and a civilian American spending money into the local economy.

this is the reason why i ask this question.

my strong american accent makes it clear that i'm a clueless american and that gates my efforts to travel to places outside the core that don't speak english or spanish. to me; all of the cultures that speak both languages belong to the same hegemony as the american empire and i'm aware that my nature will result in harm coming to me if i can't atleast speak the language of where i'm visiting.

i'll restate my question: where can i travel to oustide the american empire where my treat monster american nature won't get me arrested, imprisoned, punished, hate crimed, etc.?

what would be your recommendation for an american reddit leftist like me who has started plans on traveling to satisfy a desire to travel outside the american empire?

i can't figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't imperil me because of the those same vulnerability minority identities that the dnc failed to leverage as a cover for the genocide and virtue signal to shut out dissent from among their ranks and costed the whole country in this election.

i have an idea of what life is like for the people at the periphery of the core in north america and i want to know how much worse it is fully outside the core. it now makes sense that why the people want to hold imperialist friendly mexican judges accountable via the ballot box in a system that's completely captured by the american empire to social engineer the masses like it does when it makes a voter in tempe, arizona wait in line for hours to go vote.

i saw that and i shared in the hopes of creating discourse that's both relevant to the "interesting" times we've been living in these last few days and add a new perspective for everyone to help encourage engaging with you through your post.

i don't think people understand how spanish's utitity matters in the future word in light of the big role it played in the this election and i think that's manifested in vagarious forms of ai like llm's and face detection.

in the end, the fact that the global south is too brown and speaks so "humanly" holds face detection and llm ai's at bay as we descend from this election into the world orwell described in 1984; financed by popularly beloved american oligarchs; and enabled by a two party system through manufactured consent and crowd/social engineering.

and to our new big brother overloads i say this: good morning; i'm pleased to see you again and what would it be my pleasure to do for you today? lol

the election has put me in a strange mood and that combined with the nostalgia (good and bad) of the past from things like that poster on the wall is so hitting very hard rn; jfc this is going to be stuck in my head all day today. thank you for sharing.

-- but's still a problem for both when they have too many of certain things, like forks. lol

i wonder if the topic of the linux kernel project's maintainers expulsion of russian contributors is going to be a thing on an official agenda at conferences like this anytime soon given that its implications for the future could result in a schism of the entire world's foss community into 2 factions like it did in early christianity. i'm foreseeing a world where's there's linux-kernel-incorporated for the american oligarchs vs actually free openFoss for the rest of the world.

its going to suck to live in a world where i sometimes have to consider buying a debianTM six month free trial membership with an auto renewal contract requirement and despite the fact that i only have a single question since nobody on the openFoss social media network communities were able to help me due to reddit style capitalist enshitification once again, but this time on a global scale where propaganda has successfully leveraged a culture war to divide the foss world into two realities.

one side of that reality includes the richest men the world has ever seen and so can afford armies of the finest foss minds, all paid ABSURDLY well to devote 100% of their time & effort vs the other side of that reality whose ranks are filled by unpaid volunteers with day jobs like lemmy is for us right now.

pessimism and experience informs my expectations on how the majority will continue to smother out dissenting opinions at all costs; including the presidency and despite all warnings about a repeat of the 2016 election and 40,000+ lives needless wasted.

they could even literally stop right now and until january just to give them a chance to grieve and treat their wounded; but no: the orphan crushing machine must continue along its binary only "choice" on the meme trolly towards the "strategic" and "realistic" choice to keep track with that timetable that MLK jr. wrote about.

i was a reddit liberal that resolved to stop using it in solidarity with the reddit blackout protests like most of lemmy's most active userbase is today; talking to them has taught me that the reddit userbase boost of ghosting lemmies haunting content that; just like it is on reddit, the lionshare of which; is generated by your most fervent userbase and not by the overwhelming majority of upvoting, low-effort commenting lurkers. it's the people who are are ostracized by society and on social media as "bots" and "tankies" that create the art & music or even big general interest things like star trek.

lemmy has made me aware that the systematic history that liberals and conservatives are hellbent on dragging us into in perpetuity guarantees that dissenting opinions will continue to be smothered out by the overwhelming majority no matter how constructive that criticism is and even if it costs things like this election; facism; genocide; and further depleting your support through disillusioning and scaring your base about the future.

i got reddit style shadow banned as punishment from the star trek instance for respectfully sharing constructive criticism that was vindicated by the election and i had a cassandra-like experience with my fellow star trek instance trekkies when they defederated from hexbear. watching my fellow redditors afflict lemmy with the same tired social media tribalism that helped enshitify reddit through acts like fracturing off the instance-trekkies from everyone else. leaving us to helplessly witness them self isolate themselves in slow motion and their communities inevitable get absorption into .world thanks to raising shields and firing phasers at the first sign of any dissenting opinion.