Colleagues. I don’t feel like having to publish 20 disclaimers here to clarify exactly what I mean. People who want to understand my message will understand them. You should not look for too many “double-bottoms” or “hidden messages” in them. Do you have a problem with the “superficiality” of my post… so be it.
DETRUMPIFY YOURSELF Buy european products Travel european countries Vote pro european parties Defend european values Use european technology Use european opensource Invest in european companies
Well Romania has just ruined the third point
I agree in general, but regarding ‘buy European products’, how do you define a European product?
A lot of American brands are actually produced in Europe, for example Hellmann’s or Lays. Not buying them might hurt the American overlord a bit, but it will impact European workers first.
Coca-Cola seems obvious, American right? However, for Europe it’s British Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc which produces and distributes a lot of the Coca-Cola brands. It is partly owned by American investors, but again: it will hurt European workers long before the American investments companies which (partly) own it.
Some European brands are ultimately owned by American companies. Are these European or American?
I absolutely agree with the sentiment we should buy European first. But the web globalism has spun makes it so fucking hard to determine what is European and to buy European without also hurting fellow Europeans.
Well, the thing is, when you stop buying coca cola and buy something like fritz cola instead, you’ll move money from one brand to the other. Coca Cola would ideally scale down while Fritz would have to scale up. I don’t see why this has to cost Europe fizzy drink making jobs.
Coca Cola would ideally scale down while Fritz would have to scale up. I don’t see why this has to cost Europe fizzy drink making jobs.
Fritz is not made in the same locations, what good would a created job opening in North Germany do a factory worker in, let’s say, Spain? Downscaling is much easier and quicker than upscaling, so unfortunately I see plenty of opportunity for lost jobs. Even when it is temporary, depending on how good your local social safety net is, it can hurt people.
And there is the price aspect: in my local supermarket Coca-Cola costs € 2,39/l where Fritz costs € 4,52/l. Principles cost money, but not everybody is able to afford such a steep price difference.
Fortunately these are luxury products and I hardly drink the stuff anyway, but it does make the move a lot harder.
Fuck, when reading back I feel like I’m defending American interests. That’s absolutely not my intention btw. I do support the movement, but I think it is good to realise that stuff in real life isn’t as black and white as we’d perhaps like it to be.
That was just an example of a European brand over the top of my head. I’m sure there’s cheaper things, I’ve seen them everywhere, I just don’t remember any as I never go into the fizzy drink isle. And yeah, in the short term there’s gonna be issues, ofc. That’s unavoidable. But we shouldn’t put the blame on the European consumer, should we? We didn’t do this, and we shouldn’t be responsible for propping up mega corporations. We’re in a situation that we shouldn’t have been in the first place. There’s no easy way out.
Support open-source in general, not just european. Also: contribute code, translations, documentation If you can
Other non-US countries also exist.
I prefer to assume that the buy European channel is for Europeans. It’s not all about Trump, it’s about buying local.
I think they mean you can buy stuff from Africa, Latin America and Oceania for example, you know, the rest of the world that isn’t nazi. Europe can’t survive without any international trade, together we can beat the US into submission (through economic pressure)
Sure, you can. Maybe that’s not the point of the buy European channel though?
If the objective is to ‘Detrumpfy’ like the image implies, focusing solely on Europe isn’t the answer.
Ya I’d love to see more european travels in canada we aren’t even that on fire yet
If I were to buy a PC in a month, what should i get? There really is no way around American products then. Also, buying a PS5 when they’ve increased the price in EU to make it more palatable in America. Buying an Xbox when they’ve also increased the prices to offset tariffs is a no-no.
Would buying second hand be the ultimate fuck you to american corporations?
I used to have iphone’s all my life, but a few months ago I degoogled myself. I bought a refurbished Google Pixel 8 Pro and installed GrapheneOS. Yes, indeed, degoogle with a Google Pixel. But the thing is - like I mentioned - second hand. That means there is no money going to Google and I have a decent phone with a degoogled operating system, LOL.
Look it from the environmental point of view if you want, yes second hand is a smart choice.
So, as an European, the EU is currently the lesser evil, but let’s not forget the past, most of its countries had their imperialist or colonial phases, some are still collecting illegitimate debts from poor countries in the global south. It’s not a matter of choosing a country, but choosing, us all as individuals, to reject violence, hatred and conflict between ourselves.
Competition among ourselves, instead of mutual aid, is at the basis of all these current ills, someone wants to have more power than others, some companies want to be more successful, some countries more influential, and all those actors do whatever they can to reach their goals, everything else and everyone else be damned.
The EU is sufficiently fragmented that it is forced to look after everyone’s wellbeing to a certain limit, but the only way to stay on this course is a constant push from the citizenry.
Careful talking about lesser evil on Lemmy. The non voting Americans will start foaming at the mouth and attack you for [insert 1 bad thing]
I’m used to it, don’t care
I’ll tell 'ya…those non-american countries that are not in Europe don’t get any respect.
It’s only thanks to non-American, non-European countries that I can still afford to buy some things every now and then.
At the same time if we didn’t move manufacturing to cheap labor countries the middle class would still exist as manufactures were unionized when the switch happened.
If the objective is to ‘Detrumpfy’ like the image implies, focusing on Europe only isn’t the answer.
I’m just saying that the struggle the gen z and alpha are facing mostly comes from globalization that killed the middle class, the person I’m replying to would probably be feeling much better if they had opportunities in front of them, opportunities which were taken from them by the lines of Reagan and Thatcher who pushed to send working class jobs to places where it could be done cheaply no matter the consequences to the people of their country.
At this point, it doesn’t even make sense to refer to Microsoft, Google, etc. as ‘American’ companies any longer.
The central destructive forces in the world are truly multinational. Multinational corporations, billionaires buying entire governments. Just referring to them as ‘American’ implies that these organizations, themselves, have some loyalty to the United States.
They don’t. They hate U.S. institutions, so they bought them. They hate American citizens, so they take from them and harm them. The genuine threats to all of us, everywhere, are capitalists, and they have no loyalty or regard for anything other than themselves.
Those companies are American, yes they have offices in other locations, but they are mostly American. We need to build proper competition, in Europe.
DeTrumpify AND DeCorpify where possible.
Speaking of voting pro-EU parties, Romanian presidential elections 2: electric boogaloo are today. Hopefully there’s enough sane people in the country…
What a horrible timeline, isn’t it? Where we have to hold our collective breaths every month or so when either a new head of government or a new head of state is elected or appointed somewhere in the EU. “Please don’t be a Nazi…”
The nazis have been very good at infiltrating.
Not looking good for us so far. Frontrunner is Simion, who has been banned from both Ukraine and Moldova for his irredentist views…
detrumpify myself? So after Trumps out of office its back to business as usual? The problems run deeper than just one guy
i want to de deunitedstatify myself, the usa been a world bully for decades
CD Projekt
Yurop stronk together
