First time?

Operation Condor: right wing dictators in South America repressing leftists with the support of Americans and possibly the French
Gladio: Post WWII Allied Forces and then NATO intelligence operations to delegitimize and destabilize leftist groups in Eastern Europe from end of WWII through the 1990s
Ranch Hand: US led effort to destroy the foliage and agricultural land in Vietnam to deprive the Viet Cong of food and places to stage attacks
PBSuccess: CIA led coup d’état in Guatemala at the request of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita)
Phoenix Program: CIA led effort to infiltrate the Viet Cong

Thx. I def recommend reading some articles that get into the depravity of some of these. Outside of the at least half a million people killed in the above operations, the coups, tortures, dissappearances, and entire communities wiped out is staggering.
Some more short blurbs :
Starting in the 1970s, a CIA-backed coalition of right wing governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, began Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, with the stated aim of "eliminating Marxist subversion." Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals and suspected guerillas. An estimated 30,000 to 80,000 leftists or sympathizers were killed. 1
From the 1950s-90s, the CIA and NATO ran a series of clandestine networks, headquartered in Rome, Italy called Operation Gladio. Its purpose was supplying aid (primarily money and weaponry) to right wing paramilitaries to attack left-wing movements, and carry out assassinations and bombings, as well as funnel money to centrist political parties. It had operations in Belgium, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. In Italy, the group had 600+ members, and carried out car bombings during Italy's years of lead. In Germany, it included former Nazi SS members—Staff Sgt. Heinrich Hoffman, Lt. Col. Hans Rues, and Lt. Col. Walter Kopp. CIA weapons caches are still being discovered in all the countries above.
From the 1940s - 60s, the CIA provided an average of $5 million annually in covert aid towards financially supporting centrist Italian governments and using the awarding of contracts to weaken the Italian Communist Party's hold on labor unions. It was also involved in bombings and assassinations as a part of Operation Gladio.
Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover. 1,2
In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.1
In 1965, The CIA overthrew the democratically elected Indonesian leader Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA had been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, aided by the CIA, massacred between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being communist, in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. The US continued to support Suharto throughout the 70s, supplying weapons and planes.
Shhhh they still don't know radio free Asia is a CIA project.
- Is this real or some kind of joke? I'm just now learning about all of this and am almost traumatized honestly.
- Is this far cry 4
Gladio targeted all of Europe, not just the East. Remember that the Communist parties were strong in the west too, especially in Italy and France. Hell, they were part of the government under De Gaulle as members of the coalition.
- The cia under dulles had a few plots to assassinate De Gaulle. And yet still somehow the French didn't care and aligned with the US anyway.

How...How have I gone so long without hearing about any of this at all? Like I always hear we are evil, but the specifics are chalked up to 'cold war hysteria/propaganda'

Consider me spooked, and many thanks for the awareness boost OP!

US history programs are 95% propaganda so it’s not surprising.
- Same with US state, NGO, and corporate media.
Wait, really?
Unfortunately this meme is only part of it. Things like covering up Unit 731 didn't even get mentioned.
- Well where is the all of it, and why is it all so tough to find for willing individuals? I seek to be more aware I promise

Unitedestadian has long been the term used to describe USA citizens by the Spanish-speaking population of the Americas. Not their fault the country picked a length intro title and a vague region as their country name. Imagine if the UK was the UKE, United Kingdom of Europe, and called themselves Europeans by default. The other 90% would be pissed and make their own names, no?

- Oh those darn bootlickers! 😅
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usonia
I wish this had stuck.
- That coulda worked. If only it didn't sound like an Ace Combat antagonist country. Osea, Usea, Yuktobonia, Belka, Aurelia, Usonia, see?

Instead of 'american' or USian or others, why not Yankee? It has historical significance to the united states, originated a a pejorative, and the south hates it. Perfect

- I’m literally a yankee, as in a lifelong resident of the area north of the Mason-Dixon line and I’ve visited several historical civil war sites over the decades because they’re among the inexpensive points of interest within several hours of here.
  I think you’re both kind of right. Everything the previous comment said is correct IMO about it starting with a negative connotation and people in the south probably hating it. But modern online usage feels pretty respectful too. Even in a professional setting, if I were on a typical call and somebody from Europe referred to somebody thousands of km (or miles, lol) away on the other side of the US as one of the yankees/yanks, I don’t think it would even register as something I’d remember. (well NOW it will because of this comment, thanks lemmy! :D )
  Plus more recently, those of us who do wild shit like pay attention to the outside world don’t exactly take offense to people insulting this fucked up country/government/culture/etc. We’re right here agreeing with you. So something like “yankee” doesn’t stand out much when you read somebody across the world write “fuck all USians” and you think to yourself “…I can see that. That’s fair.”
- In Australia we call them "seppos". Short for "septics", which comes via rhyming slang from "yank" -> "tank" -> "septic tank".
Just lower case "yank" will suffice. That one's already in use.
I prefer gringo thanks.

USian here, and totally agree. The willful ignorance is stunning to behold.

But help me with my potential ignorance here - is this meme also suggesting that ordinary citizens of other developed countries know about these things? Do high school history and social studies classes have a day or a week that discuss US imperialism & shady dealings of recent decades?

My impression has always been that people in other countries read about this awful shit in the same places I do online, and that the differences in mainstream knowledge are about much more basic stuff like coal and climate change being bad while healthcare is good.

Do high school history and social studies classes have a day or a week that discuss US imperialism & shady dealings of recent decades?
No, that's the entire curriculum. Kinda impossible not to properly discuss a country's hystory without mentioning the US when the US has been fucking with it
- Which country?
  In Brazil there have been several pretty important meddlings, but at most the schools say that there where "several parties involved"
  Like our dictatorship, where I'd only learnt "other countries incentivized the coup"
How they will teach about the military dictatorship era of my country without mentioning Operation Condor?
A lot of this is really old so it's the kind of thing my parents casually mentioned when I was growing up.
But then we learn the details at University, either in history classes or more broadly in any kind of discussion of colonialism, neoimperialism, etc.
Belgian here. Nope. No idea what they're on about.
In Mexico City we even have a museum dedicated to foreign interventions, and we are not really an AES state.
Austrian here - 1st question: no idea. 2nd question: no Same here, US imperialism was never discussed as such in my history lessons during the late 80ies and 90ies. Would read about these atrocities only mich later, maybe in more "official" sources only if you're a student of history or politics and such.

The hell is a USian?

Citizen of the United States
- There are two United States.
Also, Dude, American is not the preferred nomenclature. USian, please.
- Jeez, Davel, I'm not talking about the guys who expelled the fucking British empire from their tyrannical petite bourgeoisie slave kingdom here.
I also was hoping it was different from USAian. Needs more 'Merica
Sounds like a term created by those people who get weirdly upset at Americans being called Americans because "America is 2 continents so technically everyone from North and South America is American"
- Can't blame them who the fuck would want to get associated with USians
- The imperial origins of the term America.
- Yea, because it is weird, you dolt. It’s literally just because it’s easier to say that it stuck, but it’s flatly useless. The country’s name is stupid, hard to deal with, and pretty much only the reality on the surface…much like the country itself.
  I just say “US citizens”. It would probably be more accurate to say “citizens of the USA” buy my fucking god they aren’t worth that kind of effort.

First time seeing "United Statesian" idek what to say besides I hope to never encounter it again

Well, you guys should have come up with a better demonym that didn't belong to the entire continent(s)
- Bah! Use a particular state if you know it. Otherwise American serves as well as European.
I prefer usonian, but ppl seem to hate that even worse. Much shorter than saying "US citizen", and also not going along with the US cooption of the term america.
- I find Burgerlander just rolls off your tongue easier
- I use Yank. I understand some Yanks think Yank only applies to New Englanders. I don't care, they're all Yanks.
- usaan myself
- should start saying gringo, it also started as a way to protest against us troops (green-go)
- Just call them burgers
- Usonian evokes that weird Frank Lloyd Wright concept of kitschy suburbia that the US could do with substantially less of.
I, too, wish to never encounter an unitedstatian

Goooood sleep!

Speaking as a...USian?...many of us know about these already and are ashamed of them.

I can assure you that you are giving the general public far too much credit unfortunately.
Remember, the #1 search on google on Election Day was “did Joe Biden drop out”
- Remember, the #1 search on google on Election Day was “did Joe Biden drop out”
  Jesus fucking christ. I have not read that before, but it is the most believable thing I’ve seen all week.
  I’ll look it up tomorrow. I am always curious, but I cannot handle having this fact confirmed to me right now, lol.
I'm going to bet that if I did one of those street interview things with the question: "Do you know what operation condor is? Do you know what the phoenix program is?" I'd get maybe 1 usonian out of 300 that would have even heard of them.
- tbf i didnt recognize any the names but reading about each one was like "oh yeah that thing, i knew about that".

26k people killed in the Phoneix Program alone.

People also forget what they did and continue to do in the marshall islands and their literal apartheid there.

Rather than 'american' or others, Yankee? It has historical s

Yankee doesn't have an s
- Ok, how about yahtzee? It almost has an s.

Instead of 'american' or others,

Ranch hand? I can only think of one thing that could be for and it's not food. lmao