Beginning scene of the new HBO series The Newsroom answers the question: “Why is America the greatest country in the world?”
An honest three and a half minutes of television…. [strong language]
Hat tip Barry Ritholz/Doug Kass
8 Replies to “Is America the greatest country in the world?”
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At last, an american with a grasp on reality.
The first bit was honesty, the second bit was just jingoistic chest beating… but I am still glad I watched it.
Bollocks, they’ve been killing for empire for over 100 years. They’ve killed tens of millions of totally innocent civilians – men women and children – and most of the world fears them. Any allusion to greatness is only in their heads.
I agree with most of it even though it has more drama than necessary (music starts at just the right moment). Good television though. Belittling intelligence is what makes the gop so popular in the US. Obama and Clinton were hated (and I mean really, really hated) because they were gifted and intelligent speakers.
Was the US great? Sure we were…we put a man on the moon. No other country has done it. Today, we don’t have enough money to do great things anymore because we spent trillions on tax cuts for the super rich and created massive debt.
We have one party that never raises taxes and 50% of the population who don’t see a problem with it.
The elections over. Can’t we acknowledge there are good and bad on both sides of politics. What gets me is the way during an election everything is dumbed down into a series of slogans. Intelligent debate is abandoned by both sides and descends into name-calling. Surely we could come up with a better system.
Elections are no time (apparently) for serious discussion. Right now Iran is being denied basic necessities like medicines – people are dying just like they did during the Iraq sanction years when they died in their millions. Remember Sec of State Albright saying that the death of 500,000 children was a necessary price for them to pay (you can google that). The same party(ies) is at it again with the full support of the other. In our country and theirs (Aust/US). Charismatic leaders are useful as a diversion for the masses to play out their tribal loyalties but don’t expect real things to be discussed – like empire building and the fate of other nations just going about their business. So much public discourse is just mindless dribble backed up by fake news reports about fake events. Take Syria for example. 90% of what you hear see and read is a marketing program for the warheads of this world who have the long game in mind and are merely creating the necessary steps for what’s to come. You need to follow up some of the news reports from independent sources to grasp just what I am saying though probably most people understand that they are being lied to, they just don’t understand how. Actually the fact is both sides are capable of great evil and don’t really want the public to know just what they are really doing. So expect this rubbish at election time – there’s hardly a skerrick of decency between them.
I suppose it would be too much to expect them to be honest about their aims. Jack Nicholson: “You can’t handle the truth.”
The question disgusts me. I have met modern USA’ians who had no idea where Australia is – let alone my NZ. “Selfish, ignorant and inward-looking” can summarise far too many of them.