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This 3 minute clip has been getting some play on the Internet. I don’t know how many people have shared it on YouTube and FB but it has been quite a few. The opening of the new series NEWSROOM, though not having cable I will not be able to see just how honest it will remain. Most series have at least 3 minutes worth watching.
Now I do have to disagree to a small extent with the last part of the monologue he gives. That the US was ever the greatest country in the world is highly debatable. This is our national myth, to get the general populace to go along with whatever hair-brained idea the people in Washington came up with to keep those on Wall Street fat and happy.
If one reads any history as presented by Howard Zinn or James Loewen or Richard Hofstadter or many others, you would see that we really were not better than many other countries. We did not invent everything. And out motivations were significantly less than honorable. They were downright mercenary nearly all the time. Our wars were always fought for some economic reason. We were always violent, arrogant and self righteous. And the whole point of our military and constitution is to protect and serve the financial and merchant classes.
So the ending of this little clip is a bit off. But then it’s television and maintaining the myth pays the bills.
28 Comments
Yes, I liked it too. ;o)
Opps…well at any rate, even Shakespeare had to be careful when writing his plays. Too much truth can get you in trouble.
Ok. This is the reactionary “me” generation smacking upcoming compradors for their failure to recognize how shitty America became under the rebel me’s. Offensive TV, with hypocrisy and indignation ablaze, but with the capitalist smoke-cover to hide how that “great” America went to pot.
Capitalism suckered you again.
A friend said that most of the show makes ya feel like ya want to take a shower, but…at least those three minutes said ‘America ain’t exceptional, here are some of the reasons’.
RachelX can have some extra fun with it, too, lol! Love to ya, dear; we love it!
I wouldn’t say that. I was just surprised ant ANY television would have 3 minutes worth watching these days.
Or that any series would say anything close to that on any network. Cable or otherwise.
You notice that except for a watered down segment on Bill Moyers every year or so, you don’t see Matt Taibbi or Ives Smith. And even more than a few left wingers hated George Carlin.
And Ed Morrow wouldn’t even be allowed to own a television let alone be on it.
Well, I guess if you set your site higher you might be even more depressed.
I see that the agenda is psychological depression and not necessarily anything that enlightens all those compradors.
The one true thing in that HBO phony rant was this: we didn’t used to be so afraid. So many people waiting for the apocalypse and then being damned disappointed when it is so slow in appearing.
I guess maybe because we did have a couple of things that were truly scary.
Funny thing about fear – especially of something that may happen but actually doesn’t happen – the fear sometimes remains long after that which caused it has left.
The fear of getting blown to bits. Of getting set to be blown to bits……
There was a program I saw about it a number of years ago and it pointed out that in a number of cases prolonged fear and terror sensitizes some people to where anything will scare them. Maybe we have developed a culture of shell-shocked people.
Are you arguing Cold War/9-11 PTSD? Continual “shock doctrine” PTSD?
Well for one thing I, like Carlin, despise the term PTSD. Shell shock is the more descriptive term.
But yes….a continual on going case. Not unlike certain factions in Israel who see Hitlers and Himlers under every rock.
An empire becomes militarized and tools of warfare, e.g. psyops, become demostic policy. Waiting for the apocalypse is hopeful and pacifying.
Capitalist TV is a river of shite.
Wide Wide River.
I must thank my cousin Mathew – may he rest in peace – for my true enlightenment.
From citadel to charnel. Pretty amazing theater, no?
Fear AND poverty are creating mass insanity in this country. No food but plenty of ammo. What in the hell do they think is going to happen?
Easier to kill your neighbor than those protected by Xenon (or WhateverTF it is today).
But…..will there be enough people left to clean their toilets and mow their lawns ?
Worry not, the poor shall be with them forever.
“WHAT, ME WORRY? “…Alfred E. Newman
Not for your class superiors, I hope, because they obviously worry enough for themselves.
“All Men Are Created Equal”. When they (my class superiors) realize this, it may be too late. We are many;they are few. One can only hope, can’t one?
Chumbawamba, telling it like it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K1BdDVvV9Q
Good in parts, but his disrespectfully addressing the young woman questioner as “sorority girl” kinda spoils it. Sexism makes one an asshole no matter the good intentions.
So here’s the really important question. Was Beyonce lip synching that half time show?
Might depend on the question. And how it was asked.
Oops just heard the question. Yeah, a little over the top.
The time period in which the United States was “the greatest country in the world” can be precisely dated as lasting from President Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 to the Inauguration of President Hayes in 1877 following the Compromise of 1877 in which the federal government agreed to restore white racist control in the Southern states. Through its project of liberating the slaves and rooting out the Southern oligarchy, the United States was, with major qualifications (notably, its horrid treatment of Native Americans) basically a great force for freedom and human rights during this period. Also, the rest of the world was much further away from democracy. Now? We no longer really belong to the democratic world. We are a “soft” autocracy with some democratic trappings, growing harder all the time.
A still better term is the one used after the Civil War, “a soldier’s heart.”