This video clip is probably my favorite political statement of all. It’s time, even more so than any other time, to make it go viral:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!
09 Feb 2018 7 Comments
by Max T. Furr in a just society, Con Games, courage, Politics, Social Justice, TRUTH IN FICTION Tags: America is NOT the greatest, Newsroom, Politics, Social Justice, video
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The Benevolent Thou 
Feb 09, 2018 @ 10:08:48
So the essence of the message . . . is Trumpian?
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Feb 13, 2018 @ 09:11:40
Listen to the clip again. If it were Trumpian it would have been a tirade promoting fear and division. Note the reference to poverty–“we spend money on poverty but not the poor. Consider the implications of that. It will never come out of Trump’s mouth because he doesn’t give one second’s thought about the poor. He talked about the need to improve education. Trumpians and Republicans do NOT want objective education as shown by Trump’s appointment of private school advocate and public school skeptic Betsy DeVos to head the DOE.
Republicans do not want a robust educational system. They and the Trumpians are anti science. They want to privatize the public schools for profit. The only way to improve education in America, as I see it, is to:
1. GET THE DAMNED CORPORATE/PRIVATE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS! That is the real root cause of most of what’s wrong with our government. Remove the monetary incentive to run for office in the first place.
2. Hire the best and brightest teachers and pay them very well (Republicans say that they have to hire the “best and brightest” by giving them multi million dollar pay and bonuses yearly, but they never say that about teachers–molders of minds),
3. Stop rebelling against copying school systems and methods that work even if they are in other countries (which they are), Also have a child psychologist on staff in every secondary school and eliminate the sugar laden beverages. Cafeteria personnel would also be paid well.
4. Eliminate or significantly reduce poverty by raising the minimum wage to a living wage, target run-down neighborhoods for complete renovation (eliminating the depressing and child traumatizing environment), free adult academic and vocational courses and tuition free higher education.
5. REGULATE Wall Street/industry such that capitalism will work for every citizen, not the wealthy few. They can still be wealthy, just not absurdly so.
6. Single payer, basic healthcare (eliminate the profit motive from basic healthcare and allow the government to negotiate drug prices).
7, Levy a 3% tax (on the dollar) on all stock market transactions, raise the Fed tax on corporations and the wealthy or abolish the tax loopholes (they use far more of the nation’s infrastructure than the general public) and eliminate corporate welfare (a profitable corporation can pay for their own R&D.
8. Jail CEOs for cheating customers or damaging the environment.
There is much more and each step I’ve mentioned has many facets.
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Feb 13, 2018 @ 09:31:45
You misunderstand me, Max; I am a socialist.
It is Trumpian in that it is saying America is not (as it stands) great.
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Feb 16, 2018 @ 15:21:18
Trumpianism: The title of this video is NOT that American is not great, but that it isn’t the greatest country in the world. That is objectively true. That opinion isn’t held only by Trump. Trump SAYS that he wants a robust (trillion dollar) infrastructure plan. I do too. But to agree with the statement does not make me Trumpian.
Yes, it was his campaign mantra, “Make America Great Again.” But consider the slogan’s hollowness. It is a statement meant to be filled with each individual’s views of what will make America great again. It is not saying “Make America the Greatest Nation in the World Again.” It’s simply states that America isn’t great, but it used to be.
But for anyone to agree that America isn’t the greatEST nation cannot, logically, be Trumpian in any sense because of the amorphic nature of the phrase. In fact, I’m not sure that America was ever the Greatest nation on earth. The strongest? Yes! The most free? Depends on your ethnic grouping and at what time in history one means. In equal rights and opportunity for all? Certainly not.
Our current Constitution, at least the first and fourteenth amendments, make the attempt to give every citizen equal rights. But it does not because of corporate/private money in politics–the virtual marriage of corporations and government and a SCOTUS that has given Corporations far more power than the citizens and allowing the spread of propaganda over the air waves.
Anyway, I don’t want to belabor the nature of “great.” I’m sure you understand my position of greatness. No doubt Trump wants to be a dictator and what he would do were he one is definitely not what most Americans think would be great–only those who love authoritarianism.
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Mar 03, 2018 @ 06:41:46
This is a reply to your later comment, about whether America not being great is a Trumpian argument. (There’s no reply button on that comment.) I’m an American living in Britain, and when you move to another country you’re suddenly able to hear how arrogant it is for the Americans to claim–as so many do–that America’s the greatest country in the world. Based on what? In whose opinion? What do they actually know about other countries?
To say it isn’t the greatest is no insult. As far as I can see, no country is. They all have different strenghths, different insanities, different problems. What the hell, it’s not a competition.
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Mar 03, 2018 @ 08:39:23
No reply button? That’s odd. I see a reply button on all of my comments. I’ve no clue as to why it doesn’t show up on your screen–but I certainly believe you.
Ah, I see what you mean. Our arguments differed because of the ambiguity of the word “greatest.” Thank you for the clarification, “no country is.”
I was coming from the position of the U.S. not being the greatest it can be as objectively shown by the existence of social and economic inequity from international comparison studies in several categories. Other nations are superior in many or most of the categories compared. The details of your view were somewhat very much like mine, although coming from a deeper and more comprehensive meaning of “greatness.”
In that sense, even were the U.S. at the top in all comparison results, it still would not be the greatest nation in the world.
I would say, however, that any nation that eliminates poverty by social and economic policies that control capitalism and/or socialism can be said to be the greatest nation if all other nations still had poverty and inequality (impossible as it is at our current level of cognitive evolution).
So, the main misunderstanding here is basically the ambiguity of the word, “greatest.” Thus, from your perspective and mine, we are both correct–my definition was not Trump’s definition and your meaning was certainly more comprehensive.
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Feb 12, 2018 @ 15:12:43
I LOVE this clip, too. 🙂 The Newsroom was a great TV series.
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