"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Most Honest 3 1/2 Minutes of Television
Posted by jurassicpork | 11:19 AM

This is the opening scene of the debut episode of Aaron Sorkin's HBO series, The Newsroom. It's been derided for good reason for being overly didactic and beating viewers over the head every four minutes with the lesson that we need a fair, unbiased press that actually does its job. Frankly, the series took a nosedive after this debut episode but that's just me.

But Jeff Daniels' rant in this scene when asked why America is the greatest country in the world is exactly like something I would've said: America is not the greatest country in the world. First off, the question is idiotically jingoistic in the extreme, being a nationalistic type of "When did you stop beating your wife?" question.

Daniels' character tells it like it is and easily rattles off statistics and mercilessly shines a harsh sodium light on how this generation is vastly different from its predecessors, the last generation before the baby boomers.

Secondly, he says, without calling out conservatives or even mentioning the word, "You want to know why no one likes liberals? Because they lose. If they're so fucking smart, why do they Goddamned lose all the time?"

We could debate this point and try to answer this question until the cows come home but perhaps the writer of this scene had his finger on the pulse of the question and answer. It could be argued that liberals are so despised because those who cannot think for themselves (that would be most conservatives and independents) have been conditioned to believe that liberals and anything we stand for are Godless, unAmerican Commie pinkos who want to take away your money and put everyone on welfare while robbing America of its exceptionalism and demonizing success.

It never occurs to these mouthbreathers who believe this pap that fewer and fewer of us actually are succeeding, that "American exceptionalism" and "success" these days refers not to American ingenuity but our capacity to fuck over each other and those of other countries with the friendly aid of not liberals but murderous corporations that now own everything from the whole United States to other countries to the Olympics to entire wars.

And this corrosive bigotry against everything liberal expands to everything even loosely associated with us so now we're at war against Charles Darwin, Pell Grants, Big Bird and Elmo, proper spelling and punctuation, paying your taxes and anything and everything that even smells vaguely like Panama Red and patchouli oil and moderate, nonpartisan or bipartisan entities such as Hollywood and the media are pejoratively branded as "liberal."

The cruel and stupid have taken over this country and have plunged us into the real-life prequel of Idiocracy, a movie in which people with IQ's below 80 are prized and have become the status quo. And the reason why the cruel and stupid have taken over this country and are metastasizing is not because they have a genius for organization but because they're easy to organize by those who have Machiavellian gifts for exploitation. Because it's always easier for humans to loathe and hate in large numbers than it is to love in equally large groups.

Even when they gather in large groups to show love for one god or another it inevitably gets mutated into hatred and prejudice against those who disagree with them. There's Godwin's law and then there's God's law: If Thou Dost Not Stroketh My Ego and That of My Lord, Thou Shalt Surely Goeth to Hell. It never occurs to these people that if their God was a human being living among us, he'd immediately be put in four point restraints and fed a steady diet of multi-colored pills (although it's just as likely he'd have a commentary show on Fox "News").

Liberals are too smart and fractious for their own good. Our all-inclusiveness and willingness to allow for all viewpoints to share space under our tattered tent (and I'm thinking of Blue Dog Democrats and craven, undeclared apostates such as Joe Lieberman) is what will prove to be our undoing.

So watch this three and a half minute-long video and if you're old enough, if you're in your early 50s like me, think of what America used to be, what it used to stand for back when we really were the greatest nation on earth. We're falling further and further behind European and Third World countries in education, health and life expectancy because we've allowed ourselves and this rotting carcass of a country to be taken over by right wingers and corporations.

And in light of Romney's overseas trip, I cannot express in words (and I'm quite possibly the best unpublished novelist in America) how much I loathe what this nation has turned into, a nation where reaction has supplanted thought and reason, in which ignorance is prized far above erudition.

40 years ago, we used to walk on the moon during 500,000 mile round trips. Now we can't even stroll on the beach in a Gulf Coast state.
8 comments
Bookmark and Share
8 Comments:
Blogger lifeartist said...
One of your best posts ever. When flaunting one's ignorance is done as if it was a badge of honor, one deserves a drubbing.

Well done.
7/28/12, 2:48 PM  
Blogger UU4077 said...
Liberals are too smart and fractious for their own good. Our all-inclusiveness and willingness to allow for all viewpoints to share space under our tattered tent ...

This reminded me of William Penn's great experiment and the "Peaceable Kingdom". Being open to anyone being persecuted due to their faith, and not being willing to discriminate, the persecutors as well as the persecuted were welcomed.
7/29/12, 9:27 AM  
Blogger merlallen said...
What gets me is, the way tea baggers hate programs that benefit them and their families simply because a liberal is for it. That is just plain sick.
7/29/12, 5:43 PM  
Blogger Ahab said...
A powerful, moving, and disconcerting post. This is why I like your blog.

I watched the video, and while I agree with some of the character's assessment of modern times, I disagree with his glorification of the past. Our parents' and grandparents' generations fought Nazis and flew to the moon, but also lived in a society with much greater racism, sexism, homophobia, and insularity. Despite all the flaws of our era, it also has many shining virtues, such as greater global communication (i.e., Internet), less insularity, and more rights for women, LGBTQs, and minority groups.

"And the reason why the cruel and stupid have taken over this country and are metastasizing is not because they have a genius for organization but because they're easy to organize by those who have Machiavellian gifts for exploitation."

Sadly, its true. The question is, how do we break through the cruelty and stupidity? How do we struggle against Machiavellian opponents while remaining faithful to our ethics?
7/29/12, 6:45 PM  
Anonymous e.a.f. said...
Now that was excellent! Thank you!
7/29/12, 8:47 PM  
Anonymous Barry B said...
"I watched the video, and while I agree with some of the character's assessment of modern times, I disagree with his glorification of the past. Our parents' and grandparents' generations fought Nazis and flew to the moon, but also lived in a society with much greater racism, sexism, homophobia, and insularity."

I agree with Ahab. I was very uncomfortable with the writing that implied the US was once the greatest nation in the world, because there is no such thing. There is no adequate measure of national greatness, nor could there be. And if it's simply living in peace with your neighbors, who all make as much as you do, and dying in your bed surrounded by your community, then perhaps many of the old pastoral hunter/gatherer communities of South America and Africa managed it best, before the Europeans arrived and herded them into groups behind wealthy dictators.

We simply had more money at one time to do things, and we occasionally used our military might to do The Right Thing. But like every other imperial power, we have this delusion of Manifest Destiny, and look back on a time of legend--like the latterday Romans did, and the Dutch did, and the Spanish did, etc. The writers of the show may have believed what they wrote, but as they seem highly literate and knowledgeable, I'm inclined to think they simply couldn't go all the way and argue against the US ever being great--not without fear of lynching, in today's political climate.
7/31/12, 9:17 AM  
Blogger jurassicpork said...
"I disagree with his glorification of the past."

I don't think this was Sorkin's or anyone else's intent. Only a moron like Michele Bachmann would conjure up a Happy Days version of America in which there was no bigotry or corporate fealty.

Yet that first generation of baby boomers and the generation who ran the world before that had many things on the current generation. While we are no longer number one in trade, science, industry, health care and life expectancy, we still have the same problems they had crippling the progress of this country.

To put it simply: We lost the good and were left with nothing but the bad. Aside from good-hearted individuals, the current United States and its establishment has not one single, remotely redeemable quality whatsoever. The Great Experiment has failed and we are all to blame: Republicans for their relentless pursuit of evil and Democrats for letting them.
7/31/12, 11:22 AM  
Blogger Beleck said...
St. Reagan didn't get elected by only the Baby Boomers. The rest of the Country/generations also voted for St. Ronnie of Hell. the Boomers helped, indeed, but it took a whole bunch of idiots to keep the Republicans in power after St. Ronnie of Hell was enthroned by the ignorant masses yearning to be "screwed over."

Republicans today were the Democrats of yesterday. the blame is all over the place, all the stupids, from all the generations bought the BS St. Ronnie peddled.
8/1/12, 8:51 PM  
Post a Comment
<< Home