Saturday, July 7, 2012

Had to share . . .

Had to post some quotes from the newsroom, a show on HBO.  At the beginning of the show,  after listening to a liberal and conservative bicker over partisan issues, the panel is asked by an audience member at a college town hall meeting what makes America the greatest country in the world.  The liberal and conservative give textbook partisan crap answers. The main character at first the gives a joking answer, but when pressed by the moderator his reaction is below:

"It's NOT the greatest country in the world, Professor. That's my answer."

The he rips into the liberal guest to his right:

"Fine. Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money. It costs votes. It costs airtime. And column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin' smart then how come they lose so goddamn always?"

And then into the conservative on his left:

"And with a straight face, you're gonna sit there and tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia. BELGIUM has freedom. Two hundred and seven sovereign states in the world and a hundred and eighty of them have freedom"

Then directs his attention back to the audience member:

"And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there's some things you should know. One of them is there's absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you're talkin' about. Yosemite?"

Awesome. . . Keeping that last line in my pocket for election time.

The fire rises

wow.