America, best country in the world?
 

A clip from the HBO series "The Newsroom".

Love Jeff Daniels reply.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJh9t9h6Wn0

That was really good:tro:

:tro:

Sometimes i think weve gone from leader to school yard bully.
lead in three things line.....ouch.
i think theres a clear line of when things changed. After ww2. While the citizenry was giddy, and there was rampant economic growth, we somehow got stuck with a permanent, massive standing army. And you then cultivate fear to explain the need. The cold war, communism, and now terrorism. The only thing we have to fear, is fear, a smart man said. He was right.

My son posted this on his FB page (he's 12)

at any time since 1760?
the expansion part, or the slavery part?
the growth of the country, or the mexican-american war?
land for immigrants, or trail of tears?
economy, or labor issues, disputes, killings?
equal rights, or jim crow and women's suffrage?

in other words...it's not all good history, nor is it all bad. people aren't perfect, we all have issues, skeletons in the closet, etc. the man who wrote all are created equal owned slaves, argued that the darker brown folks weren't as smart, and thought only landed gentry should vote, all while making babies with at least one of the women he 'owned'. there's irony for you.

we can be great, but i think far more so than in the past, we've lost our way. we use to be feared because everyone knew we were strong. now we are feared because we bully.
germany only started hitting neutral shipping again because they thought that ww1 was as good as won, and that france and england would capitulate before we could do anything, or would do. then the zimmerman note came to light, and we entered the war....and it ended a year later.
ww2, we were no superpower. but when japan bombed pearl harbor, as yamamoto said, 'i fear we have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with terrible resolve'. we won because we could ramp up production of war materiel' just like that. the sherman tank was a perfect example...not nearly as good as the panzer, but we could make a lot more than germany could.
but since ww2, we've been in a continual and perpetual state of war. whether cold war, korea, vietnam, and now with our longest war ever in afganistan....we aren't what we once were. we have put other things, mainly the army and use of same, ahead of everything else. what has that cost us?
but, like he said, we could be best again...if the system that's been created lets it happen-or we make it happen!

Jeff Daniels or whomever did his research/writers are morons.

China ranks number 1 in reading, math and science as well as exports and labor force. By his standards they are obviously the greatest country in the world going away but are they one of those countries that are supposedly free?

Is Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Algeria, Tajikistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Liberia, Bahrain, Russia, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Bhutan, Viet Nam, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Benin, Laos, Uganda, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Central African Republic, Indonesia, Congo, Tunisia, Iran, Nicaragua, Turkmenistan, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Kenya, N. Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Niger, Kosovo, India, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria all free as well?

Give a man a fish you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime