All Posts Tagged With: "America"
Yes we can? Ok I am still waiting.
So beloved leader is starting another Hate America tour, kissing the butts of our enemies and fair weather friends in the middle east while alienating our only true alliance. great! meanwhile, have you noticed gas is creeping back up, 2.70 per gallon in town today. And we have drilled exactly no new oil wells, broke ground on exactly no new refineries, developed exactly no coal shale technology, built exactly no new nuke plants, developed exactly no new natural gas fields, run exactly no new pipelines from Anwar, let’s see – what we have done is spend a butt ton of money, not sure on what —– Oh probably our new attack submarine fleet, oh no, maybe new fighter jets? no we are cutting back on those, probably our new satellite defense system, – no, well maybe it is on our revitalized space program, well no not that either. I don’t think we have even built new levies for those leeches in New Orleans who are too stupid to know better than to build their town below sea level! But we are ok if Iran develops nuclear technology as long as they cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die promise no to use it for weapons. How many Trillions, or Bazillions, (or gaggles or googles or whatever) have we spent? (no not on date night with Michele but on making America the greatest nation on earth?) Easy answer – exactly none
With the money we are spending we could build coast to coast high speed railroads, develop a fleet of natural gas cars and trucks, hell we could build a tunnel to Brittan! A new power transmission grid fed by new advanced nuclear reactors, all dangerous spent nuclear fuel should be safely buried a mile deep in solid bedrock below Nevada at Yucca Mountain. We should be completely energy independent from the nuts in the Middle East. Lets revitalize our steel industry. A nation that doesn’t make its own steel is in decline. Let’s measure this “great” administration’s success by how much they BUILD (lest Atlas shrugs and all the builders go away). Crap, I’d settle for a fleet of Zeppelins!
Movie Question for the Agora
What’s the most American movie you can think of? We’re doing movie nights here where each country screens a film. This past week the Brazilians chose City of God, a fantastic movie directed by Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, Blindness) about crime in Rio de Janeiro. I’ve heard that the Germans might be showing The Lives of Others, another great movie about surveillance in East Berlin toward the end of the Cold War. It’s a little more difficult for the Americans, since we make so many movies. Some of us were thinking a movie about American politics would be fitting (something like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), or because it’s a legal program a legal drama (e.g., 12 Angry Men), or because it’s an international legal program something like Judgment at Nuremberg. But there are also certain movies about American culture – roadtrip movies, or movies about suburban malaise, or movies that are made or take place during a particular pivotal era in American history. There have been a bunch of ideas floated, but I thought I’d open it up to you guys: if you could choose only one movie to sum up American life and culture, what movie would you choose?
The Dark Side of the Golden Era
Ah the postwar boom. America’s Golden Era . . .
Several years ago I learned that the United States government carried out a program of forced sterilization on Puerto Rican women during the post-World War II era. Initially, I was shocked and appalled. Why would the government of Puerto Rico with the support of the U.S. government force sterilization on women?
The primary motivation behind this was eugenic. Puerto Rico was overpopulated (it still is) and birth rates were high. The government couldn’t get people to emigrate fast enough and Uncle Sam was worried about another few million people in one of its colonies. Basically what happened is what happens in China today: poor women were tricked or coerced into having abortions or being sterilized. Sometimes it was the only family planning option offered. At others there was no consent.
This came crashing down to me about fifteen minutes ago when I got a call from my father. My grandmother, his mother, died about a year ago. My father had always been very close to her and so, when she died, he took some of her personal effects, mostly letters, back to California with him from New York. He was nearly in tears and bitterness clung to every word. He skipped pleasantries and simply began speaking.
“Sometimes” he said “I am so pissed off at what the government has done.” Read more…