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Saving this video from queue deletion, sending it to the top of the queue for one more try. Originally submitted on Thursday 19th July 2007 (save called by gold star member choggie)

That's utterly absurd.

absurd? profound statement bud. why not toss out a few facts to back up your supposed comment instead of simply jumping on the worlds bandwagon of hating the popular kid on the block?

I'll be the first to say our political system blows chunks, and bush has one way or another, been an overall bad decision on the american voters part. But for petes sake, don't just toss out and say "america sucks" unless you have some solid evidance to countermand what the video says. and don't just bring up the middle east again, its the cowards way out. I know it was a mistake, we know its a mistake, even bush knows that by now. leave it alone, its not part of this particular conversation.

Amusingly, as a girl who when you combine her parents ancestry is 27'th Generation American this video is making me proud that I'm only one year away from being able to apply for Canadian Citizenship.

I don't think I could ever move back.

theres nothing to be proud of in being american anymore. it's all gone down the drain.

"theres nothing to be proud of in being american anymore. it's all gone down the drain."

I'm proud of all the help we gave victims of the Tsunami a few years back. I'm also proud that there were so many of us who knew the Iraq war was a mistake from the beginning. We have one of the best university systems in the world, and we are an extremely innovative country on the whole. Why shouldn't I be proud of those things?

RadHazG: You're flailing away at so many strawmen up there that I just had to laugh.

I just love the narrator's dramatic voice. "It was the AMERICANS who helped out.." There's often a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater when the shit hits the fan and the focus becomes what's wrong with a place/person/thing, forgetting all the good that has happened.

The U.S. has done a lot of great things both throughout the world and within its borders.

What country is free of govt mistakes, violence, oppression, slaughter of indigenous peoples, destruction of the natural environment?

Mine isn't and neither is yours.

I can't think of a single act that would qualify as a "great thing" in which the US has engaged, beyond its borders.

How about the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WW2, the Peace Corps and the Apollo Program, oh and how about the Internet?

The Marshall plan was entirely in self-interest. Here's historian Howard Zinn on the Marshall Plan:

The motives for the Marshall Plan were both economic and political. Just to point to one aspect of the economic motive: George Marshall was quoted in an early 1948 State Department bulletin: "It is idle to think that a Europe left to its own efforts...would remain open to American business in the same way that we have known it in the past." Most of the money went to American businesses exporting to Europe. At least 10% of the aid money went for European purchases of oil, moving them away from coal-dependency (which involved dealing with troublesome trade unions) to oil dependency, with the U.S. dominant in the world oil market. The political motive was to shore up anti-Communist governments in France and Italy. Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson said at the time: "These measures of relief and reconstruction have been only n part suggested by humanitarianism. Your Congress has authorized and your Government is carrying out, a policy of relief and reconstruction today chiefly as a matter of national self-interest". You can read much more about the Marshall Plan, that is, realistic evaluations, in Michael Hogan's book "The Marshall Plan" (Cambridge Univ. Press 1987) and in Melvyn Leffler's excellent book "A Preponderance ofPower" (Stanford Univ. Press, 1992)

The Apollo Program was indeed a large project of the cold war - and it was arguably also a massive waste of money that was greatly needed elsewhere. I should have made it clear that by "great" I mean great in both the ethical sense as well as scale.

US history is like a clogged toilet; the more you flush the shit keeps rising.

I like your analogy, qualm.

To those who share the sentiment that America is nothing to be proud of anymore... please leave then.
What purpose do you serve sitting around enjoying the benefits of this country without doing anything constructive to aid it it's shortcomings other than cowardly ungrateful cheap shots on a website. That's soooo big of you.

I'm proud to be called an American, and I'll never leave. It's citizens like myself that love this country and see it for the great place it is that will see it though times like this. And to other countries that put us down and hate us... I'm sure we'll still come to your aid whenever you ask for it because that's what American's do. You don't know who we are at all.

Thanks, Persephone. (I love your pommegranite.)

Swampgirl, your country also has one of the most relentless regimes of indoctrination towards patriotism of any nation, and it starts at a very early age. And it's never been right to say "love it or leave it." That undemocratic intolerance is just another part of the culture of uncritical patriotism. And it's unfair to assume that your fellow citizens who commented above are doing nothing in their lives beyond posting on an internet site. I am sure some of them actively advocate for positive change in the best ways they know how.

It's always uncomfortable for one's beliefs to be challenged - but by the very nature of belief, if you say you believe in something, you are saying that you aren't thinking about that part of reality anymore. (This is just as much true for politics as it is for religion!) People who are serious and truly care apply critical thinking to serious issues.

The quip about "coming to your aid" is not informed by history and completely ignores or is unaware of the harsh strategic political and economic dimensions of leverage and coercion invariably attached to US "aid". You should bite the bullet and do some book research - as uncomfortable as that will be at first. I'm sure at the end you'll be a much different sort of citizen.

There's a good deal of material, but a well-written and researched place to begin is Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". By no means is that the only book, however.

Yes the all knowing Qualm here to enlighten us with his premeditated "holier then thou" dogma. Do you realize that your only taking into account what you want to hear?

You read books that support your viewpoints, when was the last time you read one that challenged them?

Pessimism is easy to come by and can often overshadow the great things in life.

America has a lot to be proud of. We helped maintain peace after world war 2. We've raised the economic and social standards of other countries. We have a great nation and one that has given birth to some damn good achievements.

To say what you do is to have a narrow minded view of things. One that tunnels you into thinking that there are no other realities but the one you seek.

I'm sorry I meant to upvote. Great post.

That's nonsense. You can't pretend to know how widely I read. It's you who seems incapable of critical thinking.

"We helped maintain peace after world war 2. We've raised the economic and social standards of other countries."

The first statement is too laughable to take seriously. The list of wars, invasions, proxy wars, violent overthrow of governments, assassinations, the School of the Americas, support for tyrants and dictators, the economic plunder of countless third world nations, war-profiteering, etc., is very long indeed.

You've raised the social standards for the elites of other countries.

But keep making your assumptions about me and grafting them to some imaginary ideology of mine -- I will enjoy knocking your straw men apart.

That doesn't change the fact that your paradigm is incredibly narrow. Look at any country and you can make a long list of atrocities. Notions may be laughable to you but you have no support other then your opinion. I have over 300 years of history to show of all the great things America has done.

Also your take that all these things are the fault of the United States is flawed in that all things involve two or more parties and events that circulate around the world. You want to cast blame on a single entity when your dealing with the entire world? That sir is laughable.

There is nothing wrong with patriotism and love for ones country. I love my country and I love America. It is a wonderful land. I have opportunities here that I never could have had in Israel. I don't have to hear explosions every night or worry about which of my friend was killed last night.

Qualm you seem to have such disdain for something that, I'm sure, has made your life so much better. If you talked like that and you were a Palestinian you would have your head blown off.

My true loyalties are to Israel, but you cannot deny the influence that America has on the world. So many people would love to live in this country. It is my second home.

Gorgon, your thoughts are under-developed and far off target. And the US is not just another country. It is an empire. And I have much more than "just my opinion". It's you who has had only your thoughtless kneejerk patriotism to contribute - up to this point. If there's any aspect of US history about which you wish to debate, I'm more than game. I look forward to coming home this evening and examining your efforts.

Earlier I was bothered by your suggestion that I'm just spouting a load of sufficiently memorized half-paragraphs I read in a book. Doing that because I "have a "narrow paradigm." I'm not even sure what that means.

I've made some unsupported charges, but up-thread, in reference to the Marshall plan, I've provided important quotations from both Marshall and Acheson.

I'm not a historian. But I know there are two kinds of historians; the serious historians who reverently assemble volumes of original documents as data. And then there are the always necessary careerist historians who glibly write the material that the world-shapers install upon us for the record. The sphinxes who shape the world requisition from them the ultimate version that obscures the true nature of their deeds.

The good of the United States is the people of the United States. Like people everywhere.