Hello fellow punters, long time no see for many of you :) A friend passed this video clip and link to me to watch. It was surprisingly refreshing in that some home truths were laid bare for all to see. I wonder if this nation (Australia) will ever go through a much needed and healthy reflection on our national character. This national character is often evoked by politicians vying for re-election or by sports commentators. Are we who we say we are? Perhaps we do it better than the USA, perhaps we don't? Yes by all means have some national pride, but should we also have a realistic perspective on how we can improve. Here it is

The most honest three and a half minutes of television, EVER...

http://safeshare.tv/w/UAGOcLSuLX

Enjoy!

P.S I love the bit about liberals!

Just another piece of deeply cynical tele-fiction.

A bit of Hollywood dross, put together by a bunch of double-decaf-soy-latte-sipping scriptwriters over a very long lunch. It rang false at pretty much every level, from the faux-angry interruptions to the faux-naif audience reactions.

I deeply distrust messaging that is formulated in this fashion, having all the subtlety of car-wreck, and with ulterior motives that are so far from being ulterior, they are practically neon-lit.

This isn't even thought-provoking. It is a cling-wrapped, predigested, over-engineered substitute for thinking.

That isn't to suggest that it didn't touch upon some serious issues - it did. But in a way, that makes it even more culpable, allowing prime-time television to pass itself off as "honest", when in fact every sentence was crafted not for honesty, but for ratings.

Which, it would appear, it has achieved. Brilliantly.

anyone that can't see that adopting the Christian Judea ethic made the West great is either naive or blind. We have slidden drastically since abandonding it especially amont our indigeneous people,

@ Pericles,

You obviously enjoy writing criticism, but to what end?

Rainier old fruit, I think America’s perception of itself was and probably still is whatever comes out of Hollywood and the media, simple as that. The deceit the intrigues the guys in the black hats have always been there, as have the moms apple pie and little Joey’s baseball team.

The centralization of economic control and the centralization of governmental power begets victims. The whole first world is a victim of planned social deterioration. Divide and conquer…the tools they use….rich/ poor, been here for 6 generations/ been here for one, don’t follow a religion/follow it like an automaton…all propagated to divide us and kill nationalism.

Runner>> anyone that can't see that adopting the Christian Judea ethic made the West great is either naive or blind. We have slidden drastically since abandonding it especially amont our indigeneous people,<<

Runner old bean, I agree, without religion the crown or government can only ask you to give up your life for them…politicians or monarchy.

I still chuckle at the hide of Stalin…he sent ALL the priests to Siberia during the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Then shipped back what was left of them when Germany invaded to bind the people to fight for god as well as mother Russia.

Australia will be a religious state again in the near future….but it won’t be christianity.

@ sonofgloin, Agree, I think the US is experiencing a huge identity crisis and its no longer fuelled by the traditional ideological poles of Left and Right, but more so between the rich and poor. Hollywood, which once churned out movie after movie about the world coming to and end (only to be save by Bruce Willis et al) is desperate to once again define and capture the national character in film. John Ford did it with John Wayne. We tried to do it with Croc Dundee and Baz Lurhmans "Australia". The link between the arts and nationalism is unmistakable, no matter how we may wish it away (see Pericles comment) the arts and film provide a looking glass into our national soul, often clumsy and stereotypical but nonetheless a looking glass.

Hello Rainier,
Enjoy !

http://youtu.be/VeA7OOBhlDk

Below was my reply to a question re the USA on another thread yesterday.

You need to be able to explain how the only so called Western nation that employs the death penalty has murder rates orders of magnitude higher that all those other nations which do not.
csteele,
That's because it has more non-western crapheads than any other.

Rainier..how do I put this? Actually to hell with it, when he says "Great Men" he's not talking about Al Sharpton, Ellen De Generes, John Stewart or Abraham Foxman, America like it's imperial possessions Canada, the UK and Australia is under the sway of cretins, weasels and lowlifes. After seeing their birthright trashed and handed over to the third world the great men have all given up working for the "greater good" and started working for their own good.

<<anyone that can't see that adopting the Christian Judea ethic made the West great is either naive or blind.>>

But the West is not great, nor ever was!

Please consider, has the West ever indeed adopted the Christian-Judaic ethic?

Thanks for the link.
I am very happy with my country,s direction.
And even more happy we are not following Americas ways too closely.
The extreme patriotism found it that, our best hope , country frightens me.
But while we are hurting at present would rather be an Aussie than any thing.

Hi Belly, I was at a meeting on Sunday and someone played this one. A blast from the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw

Its encouraging to see that at least one yank has seen through the myth. Contrived or no, the videoclip does put the reality of yankeeland in its rightful place.

Runner is 100% correct in stating 'anyone that can't see that adopting the Christian Judea ethic made the West great is either naive or blind. We have slidden drastically since abandonding it especially amont our indigeneous people,'

The comment from sonofgloin 'Australia will be a religious state again in the near future….but it won’t be christianity' ably illustrates an all too real risk, although my personal opinion is that we'll probably encounter a financial crash before full islamification, mind you it will be at best a close call.

Whilst individual hit the nail on the head with 'That's because it has more non-western crapheads than any other', this country is only a gnats whisker behind. We see the writing on the wall daily with media reports from the UK, US, France, etc, but still we choose to bury our heads in the sand like so many stupid ostriches.

No sentient being could disagree with Jay who observes 'America like it's imperial possessions Canada, the UK and Australia is under the sway of cretins, weasels and lowlifes. After seeing their birthright trashed and handed over to the third world the great men have all given up working for the "greater good" and started working for their own good.'

I don't totally agree with yuyutsu. Whilst the West never adopted the Christian-Judaic ethic, it was our birthright & we've unquestionably abandoned it in the headlong rush to embrace political correctness and other such trendy garbology. Yankeeland did in fact have its time in the sunlight, especially when its founding fathers created a unique nation from the ruins of the old world and there are even a few remnants remaining in the Amish people.

Interesting question, Rainier.

>>@ Pericles, You obviously enjoy writing criticism, but to what end?<<

This is an opinion forum. I was offering an opinion.

I might as easily ask, "to what end" did you take the trouble to ask your question of me.

Any thoughts? What motivated you to tap out that sentence? What sort of response did you expect, and where did you think the conversation would go from there? After all, your question was considerably off-topic, so you must have had something on your mind.

The Christian Church imprisoned the man who dared to tell them that the earth wasn’t flat, but round, because It went against their so-called godly teachings.

The word “Heretic” and “+Infidel” had and has much the same interpretation in the eyes of these two religions. The fact that
the unholy must be tortured and killed.

The reason the West thrived and progressed is because somehow the people managed to put the Christian religion back in it’s place and divided it from the running of the government and wouldn’t let the church impose restrictions on scientific exploration and new ideas.

The West advanced mightily in invention and education , medicine and new technologies because the church was told to butt out of imposing their ideas and stifling questioning and exploration of any new ideas.
It was the good sense of a lot of people in Western countries that wouldn’t let the church impose and wield the power they would have liked to wield past a certain point.

The Christian church was dragged kicking and screaming into more Modern and educated ideas and church services by the ordinary people not by any enlightened thinking on the part of the Clergy.

Christian congregations also made it clear that they were not going to let the church dictate that they could not use contraception and end up having 8-10children to be financially responsible for as well the incredible burden this placed on the two people trying to care for that many children within a marriage.

So, No! It wasn’t the Christian Church that made the West Great, but the good sense of church congregations that refused to be held back and kept down by the irrational, ridiculous, attitudes the church had towards family life and education

There is a humungous difference between churches (ie religion) as human invention & christianity, although the sheeple generally fail to recognize this. As with all entities developed by humans, we see power corrupting & positions of power attracting the corruptible. As someone else remarked, there are countless religious 'franchises', each of which has its own peculiarities. Note that islam fits the criteria of a religion as its of human invention & very closely related to judaism.

It appears the main thrust of the previous contribution was toward the so called holy roman church, and indeed this is a quite reasonable move since the catholic church is in many ways, the 'original' supposedly christian religion & most bible translations are derived from the (catholic) vulgate, thereby incorporating its numerous errors. Interestingly, many contemporary bible students do not in fact regard the catholic church as 'holy', but believe it to be the false prophet of Revelation. All halfway advanced civilizations have observed some religion or another, egyptian, roman, greek, inca, indian, chinese, etc, consequently those ostensibly based on christianity aren't anything unusual. All these societies and more used religion as a means to control the masses, all deviated markedly from the precepts laid out in their sacred texts, but thats OK because until recently almost none of the peasants had their own copies and even if they did, they didn't read the things anyway.

Its worth mentioning that the founding of the US, arguably once one of the greatest societies in modern times, involved protestant rather than the catholic thinking of the old world (remember the church of england has only recently parted company from the roman catholic mob at the time and the rest of europe was, and still is, effectively under vatican control.

Prax you continue to be an amusing poster.
That effort is one of your best.
It is my view no religion is based on truth.
And not one has clean hands.
But America? has reinvented the whole thing to suit them.
KKK has we are told God on their side.
Another group haunts funerals saying the dead deserved to die.
The country gave us Johnstown and the branch Davininans had time for a mad murderer who bombed his country,s local sercuirty in Gods name, because of branch d.
Some cuddle rattle snakes and the whole county is following far different Gods, all mad as hatters but thanks mate, for the chuckle

Belly

You have an amazing ability to ignore the blindingly obvious when its right in front of your dial. Did I or did I not go to great lengths to identify human nature as the key factor ?? Of course the religious establishment is off the rails, thats absolutely guaranteed due to the power corrupts / power attracts the corruptible factors. No difference whatever to politics or big business or indeed anything else invented by mankind.

I enjoyed the clip, and I thought Jeff Daniels did a great job with the script. Quite a fine acting performance. Whether he personally holds such views or not is of little consequence, the result was thought-provoking, and that's what really matters.

As to the content: We had better hope that America, the U.S. of A. is still great, and can rise again in a refreshed form as a better and more compassionate defender of the free world, else we, and quite a few others, may be in a slight spot of bother.

Capitalism may not be perfect, as amply demonstrated by some U.S. capitalists who got really carried away (and tried to take the West down the drain) (and I'm still waiting for some of them to be taken to task over their criminal largesse), I just don't feel comfortable about going into Poppy farming and having only one shirt to my name.

Those who heap shite on the old U.S. would best be careful what they wish for. (But a fair wake-up call does not go astray - in the common interest.)

As for Judeo-Christian ethics, let's just be nice to one another, but still keep a watchful eye out for the 'viper' in the wood pile - not everyone believes in 'turning the other cheek'.

Saltpetre - not everyone believes in 'turning the other cheek

Especially a certain be-towelled tribe with common ancestry to the jews, they dropped out of the system well before the 'turn the other cheek' bit

praxidice,

Of course, the West has been turning the other cheek forever (sarc)...or not, as the case may be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

http://ocw.nd.edu/arabic-and-middle-east-studies/islamic-societies-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-religion-history-and-culture/Images/european-colonialism-in-the-middle-east

We're such a bunch of self-righteous invaders.

It's true when they say "might is always right" - and that "history is written by the victors".

It would be interesting to read a detailed assessment of the misery we've inflicted in the name of "freedom" (which is code for "helping-yourself-ism"), while masquerading as holier-than-thou in our religious roots.

Well Poirot, I don't see that religion was a prime mover in that colonial landscape (and surely we don't take heed of anything George W has to say, on anything - even now, let alone in 2005 at the height of his confusion), but is't possible that the colonialists pulled out too soon?

I guess the history is complex, but the colonialists don't seem to have left things in good order in so many parts. Question is, would things in all of those parts be better or worse than they are now (which is certainly not great) if there had been no colonial activity?

The U.S. appears to have taken a different tack, meddling here and there partly in pursuit of resources and wealth and occasionally in the genuine cause of peace (eg WWII). Got muddled along the way, and perhaps sometimes carried away, but we have to hope that lessons have been learned - for I am not impressed by any of the potential alternatives for 'Big Brother' (and without whom, minnow Aus would be ripe for the picking). It is indeed a troubled world.

Saltpetre,

Yes, it's a complicated issue being human.

Especially when you're technologically advanced, but still beholden to base instincts.

And it's not always military invasion that destablises so-called developing countries.

Check out the IMF and World Bank and their tentacles into Egypt in cahoots with corrupt Mubarak for a prime example.