What we find really shocking is not that “US leadership” has plummeted from 48% to about 30%, deservedly, but that 1/3 of humanity could still believe the US deserves ANY respect for its so-called (and much touted) “leadership”. This is a tribute to entrenched imbecility in many folks, or the triumph of Western propaganda, or a squalid combination of both.
AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE
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JOANNE LAURIER—As noted above, The Post offers a romanticized version of Graham and Bradlee as heroes of democracy, and that is not to the filmmakers’ credit. Moreover, Spielberg’s rush to shoot and release the film by the end of 2017 apparently had a great deal to do with Trump’s coming to power and his own support for the Democratic Party.
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: A vengeful mother stands up to the local “patriarchy”
12 minutes readKEVIN MARTINEZ—The film, with its story of a vengeful mother standing up to the local “patriarchy,” seems to have come along at an opportune, and possibly profitable moment. A comment on IndieWire is headlined, “With Sexual Assault Rattling the Industry, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Is an Angry Feminist Response.”
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BILL VAN AUKEN—The Bloomberg Billionaires Index published last month established that the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest 500 billionaires—many of whom will be in attendance—rose 23 percent over the past year, making them $1 trillion richer than at the end of 2016. And the obscene amounts of wealth keep rolling in, with the Dow closing at 26,000 Wednesday, recording its fastest ever 1,000-point rise.
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Full Spectrum Arrogance: US Bases Spanning the Globe
10 minutes readDAVID SWANSON—“Y’know, I watch a lot of basketball games because the University of Virginia is so darn good and I’m just disgusted because at every single game, they thank the troops for watching from 175—sometimes they even say more than 177— countries. They thank the “almost a million” men and women serving our country. They don’t explain what the service is, they don’t explain why they have to be in 177 countries. They don’t explain that there are only about 200 countries on earth, and that there are at least a dozen more countries they’re not telling us about.