A Great Speech About Why America Isn't Great Anymore (But Can Be Again)

Day 2,900, 07:02 • Published in USA USA • by nonak
In the opening sequence of the new HBO series The Newsroom, a world-beaten (as opposed to world-beating) TV news anchor finds himself on a journalism panel, seated between -- in a reflection of today's stark partisan divide -- a bleeding-heart liberal and a bombastic conservative."We stood up for what was right, we fought for moral reasons, we passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured disease, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it, it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy."