Mr. Hollands & Americas Last Opus
To be filed under: I could not have said it better... from Richard Dreyfuss on Real Time with Bill Maher.
One of the best diatribes I have heard in years. Absolutely brilliant, concise, poignant, erudite and elucidated with alacrity.
On the Iraqi War:
"It’s a weird – I think it’s very bizarre that we ask specific questions of military strategy and geo-political strategy, when the only effort has been put behind not telling us what is going on, so that we have no context or history about what is really being fought over.."
On Questioning Authority:
"we leave ourselves out of this equation... the press doesn’t ask certain questions anymore – we don’t – we do not constantly question and demand clarity about these things....
we don’t learn that we have the right to ask those questions... So that we think that by asking them, we’re being somehow rude or impolite, and we’re questioning authority...
someone gets away with saying that there’s a connection between supporting the troops and supporting the policy... And that is a despicable connection.
And it’s not been said often enough so that people actually believe that if you’re critiquing the policy, you’re critiquing the troops.
It used to be that journalists would say, “Excuse me, Mister President, you didn’t answer the question.” And now, they let whatever the spin is be the end of the segment."
On the Jerry Springer generation:
"there should be a place in America – there should be a place for – for a serious discussion of serious public issues—without the melodrama of television.
The melodrama of rudeness and interrupting and yelling and screaming is the only way that people now know, experience public discussion of public issues. They don’t know that there were alternative ways of discussing these things.
So that we confuse the melodrama of incivility with how public issues are discussed".
On the 4th Estate:
"..if the people are sovereign, if we are sovereign, who teaches, who tutors, the sovereign? Who whispers in the sovereign’s ear? Who tells us what is going on?
Right now, it’s Rupert Murdoch, the guy who owns Viacom and the guy who owns ABC, and that’s it. And – and Rupert, by the way, is it a valid question to ask what percentage of the English-speaking world’s news industry is owned by one person?
And if the answer hovers somewhere between 35 and 50%, which it does, and the other two guys go to the same clothing store... is it a valid question, might they have their own priority?"
On the election results: "Wouldn’t it be an error for the Democrats to think that they had anything to do with the election victory?" Maher: "Yeah, they just happened to be standing on the field at the time."
On the Wizard of Oz effect (pay no heed to the man behind the curtain, look over there...):
"I was away from the country for two years studying, and when I came back, I realized that we had two wars; we had the towers falling, and the only thing that America knew was that Scott Peterson had killed his wife and unborn child.
The amount of energy and money and creativity that goes into distracting the audience from whatever relevancy is a serious issue. TV in itself is part of the problem. We discuss serious issues by image rather than text.
You can actually learn the constancy of curiosity and the constancy of outrage. You can learn that it is okay to keep asking the questions and to be dissenters. And if you don’t, if you’re not taught it, then you don’t know it."
On the downfall of Western Civilization:
"Civics is the learning of the tools of maintaining a republican democracy. Republican democracy as opposed to democracy.
Representational democracy, which was what was created in the Constitution, and not democracy, which was distinctly the enemy of the people who created the Constitution.
Democracy was called “mob-ocracy.” And representational democracy means that we have representatives that we trust.
But we owe ourselves and the United States that we will pass off to our children, to relearn the tools of reason, logic, clarity, dissent, civility and debate.
And those things are the – the nonpartisan basis of democracy. And without them, you can kiss this thing goodbye. And it is up to us, it wasn’t because of a conspiracy that this left. It was thoughtlessness. And what you have to do is get it back.
...civics, the expertise needed to understand western enlightenment and civil liberties, is not something you’re born with. You have to learn it. And we teach our kids what we want them to know and we don’t teach them what we don’t want them to know. And that’s not a conspiracy. That’s human nature.
And we have to remember, that unless we teach the ideas that make America a miracle in government, a miracle that everyone knows is a miracle, unless we teach what that means, then it will go away in your kids’ lifetime. And we will be a fable. We will be a tale told about this place that used to stand up for blah-blah-blah.
You have to teach it. You have to find the time and creativity to teach it in school. And if you don’t, then you will lose it to fundamentalists of any stripe. You will lose it to stupidity. You will lose it to the darkness.
And what this country represents is a tiny twinkle of light in a history of oppression and darkness and cruelty.
And if it lasts for more than our lifetime or our kids’ lifetime, it is only due to the fact that we put some effort into teaching what it is, the ideas of America, the idea of opportunity, mobility, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly.
And if you don’t teach it, it’ll go away. And in the middle of the night, when the towers fall, we will not say, “What am I responsible for?” We will say, “Tell us what to do.” And, remember, democracy, in any form, is only 200 or 300 years old. (It was practiced in Greece) ....and then it went away for 2,000 years.
And what we’ve had is monarchy and theocracy and all kind of – you know, “God tells the king and the king tells us.” And the idea of being personally responsible for your government is a twinkle.
It’s only as old as, you know, since Victoria’s death. And we have to support it, or we will, else, instinctively react, as we have for 10,000 years: “Tell us what to do.” And we’ll chuck these liberties the moment the next terrorist horror happens."
One of the best diatribes I have heard in years. Absolutely brilliant, concise, poignant, erudite and elucidated with alacrity.
On the Iraqi War:
"It’s a weird – I think it’s very bizarre that we ask specific questions of military strategy and geo-political strategy, when the only effort has been put behind not telling us what is going on, so that we have no context or history about what is really being fought over.."
On Questioning Authority:
"we leave ourselves out of this equation... the press doesn’t ask certain questions anymore – we don’t – we do not constantly question and demand clarity about these things....
we don’t learn that we have the right to ask those questions... So that we think that by asking them, we’re being somehow rude or impolite, and we’re questioning authority...
someone gets away with saying that there’s a connection between supporting the troops and supporting the policy... And that is a despicable connection.
And it’s not been said often enough so that people actually believe that if you’re critiquing the policy, you’re critiquing the troops.
It used to be that journalists would say, “Excuse me, Mister President, you didn’t answer the question.” And now, they let whatever the spin is be the end of the segment."
On the Jerry Springer generation:
"there should be a place in America – there should be a place for – for a serious discussion of serious public issues—without the melodrama of television.
The melodrama of rudeness and interrupting and yelling and screaming is the only way that people now know, experience public discussion of public issues. They don’t know that there were alternative ways of discussing these things.
So that we confuse the melodrama of incivility with how public issues are discussed".
On the 4th Estate:
"..if the people are sovereign, if we are sovereign, who teaches, who tutors, the sovereign? Who whispers in the sovereign’s ear? Who tells us what is going on?
Right now, it’s Rupert Murdoch, the guy who owns Viacom and the guy who owns ABC, and that’s it. And – and Rupert, by the way, is it a valid question to ask what percentage of the English-speaking world’s news industry is owned by one person?
And if the answer hovers somewhere between 35 and 50%, which it does, and the other two guys go to the same clothing store... is it a valid question, might they have their own priority?"
On the election results: "Wouldn’t it be an error for the Democrats to think that they had anything to do with the election victory?" Maher: "Yeah, they just happened to be standing on the field at the time."
On the Wizard of Oz effect (pay no heed to the man behind the curtain, look over there...):
"I was away from the country for two years studying, and when I came back, I realized that we had two wars; we had the towers falling, and the only thing that America knew was that Scott Peterson had killed his wife and unborn child.
The amount of energy and money and creativity that goes into distracting the audience from whatever relevancy is a serious issue. TV in itself is part of the problem. We discuss serious issues by image rather than text.
You can actually learn the constancy of curiosity and the constancy of outrage. You can learn that it is okay to keep asking the questions and to be dissenters. And if you don’t, if you’re not taught it, then you don’t know it."
On the downfall of Western Civilization:
"Civics is the learning of the tools of maintaining a republican democracy. Republican democracy as opposed to democracy.
Representational democracy, which was what was created in the Constitution, and not democracy, which was distinctly the enemy of the people who created the Constitution.
Democracy was called “mob-ocracy.” And representational democracy means that we have representatives that we trust.
But we owe ourselves and the United States that we will pass off to our children, to relearn the tools of reason, logic, clarity, dissent, civility and debate.
And those things are the – the nonpartisan basis of democracy. And without them, you can kiss this thing goodbye. And it is up to us, it wasn’t because of a conspiracy that this left. It was thoughtlessness. And what you have to do is get it back.
...civics, the expertise needed to understand western enlightenment and civil liberties, is not something you’re born with. You have to learn it. And we teach our kids what we want them to know and we don’t teach them what we don’t want them to know. And that’s not a conspiracy. That’s human nature.
And we have to remember, that unless we teach the ideas that make America a miracle in government, a miracle that everyone knows is a miracle, unless we teach what that means, then it will go away in your kids’ lifetime. And we will be a fable. We will be a tale told about this place that used to stand up for blah-blah-blah.
You have to teach it. You have to find the time and creativity to teach it in school. And if you don’t, then you will lose it to fundamentalists of any stripe. You will lose it to stupidity. You will lose it to the darkness.
And what this country represents is a tiny twinkle of light in a history of oppression and darkness and cruelty.
And if it lasts for more than our lifetime or our kids’ lifetime, it is only due to the fact that we put some effort into teaching what it is, the ideas of America, the idea of opportunity, mobility, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly.
And if you don’t teach it, it’ll go away. And in the middle of the night, when the towers fall, we will not say, “What am I responsible for?” We will say, “Tell us what to do.” And, remember, democracy, in any form, is only 200 or 300 years old. (It was practiced in Greece) ....and then it went away for 2,000 years.
And what we’ve had is monarchy and theocracy and all kind of – you know, “God tells the king and the king tells us.” And the idea of being personally responsible for your government is a twinkle.
It’s only as old as, you know, since Victoria’s death. And we have to support it, or we will, else, instinctively react, as we have for 10,000 years: “Tell us what to do.” And we’ll chuck these liberties the moment the next terrorist horror happens."
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