(GPA) — Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a 29-year-old woman activist for crimes such as chanting slogans at a protest. Beheading a woman is unprecedented in the kingdom. Meanwhile, Facebook has sprung into action to protect Riyadh’s back by initiating a crackdown on hundreds of accounts posting anti-Saudi content.
Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five activists with non-violent charges.
All of the activists belong to the kingdom’s historically oppressed Shia minority. One is a woman.
Facebook has coincidentally begun removing anti-Saudi accounts under the guise of fighting “Iranian interference.”
A private cybersecurity firm with ties to the US military tipped off Facebook to the accounts.
Saudis Seek First Death by the Sword for Woman Activist
One of these activists includes a woman named Israa al-Ghomgham who was arrested three years ago. Although Saudi Arabia has killed or injured several thousand women in neighboring Yemen, beheading a female is completely unprecedented inside the Kingdom thus far.
All of the activists reportedly took part in protests in Saudi Arabia’s town of Qatif — a heavily Shia Muslim region frequently under siege from Wahhabi Saudi forces.
Saudi rulers consider all citizens who do not adhere to their distorted and intolerant version of Islam, Wahhabism, as polytheists and non-believers. Saudi textbooks in schools contain content with the intention of inflaming hatred for Shia Muslims. This hatred overflows into their foreign policy and military strategies as well.
Ghomgham and the other four activists face charges such as chanting slogans, attempting to inflame public opinion, and providing moral support to protestors. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reportedly both spoke out on Ghomgham’s behalf. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland also took the opportunity to strike back at the Kingdom’s recent arrests.
These arrests are part of a broader trend under Mohammed bin Salman’s rule to arrest all activists, clerics, intellectuals, and journalists that speak out against the regime.
Although all of the recent arrests were Shia Muslim, Riyadh also cracked down on Sunni Muslim pro-democracy activists last month. In mid-July, Saudi authorities raided the home of Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali: a 68-year-old scholar who had just published a book critical of the Saudi regime’s policies. Hawali was arrested and his current fate is unclear.
Photos from Qatif after attacks from Saudi government forces in July 2017 | Facebook
Facebook has Riyadh’s Back in the Public Relations Department
Just as news broke about five activists, Facebook initiated a crackdown on anti-Saudi accounts — which also made headlines.
In fact, it appears that the Saudi regime and their Western counterparts in the United States have adopted the “Russian interference” hysteria as a strategy in their soft war against Iran. Facebook announced on Tuesday that it had removed 652 accounts which it claimed were promoting anti-Saudi, anti-Israel, and pro-Palestinian themes.
In addition to Facebook’s sweep, Twitter deleted nearly 300 accounts while Google and YouTube also deleted at least one. Facebook claims these accounts originated inside Iran from Tehran’s government itself — just like the hyper-inflated “Russian misinformation” campaign.
A private cybersecurity firm called FireEye tipped Facebook, Twitter, and Google off to the alleged accounts. The CEO of FireEye, Kevin Mandiant, is a former US Air Force officer with an extensive background in cyber espionage.
It’s very convenient for Riyadh that FireEye informed the tech companies about these alleged misinformation accounts on the very same day the news broke about Saudi plans to behead five new activists — and their first woman nonetheless.
And with FireEye’s ties to the US military, this is not surprising at all.
Saudi Reforms: Trying Non-Violent Activists in a Secret Court
According to Human Rights Watch, the activists will face trial in a secret setting known as the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC): a tribunal designed seemingly specifically for activists speaking out against the regime. Of course, anyone who condemns the regime Riyadh considers a terrorist — both at home and abroad.
Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Salman is portrayed in the media as a poster child for liberal reforms. Although the neoliberals seem more focused on the privatization aspects and less on the oppressed populations in the Kingdom at abroad.
The continuation of arrests shows that Saudi Arabia will dole human rights out as gifts (like women driving) from the regime — rights will certainly not be earned through grassroots movements.
All the while, private security firms will partner with Facebook and other tech companies to crack down on these activists and others online.
This exclusive interview for GRTV features one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear advocates, Dr. Helen Caldicott, addressing the threat of a deliberate or accidental nuclear war 73 years after the first nuclear device was used on a human population.
Dr. Caldicott discusses the recent revelation of personnel responsible for safe-guarding hundreds of missiles with nuclear payloads also operating an LSD ring. She also talks about the consequences of a nuclear exchange, some close calls in the past, and what Canadians can reasonably do to eliminate or at least reduce the threat.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped re-invigorate the group Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as President from 1978-1983. Since its founding in 2001, she has served as President of the U.S. based Nuclear Policy Research Institute, later called Beyond Nuclear, which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. She was the subject of the 1982 Academy Award-winning documentary short ‘If You Love This Planet.‘ Her latest book: ‘Sleep-Walking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihiliation‘ featuring some of the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders addressing the political and scientific dimensions of today’s nuclear war threat.
More resources on how to support the movement to abolish nuclear weapons available at the site http://www.icanw.org
Transcript – Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott, August 15, 2018
Global Research: I wanted to start our conversation with a recent article that you wrote in relation to a rather shocking incident. They found out that a number of airmen from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming had been implicated in operating an LSD drug ring. One of the implicated personnel said that he had been feeling… had these feelings of paranoia and fear, and another one said he could not have responded in the wake of a nuclear security emergency.
So, I know that you’ve looked into the stringent protocols or the rigorous… supposedly rigorous protocols that are supposed to guard against any kind of a tragic accident resulting. I have to know, were you surprised by this incident, or is this maybe consistent with what you’d already known. Was this…something like this sooner or later going to happen?
Helen Caldicott: I was shocked, but not surprised.
There are two men in each missile silo. There are 450 missile silos, and in each missile called a Minuteman because they have minutes to decide whether to launch or not, are three hydrogen bombs. The two men are aged 17 to 26. They’re like Pavlovian dogs. Yes sir, no sir, press the button sir. Each is armed with a pistol. One shoots the other if one shows signs of deviant behaviour, one of the deviant ones shoots the other one.
There are two locks 12 feet apart, so that one man can’t turn both keys. But I worked out that if you tie a key to one string, one man can turn both locks. They’re very — oh and they run by floppy disks, if you please, and often the telephones don’t work. They get very bored down there they go to sleep down there. One of the girlfriends of the Missileers told me years ago that they take drugs before they go down there. So I was shocked at the extent at the drug-taking but not surprised. They’re fallible human beings, and the job they have is one of the most boring you can imagine except that they’re ready to blow up the Earth with a three-minute lead time.
GR: Yeah, I mean, even in a country that prides itself on its belief in their… the right to bear arms, I think that even they understand you don’t hand over to somebody who’s compromised that way a loaded gun, and these Minuteman missiles are a hell of a loaded gun. That being said, however, I feel the need to remind our viewers that these individuals were not accused of having been compromised while on duty, and there was a quote from an Air Force spokesman, Uriah L Orland, and he stated, and I quote, “There are multiple checks to ensure Airmen who report for duty are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and are able to execute the missions safely, securely and effectively.” Now, you are in a physician in addition to being a … having studied these facilities. Should the public be reassured by these sorts of statments?
HC: Not at all. Absolutely not at all. Because drugs can hang around for many, many hours and sometimes days. So, and they’re known to take cocaine and marijuana and all sorts of other things, so, no I’m not reassured in any way. Why he said to securely carry out their mission, and their mission is to destroy life on the planet. I mean the whole thing is absolutely insane and obscene, and no one really questions what it’s all about. And we’re closer to nuclear war now according to many people in the know than we were during the height of the Cold War, particularly with Donald Trump in charge, and he gets 3 minutes to decide whether or not to destroy the Earth. And there’s always an officer walking behind him with a big suitcase called the football, and in the football are the codes to start a nuclear war.
He has three options. One is ‘counterforce’, and that is to point the missiles at all the missile silos in Russia, and hence ‘win’ the nuclear war. That’s a Pentagon term because everyone’s going to die of radiation sickness, and the missiles almost certainly will be launched in Russia before they’re attacked. Then there’s ‘countervalue’ and that is to bomb all the cities in Russia, which is just obscene. And then there’s ‘counterforce and countervalue’. So they’re the three options: cities, missiles, silos or seas plus missile silos
Because the Russians don’t want to lose a nuclear war, in other words have their missiles bombed while they’re still in their silos, they have to drop two hydrogen bombs on each missile silo within a very specified space of time, because you can get ‘fratricide’ and that is all the debris blown up by the first bomb would destroy the other incoming bomb.
The Russians don’t like this idea at all, so they’ve dug a big cave in the Ural Mountains, and they have put in there a rocket called the ‘Dead Man’. And it is to be launched, if, in fact, they see the missiles coming from America. And all this takes half an hour to go from where to go. And up goes that missile, and it sends a radio message to every single missile in Russia to launch. So nuclear war then would be in the hands of a computer only and no human.
Now, America’s plan is to fight and win a nuclear war, and that’s still a plan, and Canada is still part of that because you’re part of NATO. And the way you ‘win’ the nuclear war is first you decapitate Moscow. That means you destroy Putin so he can’t press his button. And then you land your two hydrogen bombs on each missile silo, and you’ve ‘won’ the nuclear war.
The fact is that they’ve… It only takes a thousand hydrogen bombs on a hundred cities to cause nuclear winter and the end of life on earth when a huge, huge cloud of toxic black smoke rises up to the stratosphere and circles the earth with a cloud so thick it blocks out the sun for up to 10 years and starts a new Ice Age. And everything and everyone will freeze to death in the dark. Of the 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, Russia and America own 94 per cent. So the real terrorists in the world, the actual terrorists, are Russia and America, because only those countries can destroy life on earth.
And after all, why is America not liking Russia now? Russia is now capitalist. What’s it all about? It’s not communist. And so they interfered in American elections? America has interfered, I think, in 80 elections since the end of the second world war, including killing people and the like. So they’re such hypocrites! But Canada goes along with it. And I was able to spend a whole lunch time with Pierre Trudeau, talking about the fact that America was testing cruise missiles in Canada. And I was able to convince him, because of his intense love for his boys, to start the five continent six-nation peace initiative. So Canada has done some good things, but by God, do you need to do some, you need to stand aside like New Zealand, and get out of NATO and not be part of the American plan to blow up the world. In other words, you’re guilty.
GR: Yeah. I’d like to return to Russia just for the moment. Because, as you know, in March, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, had announced in his State of the Federation speech a new class of weapons, a hypersonic missile, the SARMAT. They have these deep underwater drones that defy being tracked. And basically, the context of all that was saying, hey we know you’ve got these anti-ballistic missiles and other strategies, but we have the ability to overcome that. So it is essentially, what some analysts are saying, is that Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD is back, and that they’re sending the message that you can’t attack Russia. You will be obliterated. So, I wanted to get your take on that.
HC: Well, of course you’re, of course you’ll be obliterated. Because if America starts attacking Russia, and, as I say, the missiles take only 30 minutes to go from launch to land, and the Russians pick up the attack, although their satellites are not working because they’ve got a over the horizon radar which isn’t as accurate and doesn’t give them early warning, just the last few minutes, but they will launch their missiles anyway, and that will be the end of life on Earth. I mean all this sort of Pentagon-Russian jargon coming from the military analysts and the military scientists is absolute rubbish.
And what I really can’t understand is why, why the Earth, or the humans are spending so much on killing and the military when in fact, there’s no threat to anyone really at all except to be annihilated, and it’s about empire isn’t it? America’s in many countries in Africa now with military operations… And it sees itself as a policeman of the planet, well we don’t want to be policed thank you very much. But, what I don’t understand this mad lunacy of killing and death, killing and death, killing and death, except it gives the corporations who make these weapons huge amounts of money. And it was Obama who agreed to spend 1.7 trillion dollars in the next 30 years replacing every single nuclear weapon, missile, ship, plane. And rebuild them all new ones, for what reason? No reason!
It’s sheer nuclear madness. It’s nuclear lunacy! And I don’t understand why people don’t talk more about it because, you know, we could have a nuclear war tonight. We really could. By accident, by design, by people hacking into the early warning system, which is – happens quite frequently, I mean, I actually do not know how it is that we’re still here.
GR: Could we touch on what you just mentioned there: that the possibility of an accidental nuclear war? Because I think a lot of people have the belief that there’s technology in place that… fail-safes, backup systems, so that we’re not going to accidentally mistake a flock of geese for a Russian ICBM or something like that. I mean, you mentioned floppy disks earlier. What can you tell us, maybe even invoking a specific example, about that… the unreliability of this technology to prevent an accident?
HC: Well, there is no way to prevent an accident. I’ll give you an example. In 19… God…I can’t remember the exact date. But America was going to launch a weather satellite from Norway, and that’s just near where the Trident submarines roam near Russia. And they told Russia that this was going to happen. They told the Kremlin. But the Kremlin lost the data because the Russians are a bit all over the place. I know from experience. And so, this missile went up with the weather satellite, and there was Yeltsin, a hardened alcoholic, like a bottle of vodka before breakfast. Korsakoff syndrome, whatever the case encephalopathy.
A badly damaged brain sitting there, and they opened the computer or the football for the first time in history. He had three generals standing over his shoulder, and he had three minutes to decide whether or not to press the button because they were sure they were under attack and a decapitation attack was occurring to take out Moscow. And the generals were saying, “press the button Mr. President!” “Press the button!” Three seconds before that three minutes elapsed, the missile veered off course, of course, because it was a weather satellite.
Now that’s just one, one example of many, many. I got to know Robert McNamara, who was the Secretary of Defense under Jack Kennedy, and he was in the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he said to me, “Helen, you don’t know how close we came. To within 3 minutes. 3 minutes.” Now there are numerous numerous examples like that.
And it’s possible for a 16-year-old brilliant boy or girl, usually a boy because their frontal lobes aren’t as developed as girls at that age, to think it might be a hell of a good thing to, you know, plug into the Pentagon, blow up the planet. Why not? And I ask the computer specialist once at a college, why hasn’t it happened yet? And he said. “well they haven’t worked it out yet.”
There are over a thousand hackers into the Pentagon everyday. Not necessarily into the early warning system but hacking. And Russia, I mean I really don’t know how we’re still here. And then there are the nuclear hot points in my new book. Sleepwalking To Armageddon. My brother, Richard Broinowski, writes about the hot points. I mean, India and Pakistan could easily start a nuclear war between each other.
And that could initiate a global holocaust. Israel’s got over 200 hydrogen bombs, but I’m sure many more. And then they’re trying to make war with Iran. China’s got only 200 bombs, and they’re not very belligerent, that’s for sure. But America is being extremely belligerent with them, going into the China Sea with their big… their ships. And then there’s France, well I don’t know about France, and then there’s England and the only reason England’s got nuclear weapons is to replace its lost empire with nuclear weapons. So you know we’re on a very tenuous situation and nobody, but nobody, is talking about it! Everybody is in a state of manic denial, or is my daughter, who is a doctor said yesterday, “people are paralysed by their comfort.”
The way we unparalysed people, if you like, during the ’80s was just to describe the medical effect of a bomb dropping on a city. And I had an agent in Hollywood who worked for me with all the film stars, and put me on television all over the place, and in Canada and America. And we were able then to educate the majority of Americans about the medical consequences of nuclear war producing the final epidemic of the human race, and we had a million people in Central Park. I mean that was the second American Revolution. But then we got… We helped bring the Cold War to an end, and we all felt… thank God that’s over. Americans started talking about a peace dividend, you know they can spend all that money, trillions of dollars, on peace and health and education.
But the corporations behind everyone’s back just got going, Lockheed Martin in particular, and took over and just started making more and more weapons, and here we are. And the reason that it’s happening is that the people are uneducated. And as President Jefferson said, an informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion. I would suggest, Michael, that you play If You Love This Planet again on your television program because it’s only half an hour long, and that really breaks people’s psychic numbing and they get it. It’s an old fashioned film because the haircuts are different, but the data is actually still totally relevant.
GR: Now, I… I just want to note that in addition to the big mobilization we saw in New York City, right here in our hometown, my hometown of Winnipeg, we had huge demonstrations the same day, like 15 to 20 thousand people in a city of just over half a million. It was the biggest we’d seen in several decades. Now, we’re not seeing mobilizations, as you point out, anything comparing to that. But let’s suppose, and remember you’re talking to a Can– this is a Canadian show, let’s suppose that we can get people concerned. Now a lot of those same people will say, yeah let’s get rid of the nukes, let’s disarm, but what can we do about it? Canada is not a nuclear power. We don’t have any agency over what Trump and Putin do…
HC: Yeah, but you’re part of NATO. You’re part of NATO, and… and as such you’re part of the nuclear war apparatus, for sure. Now there is a law coming up at the United Nations to ban all nuclear weapons. 122 countries signed on out of 194. Of course, nuclear nations have not. But they need 50 countries to ratify it. And I think I’ve got nearly 10 countries now to make it law such that all nuclear weapons will be banned like landmines, and cluster bombs, and chemical weapons etc. So Canada can sign on to that and give America a big kick in the bum! [Laughter] To use an Australian expression. You have enormous power, and you’re right next to America. If you mobilize like New Zealand did when it banned nuclear-armed ships coming into its harbors from America, it had a huge effect in America. So you would make news you would support the ICAN ban against nuclear weapons in the United Nations and you would be one of the leaders. So do it. And play.. Get… see if you can, Michael, get If You Love This Planet replayed on CBC and, you know, your show and everything. And I don’t mind being interviewed again after that film plays.
GR: Okay! Well, we’ll see what we can do.
HC: There’s a plan! there’s a plan.
GR: Is there anything else you’d like to say? Just assuming we can get this video, get the Prime Minister Trudeau to see this film, anything else you’d like to say to him before…
HC: Well, Prime Minister Trudeau, should because he is the son of Pierre, who was sort of a kind of friend of mine, and I convinced Pierre over a lunch at the Prime Minister’s residence to do the five continents six-nation peace initiative. I’m sure he knows who I am, Justin, and I…I wouldn’t mind seeing him, but if he, if he could see that film again, I’m sure it would have a big impact on him. He’s got children he loves, he’s a fine young man, walks in the footsteps of his father who is a wonderful man. You’ve had some very good prime ministers in the past. Lester Pearson and others. Please stand tall and do what is required of you to help save the planet, Canadians.
GR: Dr. Helen Caldicott, thank you very much for your time.
HC: Thank you, Michael
The original source of this article is Global Research
In the last 15 years, antidepressant use has increased over 65%, while the suicide prevention industry has also grown to have a major cultural presence.
Prozac and other antidepressants increase the risk of “suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults” suffering from major depression. It says so in the package insert for Prozac. Take a look for yourself, as it helps to see it to actually believe it.
Prozac has long since gone off patent and in the last twenty or so years we’ve seen the development of a host of new antidepressant drugs, all of which carry similar warnings of an increased risk in suicidal thinking. Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Luvox, Paxil, Sarafem, and more.
In the same time frame suicide prevention has become a booming business, one which is primarily organized and led by pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical executives, and is largely funded with taxpayer money.
“Indeed, at this time, [1999] the Foundation regularly began collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to produce “educational” materials for the public and for medical professionals. In 1997, for example, the Foundation and Wyeth-Ayerst, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Effexor, jointly produced an educational video titled “The Suicidal Patient: Assessment and Care.” The video was designed to help “primary care physicians, mental health professionals, guidance counselors, employee assistance professionals, and clergy” recognize the warning signs of suicide, and help the suicidal person get the appropriate “treatment.” Shaffer was one of the experts featured in the film.
In subsequent years, pharmaceutical companies provided funding for the Foundation to conduct surveys, run screening projects, and support research. For example, in 2009, the Foundation reported that a new screening project had been made possible by “funding from Eli Lilly and Company, Janssen, Solvay, and Wyeth.” While most of the Foundation’s revenues today comes from its Out of the Darkness Community Awareness Walks, the Foundation’s leadership continues to feature a mix of academic psychiatrists and pharmaceutical executives.
The president of the board is Jerrold Rosenbaum, chair of the psychiatry department at Massachusetts General Hospital. In the early 1990s, while being paid as an advisor to Eli Lilly, Rosenbaum defended Prozac against claims that it could induce suicidal impulses in some patients. Other members of the board today include Mann, Nemeroff, and executives from Pfizer, Allergan, and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. Allergan executive Jonathan Kellerman chaired the Foundation’s 2018 Lifesavers fundraiser, and the organizing committee included representatives from Lundbeck, Otsuka, Janssen, Pfizer, and Sunovion Pharmaceuticals.” [Source]
The suicide prevention industry has worked its way into every level of society. Federal, state and local government agencies, trade organizations such as in the construction and railway sectors, where suicide rates are markedly high, as well as public schools, universities and church organizations are trained and encouraged to look for signs of depression and mental illness in their members.
But is the introduction of suicide prevention actually associated with lower rates of suicide? In 2004 Australian researcher Philip Burgess looked at this issue, ultimately finding that suicide rates have increased with the rollout of a bureaucratic and institutional approach to preventing suicide.
However, in their study of 100 countries, they found that, “contrary to the hypothesized relation,” the “introduction of a mental health policy and mental health legislation was associated with an increase in male and total suicide rates.” They even quantified the negative impact of specific initiatives:
The adoption of mental health legislation was associated with a 10.6% increase in suicides.
The adoption of a national mental health policy was associated with an 8.3% increase in suicides.
The adoption of a therapeutic drugs policy designed to improve access to psychiatric medications was association with a 7% increase in suicides.
The adoption of a national mental health program was associated with a 4.9% increase. [Source]
Furthermore, researchers have found that mental health initiatives in many countries is actually linked with a rise in suicide rates.
Ajit Shah and a team of UK researchers studied elderly suicide rates in multiple countries, and once again, the results confounded expectations. They found “higher rates (of suicide) in countries with greater provision of mental health services, including the number of psychiatric beds, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses, and the availability of training mental health (programs) for primary care professionals.”
In 2010, Shah and colleagues reported on an expanded study of suicide rates, this time for people of all ages in 76 countries. They found that suicide rates were higher in countries with mental health legislation, just as Burgess had found. They also reported that there was a correlation between higher suicide rates and a higher number of psychiatric beds, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurses; more training in mental health for primary care professionals; and greater spending on mental health as a percentage of total spending on health in the country.
Finally, in 2013, A.P. Rajkumar and colleagues in Denmark assessed the level of psychiatric services in 191 countries, with a “combined population” of more than 6 billion people. This was a comprehensive global study, and, once again, they found that “countries with better psychiatric services experience higher suicide rates.” Both the “number of mental health beds and the number of psychiatrists per 100,000 population were significantly associated with higher national suicide rates (after adjusting for economic factors),” they wrote.” [Source]
If mental health screenings of patients, students or employees raise concern for an individual, that person is encouraged to seek out professional mental health, meaning doctors and psychiatrists who are qualified to prescribe antidepressants, which is the go-to treatment for mental illness today.
But just as with suicide prevention, psychiatric medications and ‘other’ mental health treatments are also linked to a rise in suicide rates.
In 2014, Danish investigators, led by Carsten Hjorthoj, determined that the risk of suicide increases dramatically with each increase in the “level of treatment.”
They found that, in comparison to age- and sex-matched controls who had no involvement with psychiatric care during the previous year, the risk of suicide was:
5.8 times higher for people receiving psychiatric medication (but no other care)
8.2 times higher for people having outpatient contact with a mental health professional
27.9 times higher for people having contact with a psychiatric emergency room
44.3 times higher for people admitted to a psychiatric hospital [Source]
Final Thoughts
The pharmaceutical, psychiatric and suicide prevention industries have grown so much in the last couple of decades, which is indicative of a ‘war on suicide,’ in much of a similar vein as the war on drugs or the war on poverty. We have the information to prove that when the government declares ‘war’ on a social issue, the end result is an exacerbation of that issue.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo found himself in hot water after claiming that President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is inaccurate because it implies that America was great to start with.
“We’re not going to make America great again; it was never that great,” Cuomo contemptuously remarked.
Wanting to know what young Americans thought of these comments, I went to Washington Square Park in New York City to talk with Governor Cuomo’s constituents about those comments.
When asked if there was ever a time in America’s history when we were great, the majority of the people I spoke with made it clear: they were siding with Governor Cuomo.
“I don’t believe America has been great for all folks, ever. Even today,” said one respondent, while another added simply, “I would have to agree with Governor Cuomo.”
One person elaborated on their reasoning for saying America was never great, saying,
“The idea that there was this once great America is pointing towards this false sense of nationalism…What, it’s talking about white America? Yeah, it’s not great.”
Another respondent cited similar points, declaring that:
“America has been great… for straight white men.”
Wondering if this thought process stemmed from what was being taught in the classroom, I followed up by asking if they’d ever been taught American Exceptionalism in school.
Just one person said it was a concept they’d been taught in class.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” conceded one, while another explained that “I personally wasn’t taught American Exceptionalism because I went to a very forward thinking liberal school…”
What else did they have to say? Did anyone say America is great? Watch the full video to find out!
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
