Billed on youtube as “The most honest three and a half minutes of TV anywhere,” this little clip from the “The Newsroom” (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin of West Wing fame) is being compared to Howard Beale’s speech in the movie “Network” (“we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”).

But is it really?

Seems to me that what Jeff Daniels, the “truth-speaking” journals,t puts across in this segment is The American Dream that we were programmed to believe during those fabled, famous ’50s when I grew up. Life Magazine told us how glorious America was, how we upheld the highest values and ideals — and yup, we scarfed it right up and felt both superior and entitled.

Sweeping all sorts of stuff under the rug was commonplace back then, including the genocide of American Indians, the slaughter of the buffalo, and the slave trade.

But now? Now do we still believe that the American Dream was true in the ’50s? How can anyone believe that the now fully-militarized, armored, clanking, American Empire sprang fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, only after that?

Hogwash. Read your Howard Zinn.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw&feature=player_embedded]