Does Hollywood merely exist to constantly shock and disgust the flyover states?

And 3D simulcam footage of the babies of Nanking being caught on the bayonets of blue-skinned nature-loving Imperial Japanese soldiers.

No, they are asked what they want to be when they blow up! Ba-dum-ching.

Will someone please make a movie of something like Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, before James Cameron revises WWII?

Please!

Joe, what's with the name-calling? You've been calling other people out for it, so why do it? Is it OK for you b/c you were pushed into it by conservatives? Keep up that double standard.

Break a leg, Larry.

Joe, your first sentence is right on target. Great post.

the mess is in plain sight.

The mess being in plain sight is an American phenomenon that leads to skewed judgments against America based on a comparison between our relative transparency when acting in the national interest and the misguided idea that a lack of reportage means that other nations aren't actively screwing us at every turn. That's not to say we don't do *any* harm in the world, but to imply that the US is somehow in the same ballpark of global and human rights abuses with China and Russia (our security council pals who are blocking any chance of stopping the Iranian nuclear march) because we continue to deal with those nations is dangerously naive.

This reverse delusion of American might where the world's problems can be traced back to an American foreign policy root (the Shah/Islamic revolution, etc) assumes that we are so powerful that nations would not do these things without our actions to react to. The world goes the way it does because of the will of some people to power and of other peoples' response to it. America needs to act in its national interest first, and no amount of hand-wringing, navel-gazing narrow focus on American failure (however well cataloged) or vague mention of a sustainable economy (or, for that matter, our conversation about these things) is going to keep us safe from those who would destroy the republic. Our military and intelligence services are going to do that.

That is one of the big differences between the original trilogy and the newer, that ability for the actors to sit in a mockup of a ship and walk on a full soundstage versus a sensory deprivation chamber. Then of course there is the excess of Lucas without the balance of a Kasdan or Kershner.

Midichlorians.