Imperialism' and 'Genocide': The 4th of July According to MSNBC

When readers have finished with this story, we would be very surprised if they didn't end up with a highly pessimistic query: Is there anything MSNBC can cover without spoiling it?

The answer, as it turns out, may be "no." For you see, even on the 4th of July, arguably the one day when every American, regardless of party affiliation, should be celebrating, MSNBC has decided it wants to remind its viewers of just how many awful things America has been responsible for. Why? Perhaps for the sake of perspective, or for the sake of encouraging liberal guilt, but quite frankly, we don't feel qualified to speculate on the root of an entire network's neuroses. All we know is that while everyone else is celebrating, MSNBC is letting their resident Jeremiah Wright admirer, Melissa Harris Perry, say things like this, according to Mediaite:

In what is sure to rankle the feathers of many conservatives, MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry took to her show Sunday to ponder the meaning of Independence Day, highlighting mostly the stains on American history. “It’s ours, all of it,” she said. “The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

“Independence Day is more aspirational than actual,” she began her monologue. “We have longed defined the American Dream with commodities, a home of ones own, better education for the kids, family vacation and a car to the vacation in. And if we measure the dream by acquisitions, we’re in trouble. National unemployment remains above 8 percent. Wages have dropped, and the median net worth of American families plummeted by almost 40 percent.”[...]

She continued on to explain that her favorite story for this Fourth of July is one of people who are “not technically free.” She described a group of 27 inmates who recently completed their GEDs at the jail on Rikers Island. “Despite being incarcerated, they hold fast to the optimistic belief that education, hard work and second chances are still the stuff of America. And that they have a right to take part in the dream.”

“So on the Fourth of July,” Harris-Perry concluded, “I’m going to think of the Rikers Island graduates, and I’m going to wave a flag without hesitation — not because I’ve forgotten my nation’s many wrongs, but because I remember them. And I am nonetheless proud of my country, not for its perfection, because the alternative is too grim, the alternative is to give up on the dream of the nation founded in the belief, if not yet the practice that all are created, all deserve freedom, and all have the right to pursue happiness. Now, that is a dream worth celebrating — with fireworks.”

Watch Perry's bizarre rant below:

Debunking Perry's attempt to inject guilt into the national dialogue could take pages of prose, and quite frankly, we wonder if there is even a point, considering that her worldview appears to be influenced more by a quasi-religious faith in this country's failings than by anything else. However, we are going to accept one part of her statement - that as of now, the American Dream is in danger of being more aspirational than actual. As to whose fault that recent development is, we doubt MSNBC has any interest in covering the subject.