Bob Herbert’s 21 June 2010 column, When Greatness Slips Away, eloquently sums our slide from national greatness. We have become a people unwilling to pay the price that creative problem-solving demands.
China’s state-sponsored authoritarian capitalism is beginning to run circles around our allegedly freer, more desirable system.
In contrast, the American public’s quarrel-prone unrealism regularly elects governments specifically constituted so that nothing useful gets accomplished, regardless of the urgency of the situation. Healthcare reform was a plutocracy-favoring pretense constructed to make the Administration look good. The war in Afghanistan is a reality-avoiding sham concocted for the same reason. Today, we are faced with a President who seems to be unwilling to embrace a reality-inspired vision (as opposed to platitudes) that would build a forward-sighted, nation-empowering response to BP’s careless mishap in the Gulf of Mexico.
If President George Bush II was ineffectual, I’m having difficulty seeing the current president as singularly more capable. And Congress remains the worse than useless institution it became some years ago.
We are in a sad state. If our humiliation in the face of challenges lasts much longer, we can kiss American power, leadership, and example good-bye.