So says Bob Herbert in his 06-21-10 op-ed piece in the New York Times, “When Greatness Slips Away.” I agree with him.
The U.S. just keeps fumbling and bumbling…. From Wall Street to Iraq. From Hurricane Katrinia to the Gulf Oil Spill. From Afghanistan to the Great Recession. States are bankrupt. Infrastructure is falling apart. The middle class and the poor suffer the most and the rich get richer. Our elected officials and our business people cannot figure out what to do. Our citizens don’t seem to accept any responsibility.
Herbert observes that we Americans are just
“submitting to this debacle with the same pathetic lack of creativity and helpless mid-set that now seems to be [our] default position in the 21st century. We have become a national that is good at destroying things – with wars overseas and mind-bogglingly self-destructive policies here at home – but that has lost sight of how to build and maintain a flourishing society…”
“How is it possible that we would let this happen? We’ve got all kinds of sorry explanations for why we can’t do any of the things we need to do. The Democrats can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. Our budget deficits are too high. Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck might object. Meanwhile, the greatness of the United States, which so many have taken for granted for so long, is steadily slipping away.”
How pathetically said we are… we are… not it is… we are. It’s our responsibility.
