Not a Pretty Decade

Read this article by George Packer in the New Yorker.  It's a must.  He kind of does a recap of the last 10 years of our national history.  He shows in stark terms how we have become a nation in decline on so many fronts.


We've kind of pin-balled from crisis to crisis and have not performed very well as a nation or as people.  And you can feel it in the air, hear it in the conversations, see it in the eyes of your neighbors.  


We are on a losing team.  Sort of like the Chicago Cubs.  Obama is the coach.  And the team doesn't know how to play the game anymore, can't even agree on the rules of the game, and is in a corrosive state of constant bickering. 


Obama can try to rally the team, he can make sunny speeches about a sunnier future.  But in the meantime we are sinking in a mess of our own making. 9/11 blew a hole in our bubble.  And we basically reacted like a bunch of spoiled children.  We plunged into pointless wars, tortured people, and shopped and traded houses like a frenzied horde of idiots.  And the corporate powers robbed us blind.


Not a pretty picture.  Not a pretty decade.  Hope the future is better!