Doomsaying must really be a good living these days. The JFK assassination was the low point of 20th century American history and we survived it. Through several recessions and an unprecedented terrorist attack on home soil. But Krugman today in the N.Y. Times, There Will Be Blood
gets up on his hind legs to proclaim this the purposefully bitter decline into utter ruin.
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.Krugman is a bloviating swine following Glen Beck's level of chickenguts hysteria and trying to incite the same. It's not as if his column isn't worth reading or doesn't have some basis in fact. But he's opportunistically slinging overwrought pigshit. People read this crap and get depressed.
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My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.
It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind.
I watched the J. Craig Ventner piece in 60 Minutes last night. He's a bio-engineering scientist leading the research institute that mapped the human genome and more recently created a synthetic cell that reproduces itself, driven by a synthetic chromosome. They are programming cells, they'll be able to program organisms at some point. This is an amazing accomplishment that predicts molecules that feed on carbon dioxide and create fuel, that can combat disease, feed the world, all in time with research and development already in progress. (And he's a character: his dog's name is Darwin.) I'm just saying, there's so much to look forward to in the future because of this phenomenal work taking place in the present.
It's really time to dial back these cowardly and dread drenched recitations.
47 years ago today I was working for a publisher in New York. I was at lunch. When I came back I heard someone in the elevator say "I thought this was a civilized country." I didn't think anything of it until I walked into my department. Everyone was in various degrees of shocked silence. They told me. We went home early and watched it all unfold on TV for 4 days. We were a country joined in mourning. We were a nation undivided. And I haven't forgotten that feeling.