Excuse Me, Didn't You Used To Be America?

ART: "Why?!" By Laurie Cooper

"This used to be a hell of a good country and I can't understand what's gone wrong with it?" - Dennis Hopper to Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in the movie "Easy Rider" (1969).

America, despite all of it's problems and shortcomings used to work. I mean, we used to make things here in America. We made big cars and we manufactured televisions and major appliances. Our business model was the blueprint that the other nations of the world copied. If we look past the racial and gender intolerance of the last century and just look at America, it worked. Even when the economy went into the toilet in the 1930's, it righted itself in a few years. After World War II, 1950's America emerged lean, mean, and strong... like a fast new Cadillac rolling off an assembly line in Detroit. America moved man... brrrooom... brrrrooom!

What happened America? How did we, as a nation, come to this? Most of our banks and financial institutions were in hock to foreign interests in the first place and now as one bank after another collapses, we are about to take the entire world down the toilet with us. Again, I ask... What happened?

Germany and Japan makes better cars than we do (or at least enough people think they do)... so much so that BMW, Toyota, Nissan, etc. are all doing well while Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, once believed to be "recession proof", have come to Washington, DC (in hybrid cars, no doubt) with hat in hand, asking for the same bailout that the government gave the financial institutions.

Of course, you know they have to do it... because so many jobs are generated by the auto industry and so many other jobs feed off of it that, not bailing them out could cause an economic catastrophe. If you remember, a few months ago, I said the exact same thing about the financial institutions.

What happened America? You used to work. You used to be the "big boss man". Everybody on the world block used to get out of your way when you came running down the street. Now, they
just turn their heads and snicker.

Now, we are borrowing money from China to fund two wars that we are fighting simultaneously. This is what you get when a frat boy who only wanted to play baseball but, is a great guy to
have a beer with, becomes the leader of the free world. Yeah, I know... I know. He's almost outta here and why should you kick a man when he's down but, damn! What happened to America? We used to make things here? Now, all we make is debt! This used to be a hell of a good country and I just can't understand what's gone wrong with it.