"Like a Third World Country"

from OurFuture.org:



"Like a Third World Country"
By Rick Perlstein

July 10th, 2008 - 11:07am ET


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Don't just listen to what me and Sara have to say about the infrastructure crisis. Here's a Tocqueville from Britain:




http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/third-world-country

here in Far North Texas from ice...and from heat.
:shrug:

which is the point.

Trees aren't cut from power lines...they freeze or blow into the lines and knock them (and poles) down. One part of the very same problem.

When I travelled back and forth from the U.S. and Europe 20-30 years ago the difference was that America was cleaner, more advanced, and Europe seemed more stagnant, old, etc. Now it's the opposite. going to Europe now is like visiting the future, and coming back to America, where once would relieve me, now just depresses me.

Our infrastructure, from electric to water to roads and rails is completely falling apart and so far behind the rest of the world now that we've become a joke.

ships, airplanes, etc., to "keep the world safe." Surely that counts for something. After all, Ronald Reagan (singlehandedly)won the cold war and G.H.W. Bush liberated Panama from the insane dictator Noriega. Arent those things worth a few potholes and crumbling bridges? :sarcasm:

If we didn't have so many conservative nimrods.

Our military expenditures are destroying our nation, not just the Iraq War expenditures, but the overall ones. Our country is literally falling apart, and even our own party is too cowardly to stand up and say we spend too much on defense and actually have the fucking balls to defend that statement.

In a functioning society essential functions of government -- like infrastructure -- are supported by taxes. Thanks to Grover Norquist, New Gingrich, and those who think as they do and those who kowtowed to them, this is the result.

Hekate

There's no such thing as standing still when the arrow of time is moving. It's either up or down, build or decay, strive for improvement or resign oneself to what fate has in store. I have traveled much in Europe (including the Ukraine) and the U.S. this year and what I see in the United States has me shaking my head.

Several states (AZ, NM, OK) are throwing away perfectly good interstate highways! Driving along, I would see miles of concrete, scabbled down to the roadbed, with twisted masses of rebar piled up to go to the recycler. Now remember, concrete takes 30 years or more to reach its ultimate strength, so these roads were quite capable of handling the load, or if need be, patched to last many more years. Roads and highways are not things that have a short lifespan and quickly fall into disrepair. Some roads in Italy were originally laid by the Romans centuries ago, and succeeding generations may have widened and improved them, but they did not rip them down to the roadbed to do so. All I can conclude is that there is graft that needs to be spread, that highway contractors need to be doing something to bill the state for, so they come up with the bright idea of throwing away a highway so another can be built.

As for the state of the US and the USSR, it is difficult to tell the difference in some places. Towns that have seen better days in Texas, with a derelict warehouse next to some abandoned tracks and an abandoned factory, and people trying to eke out a living. Looks a lot like some of the towns in the Ukraine with derelict warehouses and abandoned factories and a train station that hasn't had any maintenance since 1991, and people trying to eke out a living. Except in the Ukraine, everyone has a vegetable garden, so they are a little more self-sufficient (mostly because they can't afford to buy nicely packaged stuff from global corporations, so they make do).

Republicans have sold the country lock, stock and barrel. I include that quasi-Republican Bill Clinton in the charge, for he gladly pushed through NAFTA for his corporate sponsors, and they exported all the jobs that they could to places with cheaper labor. But the jobs are not coming back. With the US pitted against the Ukraine, which country is going to get the investment capital, the one where the average price of a house is >$200,000, or the one where the average worker makes $200 per month?

America still has a LONG way to fall. At least in the Ukraine, they may not have much, and because of it, they can't fall too much further.