my brain dead neighbors would begin chanting: usa, usa after reading this obituary for the remains of the empire;

In May of 2014, Frank Bruni wrote an article for the NYT titled ‘America the Shrunken’, in which he detailed what he called “the downward arc of a diminished enterprise” that was the USA, quoting friends who claimed their children would live in a more impoverished America, that the reign was over and the slide was inevitable. The optimism and the arrogant swagger are mostly gone. He quoted Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik who wrote, “At the core of Americans’ anger and alienation is the belief that the American dream is no longer attainable.” (1)

He wrote,

“For the first time in our country’s history, there is more social mobility in Europe than in the United States. More and more I get the sense that we’ve lost it. Everywhere you turn, the evidence mounts. American schoolchildren aren’t anywhere near the head of the international pack, and American adults, according to one recent study, lack the technical skills that peers in many other developed countries have. American bridges crumble. American trains crawl. American flights leave from terminals that pale next to many Asian and European counterparts.”

“Joe Biden acknowledged as much when he compared La Guardia Airport to a third-world country. I’ve been to La Guardia and I’ve been to Guatemala, and if I were Guatemala, I’d sue for defamation.” (2) And again, “the middle class in America, which had long been the world’s most affluent, wasn’t anymore. Canada had overtaken us. My Times colleague Nicholas Kristof wrote about America’s rank on a new “social progress index” that includes 132 countries. We’re 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation – access to water and sanitation! – and … just two spots above Slovenia.”

Also in May of 2014, Peter van Buren wrote an article titled An Empire in Decline, City by City, Town by Town, in which he related some of his travels through parts of the US today and compared them to their appearance in their prime – a time not very long ago. He began by writing: ..........https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-shrunken/5698017