Even the Wall Street Journal Gets It

Governor Christie’s cancellation of the ARC Hudson River rail tunnel project is just one more indicator of accelerating decline (see today’s AP national story: Infrastructure projects in N.J., other U.S. states put on hold amid struggling economy, spending slowdown 

(and no, I am not surprised that Christie got caught lying about his political rationale for killing the project).

Christie’s ideologically driven thinking reminded me of a bizarre Wall Street Journal story I read this summer. A must read WS Journal story reported:

Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement

Asphalt Is Replaced By Cheaper Gravel; ‘Back to Stone Age’

[…]

Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.

This is the natural result of  an unchallenged 30 year campaign of right wing conservative attacks on government and taxes.

This period of right wing organizing was accompanied by a virtual withdrawal and abdication by those that support government programs and progressive values. Right wingers have filled that vacuum and hijacked populist and progressive agenda.

Recent develpments are consistent with and more evidence for the collapse of empire theory.

History shows that military over-reach and huge expenditures on the military industrial complex lead to a downward spiral: huge budget deficits, cuts in domestic social programs, lack of private investment in production and a shift to financial speculation, faltering economy, the rise of an oligarchical class as the midddle class is destroyed by rising economic inequality, and ultimately collapse of democracy and the imperial project.

And the most recent Republican assault was all predicted by author Naomi Kline in her superb book “The Shock Doctrine” (which I applied to Christie policy in this post).

Scary to think that we are living through the Twilght of American culture and collapse of the US empire as the world simultaneously faces the ultimate limits to growth caused by: peak oil and gobal climate change.

Have a good weekend!