http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
America’s Exploding Pipe Dream
By CHARLES M. BLOW
We are slowly — and painfully — being forced to realize that we are no
longer the America of our imaginations. Our greatness was not enshrined.
Being a world leader is less about destiny than focused determination,
and it is there that we have faltered.
We sold ourselves a pipe dream that everyone could get rich and no one
would get hurt — a pipe dream that exploded like a pipe bomb when the
already-rich grabbed for all the gold; when they used their fortunes to
influence government and gain favors and protection; when everyone else
was left to scrounge around their ankles in hopes that a few coins would
fall.
We have not taken care of the least among us. We have allowed a
revolting level of income inequality to develop. We have watched as
millions of our fellow countrymen have fallen into poverty. And we have
done a poor job of educating our children and now threaten to leave them
a country that is a shell of its former self. We should be ashamed.
Poor policies and poor choices have led to exceedingly poor outcomes.
Our societal chickens have come home to roost.
This was underscored in a report released on Thursday by the Bertelsmann
Stiftung foundation
<http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/&ei=dh2rTqy2KsLh0QGgtJWPDw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCIQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%253Fq%253Dhttp://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de%2526hl%253Den%2526client%253Dsafari%2526rls%253> of
Germany entitled “Social Justice in the OECD — How Do the Member States
Compare?” It analyzed some metrics of basic fairness and equality among
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and
ranked America among the ones at the bottom.
I could write (and have written) ad nauseam about our woeful state, but
it might be more powerful to see it for yourself. So here are some of
the sad data
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print> from
the report.
The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/>
*October 29, 2011*
The New York Times
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