Why are so many Americans glum and pessimistic when by all accounts we are living still in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, the legacy of countless Americans who were hopeful about the future they were building?
Zachary Karabell wonders Who Stole the American Spirit?
Something else is going on – namely a cultural rut of pessimism that is draining our collective energy, blinding us to possibilities, and eroding our position in the world.
Right now we have an unemployment rate of 5% and headline inflation topping 4%. We have economic growth of 0.6%, extremely low consumer confidence and weakening consumer spending, small business optimism at a 28-year low, and of course a housing market that is showing declines in excess of 20% in some parts of the country.
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Today, the economy and the American political system are seen in almost entirely negative terms, and in need of drastic reform. Perhaps it is a strength to be able to be so self-critical. But there is a fine line between self-criticism and self-excoriation.
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The alternative to grime-encrusted lenses isn't rose-tinted glasses, but more equanimity about our weaknesses and our strengths would surely help us navigate.
Unfortunately, the problem with downward spirals is, well, that they spiral downward. There is little evidence just now that we are about to break this cycle, and until we do, we will watch in awe, envy and fear as peoples throughout the world do what we used to do so well.
And while we're at it, let's applaud American generosity and for a short time relish the good we do.
Credit where it's due by Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian or Let's hear it for America
THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.
..... When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you'd figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do. And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you'd figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven't. At least not yet.
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The need to paint Americans as a greedy, selfish, war-mongering superpower cannot be disturbed by facts. It matters not that, in the year before the tsunami, the US provided $2.4 billion in humanitarian relief: 40 per cent of all the relief aid given to the world in 2003. Never mind that development and emergency relief rose from $10 billion during the last year of Bill Clinton's administration to $24 billion under George W. Bush in 2003. Or that, according to a German study, Americans contribute to charities nearly seven times as much a head as Germans do. Or that, adjusted for population, American philanthropy is more than two-thirds more than British giving.
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why not break into a standing ovation every now and again? As more US C-130s and helicopters stand waiting on Burma's doorstep, desperate to help a shattered populace and stymied only by an appalling anti-US regime, this is one of those times.