Skip to main content

Who's on the decline and falling......

Roger Cohen, regular op-ed columnist in The New York Times reflect on the occupy movement and more importantly which nation is in the decline and falling - and where, and with whom, wealth seems to reside.     It's an interesting reflection by an American.

"Over in Europe, dreams are also unraveling. In France, according to a Pew Research Center survey, only 27 percent of the population now believes that “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior.”

I haven’t read such depressing news in a long time. When humility overtakes French culture, it’s over, folks.

French culture is superior. Just consider the cut of a Chanel suit, the sweep of the Champs Elysées or the line of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s brow. It’s obvious — to everyone except the doom-struck French, apparently.

Here in the United States, according to the same survey, 60 percent of Americans over 50 believe “our culture is superior.”

I’m not sure what’s more terrifying: the new French modesty or an old U.S. delusion. These are not happy times in the Atlantic community. Germans are particularly angry. They don’t think they’re being thanked enough for not quite saving the euro.

Sure as there are acorns beneath the oak tree, the West is shot. As Jim Morrison put it, “Your ballroom days are over, baby.” The U.S.A. is negative-equity central. Some 100 million Americans live below or close to the poverty line.

Greece wallows in the words it gave us: crisis, chaos and catastrophe.

Elsewhere it’s the Renaissance. Palaces rise. A bottle of Château Lafite-Rothschild goes for $4,000 in Hong Kong. Chinese and Brazilian bankers ponder whether Europe is creditworthy. It is payback time for the majority of humankind. They’re feeling pretty good about their former overlords feeling pretty bad. To be honest, I don’t blame them."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t
Post a Comment
Read more

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l
Post a Comment
Read more

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?
Post a Comment
Read more