Deconstructing America

Killing the 2nd rail tunnel to Manhattan

Paul Krugman has the goods:

The Erie Canal. Hoover Dam. The Interstate Highway System. Visionary public projects are part of the American tradition, and have been a major driver of our economic development.

Yes, but that was so pre–Billionaires' Coup. Krugman again:

But American politics these days is anything but rational. Republicans bitterly opposed even the modest infrastructure spending contained in the Obama stimulus plan. And, on Thursday, Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, canceled America’s most important current public works project, the long-planned and much-needed second rail tunnel under the Hudson River. ... We are no longer the nation that used to amaze the world with its visionary projects. We have become, instead, a nation whose politicians seem to compete over who can show the least vision, the least concern about the future and the greatest willingness to pander to short-term, narrow-minded selfishness.

Krugman's bottom line:

And why not? After all, this seems to be a winning electoral strategy. All vision of a better future seems to have been lost, replaced with a refusal to look beyond the narrowest, most shortsighted notion of self-interest.

The Professor is one dot shy of a connected path. The causal trail includes ideology and a "winning electoral strategy," but it doesn't end there. That winning electoral strategy is more importantly the path to personal riches and aggrandizement on the part of the Right's political retainers (our highly propaganda-supported "elected politicians").

And who will supply those riches? The Barons of the New America, of course, the billionaires who are financing the coup that will win them their robes and crown. Politicians like Gov. Christie are retainers, a means to an end, not much more.

Or in Emperor Tiberius' immortal words, speaking of the Roman Senate of his day: "These are men fit to be ..." Well, I'll let you complete the quote.