Another Step in the New American Way to Self-Destruction ─ New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Cancelled the Much Needed Hudson River Tunnel

08 October 2010

Every time we turn around, another American leader is slapping our once-great Destiny to smithereens

This website ─ which is aimed at waking America up enough to actively build its future greatness ─ cannot avoid dealing with all the Americans who are simultaneously trying to shoot our fading Destiny completely down.

Yesterday, Governor Chris Christie (New Jersey) cancelled building a much needed second Hudson River tunnel.

So what?

Professor Paul Krugman answered the “so what” question in eloquent terms. After explaining why the tunnel was a much needed infrastructural improvement, he went on to say (in selected extracts):

It was a destructive and incredibly foolish decision on multiple levels.

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.

It’s a terrible thing in itself, but, beyond that, it’s a perfect symbol of how America has lost its way. By refusing to pay for essential investment, politicians are both perpetuating unemployment and sacrificing long-run growth.

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.

What is wrong with us?

I’m old. I remember being excited about what American science was doing, when I walked to school in the 1950s. I was ecstatic when Russian sputniks prompted President Kennedy to call us to the moon.

The United States really was great ─ in ideas and action.

Not apparently so anymore. With the exception of our warriors, we seem to have become humanity’s effectively Consumerist Couch Potato Nation.

We have not even been disciplined enough to keep our nation’s transportation infrastructure intact. Or keep our people working.

As a culture, we are currently neither motivated nor wise enough to look past dinner tonight.

No excuse here that would satisfy even the most mellow of Depression Era moms

There is no excuse for our political insensitivity to the consequences of Reality’s coming pay back.

We’ve been down the Recovery Road before. We know what to do. Even so simple a thing as the 1930s Works Progress Administration could serve as a candle concept in our current fading economic light.

Yet, no one mentions that. History, it seems, is dead. America’s leadership grown-ups, all gone.

Absent historical memory and forward-looking fortitude, we are left to citizen-toddlers’ impulsively narrowly-focused ways.

Where are we going?

Today, the United States’ self-satisfied, inactive ineptitudes are leading the world to China.

The authoritarian Chinese government, in turn, is leading the world to the Future.

So answer me this

How humiliating and infuriating is that change of leadership status for those of us who think, and thought, that the United States was humanity’s most persuasive voice for successful and innovative freedom on this planet?

Oh, well

Maybe I’ll swim across the Hudson River tomorrow. I can drag my car. America’s answer to high-speed rail.

That’ll make our competitors take notice.

Two last questions

Where has the Founders’ future-grabbing America gone?

Will you help me bring it back?

PeteFree.com

Another Step in the New American Way to Self-Destruction ─ New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Cancelled the Much Needed Hudson River Tunnel