The Center Cannot Hold

Just remember when conservatives are screaming that government is too big, that government is never and can never be a solution to any problem, that it needs to be starved to death and then drowned, and that raising taxes can only be met with revolution, that America is now literally falling apart at the seams as Double G notes.

Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further -- it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.

Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.

Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.

We have cities that can no longer afford buses, schools, streetlights, police, and basic services.  It gets worse.

It's probably also worth noting this Wall St. Journal article from last month -- with a subheadline warning:  "Back to Stone Age" -- which describes how "paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue."  Utah is seriously considering eliminating the 12th grade, or making it optional.  And it was announced this week that "Camden [New Jersey] is preparing to permanently shut its library system by the end of the year, potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the United States unable to borrow a library book free."

We can't even afford libraries and roads in America anymore.  Maybe the fact we have two 8 year plus wars that has cost us trillions of dollars has something to do with it.  Maybe the fact we gave trillions more to the largest banks does too.  And now we're being told that we must cut taxes on the wealthy and on corporations so that they'll save our economy?

Really?

Greenwald's right.  We really are at the end of empire here.