From "can-do" to "can't-do" ...

In a mere 40 years.

Bob Herbert via Montag:

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For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.

...

Instead of staring mesmerized at the tragedy in the gulf, like spectators at a train wreck, we should be trying to regain that innovative can-do spirit that made America the greatest of nations.

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The result of the American people being told, for the last 30 years, that they can have everything for nothing, that they can spend beyond their means, rape the environment, and not pay to support the national infrastructure (except for our military infrastructure, you betcha).