By Anon
The USA has two problems which have recently been highlighted by The Economist:
According to Gallup, 1957 was the happiest year ever in the USA.
After that, it was all downhill.
Bill Bryson has written about the destruction of pretty towns and farms in the USA.
Bill Bryson: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006)
1. American Farms destroyed
Bill Bryson writes: “I was born into a state that had two hundred thousand farms.
“Most small towns in Iowa have pretty well died.
“Drive anywhere in the state these days and what you see are empty towns, empty roads, collapsing barns, boarded farmhouses.”
Bigger farms make more money.
2. Americans’ worship of money.
Bill Bryson describes the Americans’ worship of mammon in the years after 1957.
“We were entering a world where things were done because they offered a better return, not a better world.
“People were wealthier than ever before, but life somehow didn’t seem as much fun…
“Women increasingly went out to work…”
3. Americans become more dumb and more criminal.
Bill Bryson writes: “Juvenile crime continued to rise and the education system seemed to be falling apart.
“The most popular nonfiction book of 1957 was an attack on American education standards called Why Johnny Can’t Read…”
“Television got itself into a terrible scandal when it was revealed that many of the game shows were rigged.”
4. American Towns destroyed
Bill Bryson describes what happened to Des Moines as the big corporations took over.
“Now we would be able to dine at the same restaurants, eat the same fast foods, wear the same clothes, direct visitors to the same motel beds as people in California and New York and Florida.
“Des Moines would be exactly like everywhere else…
“Often now along streets like Grand and University avenues the old houses were bulldozed to splinters…
“Two stately Victorian houses across from Tech High School on Grand had become sudden vague memories.
“The old downtown movie palaces were among the first to go.
“Bishop’s, our beloved cafeteria, closed about the same time…
“The Register … which once truly was the pride of Iowa, got taken over by the Gannett organization three years later. Today it is, well, not what it was…
“My peerless Little League park, with its grandstand and press box, was torn down…
“There are no people outdoors anymore – no kids on bikes, no neighbors talking over fences, no old men sitting on porches.
“Everyone is indoors.
“All the downtown stores went one by one…
“Then somebody got mugged or saw a disturbed homeless person or something, and hardly anybody went downtown after dark after that, and most of the rest of the restaurants and nightspots closed.
“In the ultimate indignity, even the bus station moved out…
The USA could be healed if the top people followed the words of Jesus:
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the meek.
Love your enemies.
First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
You cannot serve God and money.
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
The greatest among you shall be your servant.