View from Afar

If we were sitting in Munich, having a dark Bock brew, the headlines on Der Spiegel Online would scream the end of America. In fact, they do, and with an uncomfortable amount of glee. Capitalism has taken a massive gut wound and ex pats like Noam Chomsky and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus are leading the cheers at our seemingly insurmountable problems. Others are talking about the bank bailout in cold war terms like "nationalizing financial systems" and "The New Soviets: USA."

Add to this the socialist tendencies of the front-running presidential candidate, the allocation of land purchases for poor Chinese farmers by their government, the return of an iron fist on a resurgent Russia, and you have a tipping point of global proportions. Are we about to succumb to history? Is this akin to the breaking down of a wall nearly 20 years ago? Only this time is it our society on the verge of crumbling?

Again, let's go to the satellite stations; it's partytime! The America haters truly believe they have won; a revolution from within fomented by our own greed – or to be more precise, our own misguided desire to extend the American dream to nearly everyone. That really gives the Noams of the world a charge. We can't even get nobility right.

Not so fast. If there is one thing the rest of the world should have learned about us is that we don't give up that easily. There is still plenty of fight left in us and the system is hardly broken. How do I know? I have a pretty good memory. I can remember the venomous racism from which this country has almost recovered. I can remember the cyclical economic crises that seem always just beyond our vision, and are always "the worst in history." I can remember the bloody chasm that tore this country apart during the Vietnam war. I can remember gas lines and double-digit inflation and I can remember September 12^th, 2001.

We are quite a country. My friend and this news-site's managing editor Ed Esposito stood on the field at Ohio Stadium as that big, bright flag rose above over 100,000 mostly young Ohioans. We put our hats over our hearts and sang our shared anthem. Looking around on that fall afternoon one could feel the pride and determination. When you look in those faces you see excitement and confidence in the future. It is perhaps the one thing that those in Europe, and those here at home who just don't understand America, fail to consider while writing our collective obituary: we always find a way back. Always.