Sadly, yeah, it does. Here's the perspective of one American:
I'm not one of those nitwits that believes in the 'good old days', when the government was supposedly uncorrupt, beneficient, etc.
It's more like a variable ranging between discreetly corrupt and completely evil.
Clinton was discreetly corrupt.
The Bush administration is completely evil.
On a deeper level, America itself is broken. Some things are better than they used to be (civil rights) but much is mired down. It's coasted for decades on the post-WW2 flush of influence, energy and wealth, but that momentum is gone now and what is left is a complacent populace being picked over by greedheads, betrayed by soulless corporate fuckers who care nothing for anything except short term profits.
The elevation of mediocrity, the lowering of standards, the rewarding of greed, the exploitation of fear....
I'm proud of the good things here and ashamed of the rest. And I do think that America and Britain are two of the most diverse and tolerant societies when it comes to the melange of races and creeds.
And I do try to remind myself that it could be much worse- I shudder at the thought of what it would be like to be born under radical Islam (shudder)
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