All my favourite writers are American, as is most of the music I listen too, in fact it’s difficult to think of a culture outside of our own that has given my life so much pleasure. I re-read Steinbeck’s work over and over in the same way that I’ll be listening to Sonic Youth in thirty years time. I love the place, even though at the age of thirty five I’ve never been further west than the Gower Peninsula.
In terms of culture, technology and history they’ve given us so much to be grateful for. Yet when it comes to the task of government they have always failed to live up to expectation, now we’ve reached a point where even the idea hope has about it an air of failure.
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama. These names have never been capable of anything more than the repellent self interest of their own celebrity. But after everything, even after the Bush family and giving up hope of the Whitehouse ever being able to live up to Jed Bartlett, I still refuse to believe that America can’t produce a set of individuals capable of government.