On our way to Third-World status?
"A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat at a news conference in Minneapolis. "We have to get to the bottom of this."
No, that should only happen in Third-world places where dictators drive around in open-topped Jeeps, waving to skeletal children wearing rags, their lips stained green from munching on grass for nutrition. Right? Except, now they do.
...Harries said infrastructure failures happen more frequently than most people notice, pointing to the collapse of a concrete bridge box girder near Pittsburgh in 2005 and the recent explosion of a steam pipe in Manhattan. Part of the problem is finding maintenance funds.
Our collective perspective of the durability of America's infrastructure was shaken when the Minnesota Bridge collapsed. People like to blame illegal immigrants for the third-worldization of America. But it has more to do with the failure or our tax-fearing society to invest in our homeland while we invest heavily in crap we don't need.
A Washington Post story noted the bridge collapse as a "wake-up call to politicians." (The quotes above are lifted from that story, BTW.) That's fine, but what we really need to do is wake up America. You get what you pay for, and these days we're paying for a government that is afraid to address the real issues, wastes our money on contracts to cronies, pork projects bridges to nowhere and unwinnable wars half a world away.
Wake up Americans. Take back the power.
Thank you for the quip on the "A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down" comment.
It's time to start thinking about humanity as a whole and not just "America."
In 1945 after the end of World War Two we started rebuilding our country. We built lots of bridges and other things and in the process we help rebuild Japan by buying low-cost bolts and screws made in that country and those bolts and screws went into our new constructions. All the building done around that time (using bolts and screws made in Japan) should be the first to be inspected because it seems that those bolts and screw were low-cost, yes, but, also low-quality-material. I am not making this up. It was printed a few years ago in some magazine or newspaper.
First time I've seen this sensible comment. If the richest country of the world squanders its money on wars, whether winnable or not, there is not enough money for infrastructure and disaster recovery, let alone health care. We become a third world country.