A freight train derailed on the bridge crossing the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia on December 21.
No one was injured. Some cars went into the river, according to news reports.
The derailment damaged the bridge and a pedestrian walkway that is part of the Appalachian Trail.
America's roads, bridges, airports, water, sewer and transit systems are in bad shape, according to civil engineers. The report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives US infrastructure a D-plus grade.
The reason for this steady decay of course is disinvestment by the government. Now ask yourself, why would a nation that claims it wishes to restore its economy allow its very expensive physical infrastructure to fall apart?
In addition mental health programs have seen disinvestment from our government at all levels. Every town in America has daily front page stories about murders and other crimes by those who have been abandoned by the society and we wonder why they act out in destructive ways. This frayed and neglected human infrastructure is unraveling the social fabric of the nation.
Could it be because the primary US role in the world in the coming period is to be for one thing only - security export? In fact the worse the condition of the country, and economy, the more young people will be forced to join the military and fight to protect corporate resource extraction interests around the globe.
Thus it is viewed by the ruling elites that spending money to upgrade America's rotting human and physical infrastructure is unnecessary - so instead the money is pumped into the trillion dollar a year Pentagon budget and tax cuts for the very rich. The oligarchies have decided to divert taxpayer funds into endless war rather than dealing with climate crisis and giving the public a safe, clean, and dependable environment to live in. This is America today.
Right here in the midcoast Maine the local news recently reported that two local bridges over rivers are in desperate need of repair. They are unsafe. But the money is not available unless the state of Maine is willing to borrow even more money from Wall Street and have the interest payments saddled onto the backs of the next generation who are already shackled with enormous student debt. Yes, we could call it indentured servitude or slavery.
We are returning to feudalism - a 21st century version where you get credit card debt, big screen TV, expensive cell phones, mindless entertainment, decaying environment, corrupt politics, and spineless leadership which forces many to give up on political action because of depression and/or rejection of the status quo.
By dumbing down and alienating the public, the ruling oligarchs (spread out in regions across the nation like Boston, New York, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, St Louis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle) have an open playing field to control the electoral process and ultimately politics in Washington DC.
All the while Washington's appointed representatives travel the world touting the glories of freedom (defined as 'the rich do what they want') and democracy ('make a good show of it on TV') and bludgeon any leader or nation abroad that might dare to question the US's 'exceptionalism' - fading as it is.
So for sure America is in collapse - internally and externally. The vast US economic & military empire (more than 800 bases around the world) has a reckoning coming soon enough.
In the meantime hold your breath when your car or train passes over a bridge. Hope that you get lucky.
Bruce
PS Beware of the water you drink.
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