american values?

One of the crew at the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Erik Loomis, picked out a paragraph from an AP obituary of Hugo Chavez by reporter Pamela Simpson.

Chavez invested Venezuela’s oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world’s tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

That single, short graph reveals the attitude of both the establishment press and the privileged elites they write for: what matters in life is being rich enough to live in a skyscraper and have access to the world's finest art; the health and education of ordinary people is so declassé, boring, and pedestrian that it really is nothing more than toilet paper and cheap bread.

No wonder this country has had it. We've forgotten what real accomplishment and real virtue is.