America in decline

I have chosen this video of an interview from 2008 with Dick Meyer, author of a book called “Why we hate us”. Smith’s idea is that the ‘we’ is each individual and the ‘us’ is the collective of American public culture – he mentions politicians, the media and really everyone in their public persona. He refers to people talking on phones in restaurants and being oblivious to the world around them because of ipods and mobile phones and the fact that it means that people are less aware and therefore less considerate of others. I thought this was an interesting perspective on American decline as it refers more to the daily lives of Americans rather than its military power or its financial influence. There is also below an interview with Meyer which gives more detail – he blames television for a lot of America’s problems and his answer seems to be to turn it off!
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2008/09/why-we-hate-us/8836/