"Look, America is a very sad place right now ..."

Politics New column from Elizabeth Wurtzel wondering why US citizens are so depressed and scared:

"Look, America is a very sad place right now, which is what the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections are about. I could analyse the particulars, but then I would be no better than the whole 24-hour media machine – which, given that unemployment is at 9.6%, is lucky that no one has noticed that they don't exactly do their job. If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next."

I saw the restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis on Wednesday afternoon. It's increasingly looking like a documentary.