Since I’ve returned from the US, I’ve been trying to find the time and inspiration to express the feelings I had there. I must say I owe my inspiration to the loss of triple A and the political antics which preceded it. As for the time, as usual, a short flight made it available.

My comments won’t be very long. I remember the New York potholed streets, just like after an earthquake. I remember the economic, social and cultural fragmentation which makes Californians say that it is easier to understand and communicate with a Calcutta call center employee than with a native American from the Gulf of Mexico. Travelers will probably wonder if the people who live along the coasts, East and West, belong to the same nation as the ones in the central area of the country. This country where, presently, even the rich middle class is ashamed when it comes to government schools or to the health care system. This magnificent country of Yale, Berkeley, and Harvard, which inflames our imagination, is also the first to have its life expectancy decline.

The other facet of this everyday America is that of the world’s largest arsenal of war, counting such a large number of aircraft-carriers (11?) in operation that the American president doesn’t probably know where he has parked them all. It is also that of the development programs for nearly infinite budget combat aircraft (see F35), of hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed on various terrains, in wars with a whiff of XIXth century colonialism… Everything the USA save on the back of the American people is then spent on shiny death toys intended to keep up diplomatic appearances in front of all the world’s nations.

I can’t stop thinking that this state, which doesn’t react to the factual, intellectual and moral impoverishment of its population, which limits the resources allocated to the most elementary economic development tools (education, infrastructures), which makes up threats in order to justify military actions to its people, displays the budget and philosophical finery of a hard right state-controlled economy. Is there a contemporary history sub-discipline which makes the radiography of political regimes only by analyzing budgetary ratios?

The US financial resources are allocated to questionable needs from a historical perspective (the recent withdrawal of troops from Iraq, in a context of return of violence, demonstrates this fact), while tangible needs in the field of education and health protection have not been covered. Nothing seems to be too good for the industrial, military and energy sectors, completely outdated in the world race, but which keep on getting richer while impoverishing the nation. The future American president, unless paranoia sets in completely, will not have the financial means for this hard right South American dirigisme substitute. What will he make of this opportunity for historic change of course?

For those of you who don’t know me, I must point out that I love America and I have often written articles on the American genius. The same budget analysis, concerning France, with its 56% of public expenditure in GDP, would lead to the conclusion that France is also an ersatz of totalitarian socialist regime. Is this a compulsory passage for old democracies?